SECOND-year student Moira Sheikh from Delhi regrets ever getting acquainted with Orkut, a friends networking site.

In January, Moira visited a site, that could let her send one 'scrap', as messages are called on Orkut. She accepted the 'terms and conditions' and registered, using her email and password.

In five days, she got a rude shock.

"All my friends got sleazy messages posted on their Orkut message boards, apparently by me. I had no idea what they were talking about.

After two hours of frenzy and explanations, I realised my account was hacked, possibly because my registration on a shady site!" Moira reminisces, "Not just that, I had put all my friends' accounts in danger, since the hacker had their contact details."

Moira promptly deleted her account from Orkut and alerted her friends about it.

Did this experience put her off the social networking scene?

"It's impossible!" says the 20-years-old, who re-opened her account on Orkut immediately in February, "I can't be offline, I have too many friends here. Only this time, I will be cautious. All my settings are on highest privacy levels. I never give away my personal and intimate details unless I am sure the information is for my friends' eyes only."

That should be enough to protect Moira's privacy airtight. But is it?

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Moiras of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers.

They do so every time they download and install what's known as an ''application,'' one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.

Photograph: Stock Xchange

All photographs are for representative purpose only.