You can’t have a good tech company without good engineers and Reputation.com is proud to have a whole crew of them. Today on Meet the Reputation.com Team, say hi to one of the hard-working members of our technology team, Charlie Russ.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Charlie Russ and I’m a software engineer here at Reputation.com. I work on many different parts of the website as well as various back-end systems.  In addition to implementing new features and designs, I also fix bugs and ensure that our database maintains its integrity.

What did you do prior to joining Reputation.com?

I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from the illustrious University of California at Davis in Davis, CA.  During my time at Davis I interned at the U.C. Davis Medical Center in the Clinical and Translational Science Center Biomedical Informatics division. We wrote a number of applications to digitize medical records that otherwise would have been written by hand on paper.  One of the goals of Biomedical Informatics is to get as many medical records into databases as possible in order to run analysis on the data to see if any trends are noticeable.

What attracted you to Reputation.com?

The team that I would be working on and the fact that we provide a service to help people.

Why do you think it’s important for people to manage their reputations online?

It’s important to manage your reputation in any medium, whether its in real life or online.  Obviously, the best way to do this is by having a good moral standing and not participating in anything illicit.  However, scenarios do present themselves where you are the victim of slander or lies and action is necessary. In these situations Reputation.com is a good service to clear up your good name and return you to your status as a fine, upstanding citizen.

When you’re not helping individuals control and protect their good names online, what do you like to do in your spare time?

In my free time I enjoy snowboarding, skateboarding, and many other board-related activities.

What’s your all-time favorite website?

Yahoo! Sports.

From Google Buzz to government bills, there are lots of great stories in today’s Quick Hits. Check them out below, and feel free to follow Reputation.com on Twitter for more news throughout the day.

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Google Makes Privacy Tweaks to Google Buzz

In response to early criticism over privacy, Google has already made some tweaks to Google Buzz. They’ve made it easier to hide who you are following and who is following you, they’ve made it easier to block people, and they’ve made it easier to see who can appear as a follower on your public profile. While there are still some kinks to be worked out, Google’s speed in addressing concerns based on user feedback has been impressive.

Can Google Catch Facebook?

Of course, no matter how many tweaks Google Buzz makes, it has a whole lot of catching up to do to challenge Facebook as the central location for social activity on the web. In this column from CNET, Caroline McCarthy outlines Google’s uphill battle in making Buzz a relevant and widely used social media service.

Privacy Groups File Objection to Facebook “Beacon” Settlement

Back in September, Facebook settled a class-action lawsuit related to its now defunct “Beacon” feature, which grossly violated users’ expectations of privacy. In the settlement, Facebook agreed to give $9.5 million for the establishment of a new non-profit privacy organization. Now, six existing privacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), have filed an objection saying, essentially, that they should receive the money rather than creating a new organization “over which Facebook retains unwarranted influence.”

Wi-Fi on School Buses to Keep Kids Quiet?

Not only are kids online at home and at school, but now they can be online on the way from their home to their school. Annoyed by loud and rambunctious teenagers, a school district in Arizona has turned a school bus into an “Internet cafe on wheels” by installing a wi-fi router. The result? A mobile study hall of sorts, where students can quietly finish school work or play online games. It’s an interesting experiment, and one that I could see being duplictaed across the country.

Anonymous to Australian Government: “Don’t Mess With Our Porn”

A number of Australian government websites were taken down as part of a “massive distributed denial-of-service attack” from Anonymous, a collection of anonymous Internet pranksters. The attack came in response to the Australian government’s plans to censor Internet pornography that “uses adult actors if they appear underage.” In an e-mail to the press explaining the forthcoming DDoS attack, an Anonymous member said “The Australian government will learn that one does not mess with our porn.”

Congress Passes the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009

The federal government has successfully passed House Resolution 4061, the Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2009. The passage of this act lays the groundwork for coordination between the US government and technology companies in the case of a serious cyberthreat. For the full text of the bill, visit this link.

[via XKCD]

This Valentine’s Day, keeping things “personal” between you and your significant other may mean not using social media or other online tools to express your genuine feelings. In other words, NOT sending Facebook flowers/hugs/lingerie/other assorted virtual gifts to someone you truly care about; NOT using E-Cards as a replacement for the real thing; and NOT uploading a video of yourself lip syncing (or worse actually singing) Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” in your underwear to YouTube to share with your partner and the rest of the online community. More often than not, the real thing is much more effective.

With those thoughts in mind, we here at Reputation.com have compiled some Valentine’s Day social media tips designed to keep the day special for just you and whoever you choose to share it with:

• Keep your Tweets and Facebook status updates PG-13 rated

Nobody wants to read about your Valentine’s night plans, no matter how subtle you are. So instead of tweeting “At the grocery store buying strawberries and chocolate sauce, hint, hint” or updating with “Can’t wait for my night with (add name here),” just keep it to yourself. Your Facebook friends will thank you for keeping mushy, gushy stuff off their update streams and your partner won’t hate you for announcing plans for “Horizontal mambo time.”

• Don’t text or e-mail that “special” Valentine’s Day picture to your partner.

You can never be too sure where it’s going to end up. It’s well know that data doesn’t just disappear into a World Wide Web black-hole, never to appear again. It goes somewhere. So unless you want that sexy, pouty lipped image of you dressed in leopard lingerie to pop up on Hot or Not or God knows where else, save the outfits (or lack of outfits) for personal time.

• Avoid the myriad “Who’s your perfect match?”, “What type of lover are you?”, and “Are you meant to be together?” quizzes on Facebook and other websites.

While knowing whether or not you’re compatible with Jessica Alba is helpful information, basing a relationship off of or even bothering to take an online quiz is about as constructive as proposing via Twitter. Besides being time wasters, quizzes can be detrimental to a relationship depending on how much thought you give them (“What do you mean I’m not your perfect match!?!”) and often are managed by third-party developers (who are known to have security issues).

• Being genuine often means going the extra mile.

Nobody wants to read “I love you” in a tweet, Facebook message, or e-mail, particularly on Valentine’s Day. A Valentine’s Day E-Card is just as impersonal with the added annoyance that it’s carrying possible malware. Your best bet is sticking to tradition, i.e. cards, candies, flowers, etc. Besides preventing images or text from being seen by the wrong people, the traditional approach to Valentine’s Day says you care enough to at least stop at the drug store or supermarket on your way over.

There is a practically limitless amount of information on the social web. With over 400 million members, Facebook alone provides enough data to keep researchers busy for decades. While this makes many privacy advocates nervous (and we ourselves have expressed concern over the amount of personal data on the web), the interesting thing is, the majority of that information has been put there willingly by social media users in order to optimize and expand their personal social network.

Now maybe we didn’t plan it this way, but everything we share online, from the Fan Pages we like to the RSS feeds we subscribe to, can be used to form a snapshot of who we are. What’s more, all of that data can be used to make a snapshot not only of us, but of our friends, our families, our communities, our cities, our states, and even our countries. If a smart enough programmer dedicated enough time to analyze the information we’re sharing online, he or she would be able to draw fascinating conclusions on economics, sociology, consumer trends, media consumption, and more.

But who would be the one to step up to this monumental task? Who would have the technical chops, time, and inclination to embark on such an endeavor? According to ReadWriteWeb, there is a man, and his name is Pete Warden.

Pete Warden: The Facebook Whisperer

As detailed in the article, Pete Warden, dubbed the Facebook Whisperer by Andrew Hyde, is an ex-Apple engineer and entrepreneur who has been working for the past six months on a massive analysis of public profile pages on Facebook. Thus far, Warden has over 215 million public pages indexed.

So, why has Warden collected over 100G of Facebook data? For that most noble of causes, education. Once he has completed his analysis, Warden plans to share the information online for academic researchers to study further. Quoting from the RWW article,

“I am fascinated by how we can build tools to understand our world and connect people based on all the data we’re just littering the Internet with. Nobody thinks about how much valuable information they’re generating just by friending people and fanning pages. It’s like we’re constantly voting in a hundred different ways every day. And I’m a starry-eyed believer that we’ll be able to change the world for the better using that neglected information. It’s like an x-ray for the whole country – we can see all sorts of hidden details of who we’re friends with, where we live, what we like.”

Warden had originally planned on publishing some of his findings on Wednesday, but he has held off so that Facebook can take more time to understand the privacy implications of releasing his research. When Warden finally does release his data, however, there’s no doubt that it will prompt some very interesting findings about how and why we use Facebook. In the meantime, if you want to see some of the potential uses for the data, Warden has already put together some cool maps showing high-level analysis of how Facebook operates at a regional level.

Truthfully, a major analysis of Facebook has been a long time coming. That being said, it will be fascinating to see what this data can teach us (both positive and negative.) When Warden does decide to release his data, we’ll let you know, and we’ll be here to look through it. If you’re interested in learning more about Mr. Warden, I recommended following him on Twitter or checking out his blog.

Facebook Deletes Profiles of 30 UK Prisoners

Jack Straw, the justice secretary of the UK, worked with Facebook to take down the Facebook profiles of 30 prisoners who had been using the site to taunt their victims and their victims’ families. Facebook claims this is consistent with the site’s policies regarding harassment and abuse. Currently, Straw is working with prisons to determine how best to limit prisoner access to social networking websites via prison computers and illegal mobile phones.

The End is Nigh: Google Developing Broadband Networks

Yesterday, while everyone was arguing over whether Google Buzz is the next Facebook or the next Orkut, Google made an even more important announcement. At the Official Google Blog, Google announced a plan to build and test an experimental high-speed broadband network. The initial testing on the network will be done in a number of small communities across the United States.

Obviously, Google’s foray into the world of broadband puts it in competition with existing ISPs and raises a whole new world of privacy questions. Imagine using Google Chrome as your browser and your operating system, a Google Android or Nexus One as your mobile phone, and Gmail and Google Buzz as your email and social networking website, all while accessing the Internet from a high-speed Google-powered fiber broadband network. Crazy, right?

Chad Berndston at ChannelWeb explores some of the implications of Google’s broadband ambitions in greater detail.

Iran Bans Access to Gmail, Developing National Email Service

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Iran government has banned access to Gmail in the country and is planning on rolling out a “national email service for Iranian citizens.” Iran’s suspension of Gmail is the latest effort by the government to control Internet communication in the country and weaken the voice of opposition supporters. Previously, the Iran government has sought to track opposition supporters on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

The Terrible Cost of Identity Theft: One Man’s Story

Last year, 1 in every 20 American adults was a victim of identity theft accounting for $54 billion dollars in costs. Here, the Wall Street Journal details the story of one victim who was “ruined financially and emotionally” by a prolonged identity theft attack. The story is a depressing reminder that identity theft is a genuine problem for all web surfers and that you should always take strong proactive measures to protect your identity online and in the real world.

Privacy Concerns Mount Over Google Buzz

In her Molly Rants column at CNET, Molly Wood explores some of the early privacy concerns associated with Google Buzz, including the fact that Google automatically imports your Gmail contacts as “friends,” grabs photosfrom your mobile phone, and shares the precise detail of your current location at the touch of a button.