My little brother has had both his email and Facebook account hacked twice over the past two days. The person who hacked them hasn’t actually done anything with both accounts (except a small comment) while he still had access to them but I began to wonder: why do people do that in the first place? What’s the point?

Are they not content with their own online “lives” that they have to go and snoop around those of others? After all, the point of Facebook and social networks is not to show who has the most friends, who has the most wall posts or picture comments, it’s to connect with people and make use of the connections you already have.

What is the joy of hacking another person’s Facebook account or email and use them to send out weird status updates or weird comments? Do they think this person’s friends won’t know something is messed up with this account? Or that this person won’t find a way to get his or her account back?

I guess the downside of being active on a social network means that, like in real life where those who are wealthy are sometimes the envy of those who are less fortunate, those who are actually active and have connections with whom they frequently interact are the envy of those who are friendless and have no one to talk to.

The only thing these ten minutes of unauthorized access to the hacked account bring is stress to the person whose account was jeopardized. Everyone knows you get your account back but people fear that the person who hacked their account would post stuff that would be a serious breach of their personal space and privacy.

I think the most basic way for someone to prevent getting their account hacked is to disable his/her “friends” from viewing the email he/she are using to access their account and to enforce the strictest security and privacy measures possible. The less you share, the less you get in trouble. That is my motto, at least when it comes to Facebook.