But the flip side of this is that these virtual spaces have little content. They could have much more basic content, such as favourite restaurants, suppliers, etc. as well more sensitive information such as resumes, medical files, passwords, etc.
In practice, if I'm in a person's virtual space, I should be able to find many facts that this person made public in conversation (unless they choose to hide a public mistep). Simply by following anotated links from them to other contacts. Of course, such navigation could be improved with new security levels such as "close friend", "stranger", "persona non grata" to prevent exposing information to the wrong people.
- Close friend: the current presentation at Facebook. Anything published, linked is visible.
- Stranger: A stripped down interface showing faces and firstnames of friends, much like the information a stranger hanging around a room could collect. But no profiles.
- Persona non grata: Can see my public profile but nothing else about my group.
But this security strategy is too shallow. In real life, information flows in private streams between people with privacy rules attached and enforced by the strength of the relationship and the risk of banishment from the group; I may give you my cell phone number, but expect that you will not pass it on because it's expensive to use, while another may give you their business phone number and expect you to promote it as widely as possible using their business card.
Many times individuals keep information stuffed in drawers, wallets, pockets, when it could be just added as a link to their virtual persona with proper controls.
