The internet has brought us some great things. People can join together for niche markets that would otherwise be ignored; Lolcats; and the ability to shop and rent books, films, and video games without needing to go out. This said, it also brought us 2girls 1cup, Pewdiepie, and Squeekers. And in this day and age you need to protect yourself, even from yourself. And if you are the most computer savvy person in your family by virtue of loading up Facebook without the desktop exploding, you see this a lot.
So for those of us born with this tech and therefor old enough to know better, and those who are old enough to have taught us how to use a spoon and so need more help, here are some helpful tips for how to survive on the Web.
I will assume most of you reading this are safe and sane when using said devices, but I am also assuming I am talking to other human beings: The same species that thought Leaded Gasoline, Invading Russia in the winter, and now a 5th Transformers film brought to you by Michal Bay were all great ideas.
I will be covering 6 main areas:
1. Home Defense
2. Email and Web Search
3. Social Media
4. The Phone
5. The Internet of Things
6. Legal issiues
Section 1.Home Defense:
Your home network should be as fortified as a castle, and not have as many more holes in it then a sponge. From this you should have 4 layers to keep the proverbial barbarians from getting past the gates.
1. Everyone else on your block.
Hackers are like wolves or lions: They know going after the strongest in the heard is going to get them seriously hurt, which will make it difficult to make a kill and therefore not starve to death. So they prefer to hunt the old, the young, and the sick as they won?t be either as weary or as able to put up much of a fight as the do the dominant members of the pack.
The same concept with computer users except replace the sick (though sick in the head might still be viable) with the dumb and still keep the old, the young and you still got it. The young because they are naive and not that word weary yet. The old because they just coming to grips with using technology usually found in Trek as far as they are concerned, and the dumb because some mistakes are just stupid. Everyone is at risk, but some are worse than others and your neighbors have as much risk to get hit as you. As bad as it sounds, it?s a better them than you situation.
However these scammers do not necessarily need to be next to your house. With a good enough rig they can be fifty feet or several blocks away from your residence. Others might be a house or two up with use a Cantana. The cantenna is actually a fine little do it yourself project that allows you to expand the wifi of your home in one direction using a stand, some wires, and the can (usually pringles or a large soup can). In the right hands, it?s a simple way to get around the wifi limitations of some houses with awkwardly placed walls and corners. In the wrong hands, it?s a ?This is Why We Can?t Have Nice Things? moment.
3. Password.
You do not want just anyone getting into your computer or using your wifi. If you have the opportunity, try to make a password that is difficult to get into but one you will remember. Keep in mind you will be using it quite often. When available use spaces numbers123456, symbols @#$%&, UPPER and lower case letters to make it difficult for hackers to get into.
You don?t want to make it too easy figure out, so avoid things like your name, names of pets, significant others, and family members, and wary of using your hobby too much. I?ll go into this a little more in the social media bit, but someone just has to look at the walls in your home, see your decorations, and spend a few hours on your Facebook page to see what you are into and what is most important. And for the love of Grumpy Cat: do not leave it just some variation of ?Password.? Its one of the most common, if not THEEEEEEEEE most common password, and its there so when a company sends out their gear to the stores they do not have to make up a million different passwords for a million other thingies.
Example: I have an uncle that is a retired undercover officer. This topic came up at a family thing and knowing what he knew of my mother, came pretty close to her password.
You can be creative in this. Here is an example:
A long time ago when I was a senior in highschool, we got a new wifi router and I was given the task to give it a new password and name. So I used my hobby and called it Dark Elves (I have a dark elf army in Warhammer Fantasy) and my faith for (InGodWeTrust) for the name. I have no idea where that thing is, and I will probably use something else in the future, but as is if you see something called Dark Elves you are thinking of something along the lines of this:
[images of dark elves and D&D]
Not Necessarily this:
Another thing that will help, is to not use the same password for everything. I know, its hard to do as it means remembering multiple ones, but if one web sight you are on gets hacked, the rest of your accounts should be safe to. EX: If Facebook gets hacked, my email and by Blizzard account is still largely safe. Largely because its not a matter of if but when.
2. Firewall
The Firewall comes standard with any compute made these days, meant to keep bad things out. This should be kept lean and mean, so set high and just put up the annoying: Do you really want this sending information through. In my case, it largely means my Blizzard Account.
1. Anti-Virus.
The last line of defense, the antivirus program is there to get any viruses out of your computer should something go wrong. I will leave your preferences to yourself. I enjoy the Webroot Beast Buy has as when pared with the Geek Squad service plan does pretty good. I also had good experience with Malewarebytes in tandem with Microsoft Defender.
The only ones I would not suggest are MacAfee as they tend to not be as good as their price tag would have you believe, and the other is Norton. Besides the fact it eats up memory and space like the food obsessed guy in anime (see Goku, Snorlax, Lina Inverse, and so on). However when I tried to perform the classic unintall-reinstall to fix a bug, it crashed not one but 2 computers. I was lucky the family computer was recoverable. My first laptop had to be reset to factory standard (It was a lemon anyways, but still my baby). Then I found others who had similar horror stories.
Seriously, do not use it.
Section 2: Email and general online
This section will largely be considered ?No kidding, Sherlock.?
If you do not know the email, ignore it. Talking to strangers is not a good idea on here. Like that unwise hookup at the party, you don?t know what bugs and viruses they have, and instead of a burning sensation and an unwanted pregnancy you get people melting down your computer or steeling your information.
Also be wary of scams. When it comes to most companies like your credit card or your bank, they will most likely not call you directly. In most cases you will find out on the knows because corporate. If they do, they will ask you to go to their website and change some things, however they will never send you a direct link. This is because your bank will largely use a third person company who will not take any money but will instead be there to ask to get some information to the there to give you updates and information. They will not ask for personal info, and they will not take money. You get anything but that it?s a scam. You get an email with a link, it?s a scam as that link will not go to the legit company a mockup to look like it. I learned all this from a bank worker who told me in her office not only this but I was the 50th person to complain about that scam text.
Another common type is the Nigerian Prince Scam. You take a person, claiming to be a wealthy individual, like a long lost relative or a member of a royal family of a country you probably know less then jack about, and says they are willing to give you a large sum of money but you need to pay the tax. This is usually false. Even if you look past the knowledge Nigeria isn?t run by kings but elected presidents, most of these people are probably not even Nigerian. Yes that country does get out a ton of these, hence one of the reason for the names as one of the earliest was found here as with the above mentioned Prince, but you are just as likely to get hit by an British Citizen, a Chinese Citizen, or an American Citizen as Great Britton, China, and the United States are also leading sources for this type of scam.
This isn?t a new or exclusively computer one either, as seen by the texts and phone calls with the banks. Your grandmother probably has been hit by one where someone claiming to be a grandchild is in a developing world country, is in jail and needs bail money.
I and a coworker have been hit by calls of someone claiming that our computers were infected by viruses and we needed to give them permission to do stuff on it. In my case I was saved despite being young, naive, and autistic by being annoyed the guy didn?t even know my name and didn?t tell me who I was when I asked repeatedly. In my old coworker?s case, her work computer was shut off when she got the call and told them off that it can?t be detected by them as it was turned off (the guy was also an idiot by telling her to turn it back on so they can fix the problem). Thankfully for her, the guy on the phone was, again, an idiot.
Even older in the 1600?s you had the Spanish Prisoner, where someone claiming to be in a Spanish Jail, and could not say why they were there or where they were, would send a letter to some wealthy person and ask for them to be kind and generous and pay for their bail money.
Regardless of method or time period they basically all types of Phishing scams and all rely on the same method: Find a sucker, get what they want, then move on to the next one. Its usually something too good to be true or fear mongering. I am sure 9/10 people are well aware of this, but its usually the 10th person that keeps them going.
Other issues may come in the form of Trojan viruses. These viruses infect your computer by acting as something benign (a picture, an app, or a popup that says that your computer is infected and must have this downloaded). My suggestion is ignoring it. Close out of that sight, hit the close button, use the right click options on the bottom of the page, do not touch the pop up as this might be just enough for the Trojan to get through your defenses like the namesake did to the city of Troy?s. Worst case scenario hard reset where instead of hitting shutdown you hold down the power button until it shuts off. You then wait a few seconds so you don?t screw something up then turn it back on. This last one is usually a last resort as its not good for the long haul of your computer.
Regardless do a scan of your own and double check. You will not be asked to down load anything, and if it does pop up it will be separate icon from the webpage and asking you to scan, or it will stop you from entering the page and telling you its got more viruses then a biological weapons factory, and proceed at your own risk.
For less viruses lets move onto fact checking. Not everything on the web is true, even before it seemed like everyone was using photoshop. Find multiple sources to collaborate, and if nothing else if sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Same goes with celebrity deaths. Chum Lee, Gabriel Englacias, and Bill Nye the Science Guy received a number of fact death reports over the years, even by reputable sources. All fake.
So double and triple check.
We also have an understanding of what safe search is? Because something are not meant for man to know if you get my drift. Know when and where to search certain topics. Public spaces are not always the best in interests, and also something might go to other areas not intended.
Lets say you have an 6 year old you are helping with their homework, and they have to look up birds for their assignment. More specifically they are told to look up Tits, a family of colorful song birds in Great Britton, particularly the species known as the Great Tit. Later on they are asked to look up various species of Boobies, sea birds usually noted for their colorful legs and feet where each one get?s their name (like red footed and blue footed). You may want specifics on this searching these and many others.
Speaking of doing stuff online, I can think of ten places on the top of my head I have found wifi:
My church, my old community college, my public Library, the coffee shop a few blocks from said library, fast food places like Taco Bell or McDonalds, some resterounts like Apple B?s, Big Box Marts like Targit and Walmart, Best Buy, some warehouse type hardware stores that have home and garden supplies like Lows and Home Depot, and HMO?s like Kaiser.
Speaking generally, most do not have sterling reputations the safe internet access. Generally speaking, with corporations, especially big box marts, security is laughably at best as long as the inevitable lawsuit is cheaper then actually getting something actually decent for you?re and their sensitive information like credit card numbers, they will always go for the lowest bidder, even if its not the best quality.
Others, like the Library, hospital, or coffee shop are public spaces so even if they do have a secure point on their computer services you will still have that creeper looking over your shoulder as humans are attracted to shiny things, and your computer is quite shiny. I not saying my local library?s web protection sucks, I am saying I don?t trust the hundred-other people in that building not to copy my banking information.
And oh, yeah, clear out your web history and cookies you have collected. Less stuff on your computer to slow it down, and makes it harder to be tracked.
Section 3: Social media.
In simplest terms, social media is anything online where lots of people concrete. Typicly this usually refers to things like Facebook and twitter, but can also be for more specific things like Linkedin and Mormon.org, or places that people and post comments and pictures like forums, and web chats and so on.
Video games also can count, as MMO?s and a large number of other multiplayer games allow you to interact with other people (sometimes in a manner where you wish to throat punch the squealing idiot on your team but you can?t do that over the headset yet).
However people do not act smart on it...alot. People treat their social media pages almost like a private diary, seemingly unaware they are posting this in a very public place. Even if you do the smart move and restrict your access to friends and family, do you honestly know everyone on your Mafia Wars account?
We?ve seen this from embarrassing posts and pictures to even criminal activities. Here are a couple I found on the web show: What the Fuck Is Wrong With You, a show that takes a good hard look at news stories and comments on the ones that can be summed up as: Didn?t think this through.
This woman set a fire that did a million dollar forest fire that endangered an Indian Reservation, and posted a link to a picture she took that said: Come and Like My Fire.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oregon-woman-admits-starting-wildfire-firefighter-friends-work-article-1.1914509
This guy used his own wanted poster on his facebook picture.
And so on and so on. Its to the point where I would not be surprised if the CIA and the FBI started having 14 years old interns and paid them in Yu-Gi-Oh cards, Red Bull, and Xbox Live Points to just go through facebook and find incriminating evidence.
Even if the thing posted is not illegal, the fact is when you go in to be interviewed for a job they do background checks on you. And if they brows something on you that maybe a little bad for their reputation, they may not hire you, or your questionable content on your social media may get you fired as it breaks all company standards.
That and chances are your mother or your preist, or your significant other might find it, and well do you want that look that is either utter disappointment or: I am going to die now?
This is also the internet generation. If there is dirt on you and it has been posted on the web, somewhere some way it will be saved in the dark recesses on it. Even if a compromising picture was deleted, who is to say it wasn?t seen and saved onto their computers a dozen more times, if not hundreds of thousands. It going to make voting on officials in a decade or so very interesting. So long as the internet exists, so will it.
Speaking of Mum, do not share an account with anyone, period. DO not SHARE your social media and account password with anyone. The only exception to this rule is with a legal guardian as they are in charge of you and chances are will get in trouble for your dumb moves. In my case it wasn?t anything I posted, but everything she did and people started thinking I was getting a little weird. Seriously you are never too old to be embarrassed by your parents.
Yes that is Marilyn Manson's dad.
But generally this is to protect yourself. Not necessarily from your lover, your parents, the law or your supervisor, but everyone else.
A few hours search on your facebook account can generally tell someone enough to know when and where they will be, and ideas on what their code is. More conventional thievery can see when you are probably away from home.
However the most problematic are fake or former friends and ex lovers, rivals in schools, and in some scary cases their parents, who will probably hold a grudge against you and seek to destroy you.
So step one on how to fix this: Set your personal settings to private so only friend and family can see it.
Step 2: Go through all your ?friends? section and clean house. If you only know them through Mafia Wars and the like, probably want to ditch em.
Step 3: Be very Spartan about what personal information you have on here. No addresses, no phone numbers, maybe have an email, but you generally want to give potential stalkers, hackers, and thieves less to work with and this is a good start.
Step 4. Change Passwords regularly, maybe once every three to 6 months, and never share them.
Also be wary of scams here to. The most common one is the : Facebook will now start posting your content in their advertisements. Please post a statement saying: Bla, bla, bla I won?t allow it and they won?t.
Facebook has never done this, and probably won?t in the forseeable future, and if they do you probably gave them permission to when you signed up because like most of us you didn?t read all the terms and agreement.
Section 4. Cellphones.
This will be short.
The cellphone as we know and love it was inspired by the communicator of the original Star Trek series which looked very much like a flip phone. With present smartphones we practically have the do as the plot needs it to do trycorter. While the cellphone has done a great number of good things over the years, its also been a leading source of things that make me wonder how our ancestors survived leaving the caves.
So lets get the basics out of the way, and again I am only putting this on here because I am not taking any chances, and you probably need a ?see I told you so? moment.
Pay attention to your surroundings. It is easy to get distracted and forget the rest of the world is still there, and this is with just phone calls and texts. Add in games, videos and other fun bits and it gets worse. No video or cat picture is worth being some old lady?s new hood ornament. Just because you are now in your happy place does not mean the rest of the world stopped being dangerous.
Also turn off settings that post where and when pictures you took off as this is a good giveaway of your habits to potential thieves looking for easy targets (like your home when you are out).
Section 5. The Internet of Things.
This is an odd Phrase, but basically it means things that don?t typically have internet access but are given it anyways. So anything not a smart phone, tablet, desktop, or laptop. I have either seen this or heard of this in televisions, stuffed animals, dolls, appliances, baby monitors, cars, sex toys, and even toilets.
All of them share one thing in common: Their Interment Protection Sucks.
They are ridiculously easy to hack, largely due to companies making them not generally being high tech companies to beguine with. Many of these have their default password being password and unable for the one purchasing the device to change it something less breakable. They are also more worried about getting the device out to market quickly and in mass then the quality of not getting hacked. More importantly once they have been hacked, it doesn?t take much for the hacker to go from that device to whatever they are connected to like a phone or computer.
Then we have the zombies, and I am stealing this from WTFIWWY?s Nash but he has an awesome explanation for this.
In computer terms, a zombie is one of these internet of things devices that has been hacked. These then can be weaponize in a DOS attack where they all at once attack a website flooding it with server request like when you go type their address up on your browser to get to their homepage. This flooding can crash it, and this has happened to reporters to even reputable websites like the Washington Post.
In less technical terms, and the part I am steeling from Nash, someone knocks on your door and by law you have to answer it and say hello. You have to do this to everyone that comes a knocking, be it one, 10, a hundred, a thousand, the population of Canada, and so on. In the end this gives the servers the computer equivalent of a nervous breakdown, and a pint of chocolate ice-cream and a glass of wine aint fixing this one.
Section 6: Legal issues.
Speaking as an American, so I can?t say what other countries are like but I hope they follow some of the following, there are certain rights and privileges that are expected to be given to a nation?s citizens. Freedom of speech is one of them. Privacy is another.
That said this is not the freedom not to be hit with the consequences of said speech, namely when we are idiots, are not so protected, especially when made public by you yourself!!! Seriously, tell your boss up yours and see if he doesn?t have security escort you out. It will not end well. As for more on the privacy end, Its even theorized that in this interconnected world we now live in Privacy might go the way of Lonesome George?s species of Giant Tortoise.
Heck, In 80% of cases, when law enforcement asks, Google, Apple, and Facebook tend to comply. The 20% they don?t, such as with the fiasco between the Apple and the Government over their encryption security, they have a good reason not to. Couple this with again people posting their most intimate thoughts and photos on the world-wide web makes their job easier, and maybe getting you one harder.
Lets say you are in a place where Marijuana is still illegal. If you are trying to be a police officer at age 21 and they find photo of you on Facebook smoking a blunt at age 15, they may think twice before accepting you onto the force. SO if you plan on doing anything illegal don?t post it
A textbook example of this is with a story a sheriff deputy told a women?s group at her church (she brought me along to translate and because she thought it would be interesting as the officer was talking about web safty).
Two 14 year olds were happily dating. They had their family?s permission and well-liked by their sweetheart?s parents.
Then one day the father of the girl couldn?t find his phone so uses his daughter?s to call his. The moment the screen came on he found a image of his daughter in nothing but her underwear and in a provocative pose. You can imagine how he felt when he asked her about it.
She said that her boyfriend convinced her to send him pictures like this, that if she truly loved him she would and he would not share them.
Ladies, the correct response to ?Come on baby, if you really love me? is probably a flipping your dating status to single. Obviously being 14 was young and hormonal and therefor, but even remembering when I was that age and just old enough to grow armpit hair, that was dumb.
The next day the sheriff deputy that told this story went to the teen?s high school and did a police interrogation on him. To her horror, the kid broke his promise who shared it to a friend. She then asked the friend several times if shared it, each time saying no. Just as she was relieved that it ended to just those to the kid said he posted it online. It had been on there for 8 days.
For those of you new to the internet, most new things on the web have a bout a 3 day shelf life before people grow board and move on. Most of the time I believe its like my videos and you are lucky to get a thousand or so views?within a year. Others like Mathew Santory can make a comfortable living off of it as he can get several million views, and with each every thousand making a Dollar, a million views a video can make ten grand in add revenues.
This all said, 8 days might as well have been an eternity, and potentially with thousands of views. Given that teen sex is the widely most searched thing on the web, hundreds of thousands of potential views.
In the end the girl?s reputation was ruined as rumor began spreading around the school. As for the boys they committed a felony of distributing Child Pornography. Unlike say grand theft auto, there is no lesser sentence for this felony. You get the same label, punishments, and requirement to put it on your resume if you are 12 or 21; 14 or a 114. Part of this was the amount of financial punishments inflicted on the boy?s family. As he was a minor, his parents had to deal with the brunt of it. Between paying the court fees and several hundred thousand for the girl?s family, as the judge felt between changing schools and therapy, that was the financial worth of her suffering.
Now the boy?s family did try to counter sue the girl?s family, as because she sent him the pictures she could have easily gotten the same verdict. However, their text messages were used in evidence, and it leaned heavily towards her being pressured into this (the whole ?Come on baby, don?t you love me? garbage).
The boy?s father lost his gardening business and the family lost their only vehicle to help pay for this, and the boy now had to serve several years of jail time, which would be long enough to go to adult jail with Child Pornography Charges. When he gets out getting a higher education or a job will be difficult as what college or business will want to risk this?
This is important as let?s be honest, many people on here are minors, and many people on here have dated minors as ones or are just out of high school and doing the jailbait wait for their girlfriends or boyfriends. More importantly one just has to look at the Guy Game, an game so terrible that even when Game Informer ran its advertisements for months on end they still gave it a 1/10, earned even more infamy when one of the performers stripping for the player turned out to be 17.
Hopefully this will have helped someone dealing with the inevitable: Why isn?t my computer working question. If you have further thoughts on this subject, please add them in the comment section.
So for those of us born with this tech and therefor old enough to know better, and those who are old enough to have taught us how to use a spoon and so need more help, here are some helpful tips for how to survive on the Web.
I will assume most of you reading this are safe and sane when using said devices, but I am also assuming I am talking to other human beings: The same species that thought Leaded Gasoline, Invading Russia in the winter, and now a 5th Transformers film brought to you by Michal Bay were all great ideas.
I will be covering 6 main areas:
1. Home Defense
2. Email and Web Search
3. Social Media
4. The Phone
5. The Internet of Things
6. Legal issiues
Section 1.Home Defense:
Your home network should be as fortified as a castle, and not have as many more holes in it then a sponge. From this you should have 4 layers to keep the proverbial barbarians from getting past the gates.
1. Everyone else on your block.
Hackers are like wolves or lions: They know going after the strongest in the heard is going to get them seriously hurt, which will make it difficult to make a kill and therefore not starve to death. So they prefer to hunt the old, the young, and the sick as they won?t be either as weary or as able to put up much of a fight as the do the dominant members of the pack.
The same concept with computer users except replace the sick (though sick in the head might still be viable) with the dumb and still keep the old, the young and you still got it. The young because they are naive and not that word weary yet. The old because they just coming to grips with using technology usually found in Trek as far as they are concerned, and the dumb because some mistakes are just stupid. Everyone is at risk, but some are worse than others and your neighbors have as much risk to get hit as you. As bad as it sounds, it?s a better them than you situation.
However these scammers do not necessarily need to be next to your house. With a good enough rig they can be fifty feet or several blocks away from your residence. Others might be a house or two up with use a Cantana. The cantenna is actually a fine little do it yourself project that allows you to expand the wifi of your home in one direction using a stand, some wires, and the can (usually pringles or a large soup can). In the right hands, it?s a simple way to get around the wifi limitations of some houses with awkwardly placed walls and corners. In the wrong hands, it?s a ?This is Why We Can?t Have Nice Things? moment.
3. Password.
You do not want just anyone getting into your computer or using your wifi. If you have the opportunity, try to make a password that is difficult to get into but one you will remember. Keep in mind you will be using it quite often. When available use spaces numbers123456, symbols @#$%&, UPPER and lower case letters to make it difficult for hackers to get into.
You don?t want to make it too easy figure out, so avoid things like your name, names of pets, significant others, and family members, and wary of using your hobby too much. I?ll go into this a little more in the social media bit, but someone just has to look at the walls in your home, see your decorations, and spend a few hours on your Facebook page to see what you are into and what is most important. And for the love of Grumpy Cat: do not leave it just some variation of ?Password.? Its one of the most common, if not THEEEEEEEEE most common password, and its there so when a company sends out their gear to the stores they do not have to make up a million different passwords for a million other thingies.
Example: I have an uncle that is a retired undercover officer. This topic came up at a family thing and knowing what he knew of my mother, came pretty close to her password.
You can be creative in this. Here is an example:
A long time ago when I was a senior in highschool, we got a new wifi router and I was given the task to give it a new password and name. So I used my hobby and called it Dark Elves (I have a dark elf army in Warhammer Fantasy) and my faith for (InGodWeTrust) for the name. I have no idea where that thing is, and I will probably use something else in the future, but as is if you see something called Dark Elves you are thinking of something along the lines of this:
[images of dark elves and D&D]
Not Necessarily this:
Another thing that will help, is to not use the same password for everything. I know, its hard to do as it means remembering multiple ones, but if one web sight you are on gets hacked, the rest of your accounts should be safe to. EX: If Facebook gets hacked, my email and by Blizzard account is still largely safe. Largely because its not a matter of if but when.
2. Firewall
The Firewall comes standard with any compute made these days, meant to keep bad things out. This should be kept lean and mean, so set high and just put up the annoying: Do you really want this sending information through. In my case, it largely means my Blizzard Account.
1. Anti-Virus.
The last line of defense, the antivirus program is there to get any viruses out of your computer should something go wrong. I will leave your preferences to yourself. I enjoy the Webroot Beast Buy has as when pared with the Geek Squad service plan does pretty good. I also had good experience with Malewarebytes in tandem with Microsoft Defender.
The only ones I would not suggest are MacAfee as they tend to not be as good as their price tag would have you believe, and the other is Norton. Besides the fact it eats up memory and space like the food obsessed guy in anime (see Goku, Snorlax, Lina Inverse, and so on). However when I tried to perform the classic unintall-reinstall to fix a bug, it crashed not one but 2 computers. I was lucky the family computer was recoverable. My first laptop had to be reset to factory standard (It was a lemon anyways, but still my baby). Then I found others who had similar horror stories.
Seriously, do not use it.
Section 2: Email and general online
This section will largely be considered ?No kidding, Sherlock.?
If you do not know the email, ignore it. Talking to strangers is not a good idea on here. Like that unwise hookup at the party, you don?t know what bugs and viruses they have, and instead of a burning sensation and an unwanted pregnancy you get people melting down your computer or steeling your information.
Also be wary of scams. When it comes to most companies like your credit card or your bank, they will most likely not call you directly. In most cases you will find out on the knows because corporate. If they do, they will ask you to go to their website and change some things, however they will never send you a direct link. This is because your bank will largely use a third person company who will not take any money but will instead be there to ask to get some information to the there to give you updates and information. They will not ask for personal info, and they will not take money. You get anything but that it?s a scam. You get an email with a link, it?s a scam as that link will not go to the legit company a mockup to look like it. I learned all this from a bank worker who told me in her office not only this but I was the 50th person to complain about that scam text.
Another common type is the Nigerian Prince Scam. You take a person, claiming to be a wealthy individual, like a long lost relative or a member of a royal family of a country you probably know less then jack about, and says they are willing to give you a large sum of money but you need to pay the tax. This is usually false. Even if you look past the knowledge Nigeria isn?t run by kings but elected presidents, most of these people are probably not even Nigerian. Yes that country does get out a ton of these, hence one of the reason for the names as one of the earliest was found here as with the above mentioned Prince, but you are just as likely to get hit by an British Citizen, a Chinese Citizen, or an American Citizen as Great Britton, China, and the United States are also leading sources for this type of scam.
This isn?t a new or exclusively computer one either, as seen by the texts and phone calls with the banks. Your grandmother probably has been hit by one where someone claiming to be a grandchild is in a developing world country, is in jail and needs bail money.
I and a coworker have been hit by calls of someone claiming that our computers were infected by viruses and we needed to give them permission to do stuff on it. In my case I was saved despite being young, naive, and autistic by being annoyed the guy didn?t even know my name and didn?t tell me who I was when I asked repeatedly. In my old coworker?s case, her work computer was shut off when she got the call and told them off that it can?t be detected by them as it was turned off (the guy was also an idiot by telling her to turn it back on so they can fix the problem). Thankfully for her, the guy on the phone was, again, an idiot.
Even older in the 1600?s you had the Spanish Prisoner, where someone claiming to be in a Spanish Jail, and could not say why they were there or where they were, would send a letter to some wealthy person and ask for them to be kind and generous and pay for their bail money.
Regardless of method or time period they basically all types of Phishing scams and all rely on the same method: Find a sucker, get what they want, then move on to the next one. Its usually something too good to be true or fear mongering. I am sure 9/10 people are well aware of this, but its usually the 10th person that keeps them going.
Other issues may come in the form of Trojan viruses. These viruses infect your computer by acting as something benign (a picture, an app, or a popup that says that your computer is infected and must have this downloaded). My suggestion is ignoring it. Close out of that sight, hit the close button, use the right click options on the bottom of the page, do not touch the pop up as this might be just enough for the Trojan to get through your defenses like the namesake did to the city of Troy?s. Worst case scenario hard reset where instead of hitting shutdown you hold down the power button until it shuts off. You then wait a few seconds so you don?t screw something up then turn it back on. This last one is usually a last resort as its not good for the long haul of your computer.
Regardless do a scan of your own and double check. You will not be asked to down load anything, and if it does pop up it will be separate icon from the webpage and asking you to scan, or it will stop you from entering the page and telling you its got more viruses then a biological weapons factory, and proceed at your own risk.
For less viruses lets move onto fact checking. Not everything on the web is true, even before it seemed like everyone was using photoshop. Find multiple sources to collaborate, and if nothing else if sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Same goes with celebrity deaths. Chum Lee, Gabriel Englacias, and Bill Nye the Science Guy received a number of fact death reports over the years, even by reputable sources. All fake.
So double and triple check.
We also have an understanding of what safe search is? Because something are not meant for man to know if you get my drift. Know when and where to search certain topics. Public spaces are not always the best in interests, and also something might go to other areas not intended.
Lets say you have an 6 year old you are helping with their homework, and they have to look up birds for their assignment. More specifically they are told to look up Tits, a family of colorful song birds in Great Britton, particularly the species known as the Great Tit. Later on they are asked to look up various species of Boobies, sea birds usually noted for their colorful legs and feet where each one get?s their name (like red footed and blue footed). You may want specifics on this searching these and many others.
Speaking of doing stuff online, I can think of ten places on the top of my head I have found wifi:
My church, my old community college, my public Library, the coffee shop a few blocks from said library, fast food places like Taco Bell or McDonalds, some resterounts like Apple B?s, Big Box Marts like Targit and Walmart, Best Buy, some warehouse type hardware stores that have home and garden supplies like Lows and Home Depot, and HMO?s like Kaiser.
Speaking generally, most do not have sterling reputations the safe internet access. Generally speaking, with corporations, especially big box marts, security is laughably at best as long as the inevitable lawsuit is cheaper then actually getting something actually decent for you?re and their sensitive information like credit card numbers, they will always go for the lowest bidder, even if its not the best quality.
Others, like the Library, hospital, or coffee shop are public spaces so even if they do have a secure point on their computer services you will still have that creeper looking over your shoulder as humans are attracted to shiny things, and your computer is quite shiny. I not saying my local library?s web protection sucks, I am saying I don?t trust the hundred-other people in that building not to copy my banking information.
And oh, yeah, clear out your web history and cookies you have collected. Less stuff on your computer to slow it down, and makes it harder to be tracked.
Section 3: Social media.
In simplest terms, social media is anything online where lots of people concrete. Typicly this usually refers to things like Facebook and twitter, but can also be for more specific things like Linkedin and Mormon.org, or places that people and post comments and pictures like forums, and web chats and so on.
Video games also can count, as MMO?s and a large number of other multiplayer games allow you to interact with other people (sometimes in a manner where you wish to throat punch the squealing idiot on your team but you can?t do that over the headset yet).
However people do not act smart on it...alot. People treat their social media pages almost like a private diary, seemingly unaware they are posting this in a very public place. Even if you do the smart move and restrict your access to friends and family, do you honestly know everyone on your Mafia Wars account?
We?ve seen this from embarrassing posts and pictures to even criminal activities. Here are a couple I found on the web show: What the Fuck Is Wrong With You, a show that takes a good hard look at news stories and comments on the ones that can be summed up as: Didn?t think this through.
This woman set a fire that did a million dollar forest fire that endangered an Indian Reservation, and posted a link to a picture she took that said: Come and Like My Fire.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/oregon-woman-admits-starting-wildfire-firefighter-friends-work-article-1.1914509
This guy used his own wanted poster on his facebook picture.
And so on and so on. Its to the point where I would not be surprised if the CIA and the FBI started having 14 years old interns and paid them in Yu-Gi-Oh cards, Red Bull, and Xbox Live Points to just go through facebook and find incriminating evidence.
Even if the thing posted is not illegal, the fact is when you go in to be interviewed for a job they do background checks on you. And if they brows something on you that maybe a little bad for their reputation, they may not hire you, or your questionable content on your social media may get you fired as it breaks all company standards.
That and chances are your mother or your preist, or your significant other might find it, and well do you want that look that is either utter disappointment or: I am going to die now?
This is also the internet generation. If there is dirt on you and it has been posted on the web, somewhere some way it will be saved in the dark recesses on it. Even if a compromising picture was deleted, who is to say it wasn?t seen and saved onto their computers a dozen more times, if not hundreds of thousands. It going to make voting on officials in a decade or so very interesting. So long as the internet exists, so will it.
Speaking of Mum, do not share an account with anyone, period. DO not SHARE your social media and account password with anyone. The only exception to this rule is with a legal guardian as they are in charge of you and chances are will get in trouble for your dumb moves. In my case it wasn?t anything I posted, but everything she did and people started thinking I was getting a little weird. Seriously you are never too old to be embarrassed by your parents.
Yes that is Marilyn Manson's dad.
But generally this is to protect yourself. Not necessarily from your lover, your parents, the law or your supervisor, but everyone else.
A few hours search on your facebook account can generally tell someone enough to know when and where they will be, and ideas on what their code is. More conventional thievery can see when you are probably away from home.
However the most problematic are fake or former friends and ex lovers, rivals in schools, and in some scary cases their parents, who will probably hold a grudge against you and seek to destroy you.
So step one on how to fix this: Set your personal settings to private so only friend and family can see it.
Step 2: Go through all your ?friends? section and clean house. If you only know them through Mafia Wars and the like, probably want to ditch em.
Step 3: Be very Spartan about what personal information you have on here. No addresses, no phone numbers, maybe have an email, but you generally want to give potential stalkers, hackers, and thieves less to work with and this is a good start.
Step 4. Change Passwords regularly, maybe once every three to 6 months, and never share them.
Also be wary of scams here to. The most common one is the : Facebook will now start posting your content in their advertisements. Please post a statement saying: Bla, bla, bla I won?t allow it and they won?t.
Facebook has never done this, and probably won?t in the forseeable future, and if they do you probably gave them permission to when you signed up because like most of us you didn?t read all the terms and agreement.
Section 4. Cellphones.
This will be short.
The cellphone as we know and love it was inspired by the communicator of the original Star Trek series which looked very much like a flip phone. With present smartphones we practically have the do as the plot needs it to do trycorter. While the cellphone has done a great number of good things over the years, its also been a leading source of things that make me wonder how our ancestors survived leaving the caves.
So lets get the basics out of the way, and again I am only putting this on here because I am not taking any chances, and you probably need a ?see I told you so? moment.
Pay attention to your surroundings. It is easy to get distracted and forget the rest of the world is still there, and this is with just phone calls and texts. Add in games, videos and other fun bits and it gets worse. No video or cat picture is worth being some old lady?s new hood ornament. Just because you are now in your happy place does not mean the rest of the world stopped being dangerous.
Also turn off settings that post where and when pictures you took off as this is a good giveaway of your habits to potential thieves looking for easy targets (like your home when you are out).
Section 5. The Internet of Things.
This is an odd Phrase, but basically it means things that don?t typically have internet access but are given it anyways. So anything not a smart phone, tablet, desktop, or laptop. I have either seen this or heard of this in televisions, stuffed animals, dolls, appliances, baby monitors, cars, sex toys, and even toilets.
All of them share one thing in common: Their Interment Protection Sucks.
They are ridiculously easy to hack, largely due to companies making them not generally being high tech companies to beguine with. Many of these have their default password being password and unable for the one purchasing the device to change it something less breakable. They are also more worried about getting the device out to market quickly and in mass then the quality of not getting hacked. More importantly once they have been hacked, it doesn?t take much for the hacker to go from that device to whatever they are connected to like a phone or computer.
Then we have the zombies, and I am stealing this from WTFIWWY?s Nash but he has an awesome explanation for this.
In computer terms, a zombie is one of these internet of things devices that has been hacked. These then can be weaponize in a DOS attack where they all at once attack a website flooding it with server request like when you go type their address up on your browser to get to their homepage. This flooding can crash it, and this has happened to reporters to even reputable websites like the Washington Post.
In less technical terms, and the part I am steeling from Nash, someone knocks on your door and by law you have to answer it and say hello. You have to do this to everyone that comes a knocking, be it one, 10, a hundred, a thousand, the population of Canada, and so on. In the end this gives the servers the computer equivalent of a nervous breakdown, and a pint of chocolate ice-cream and a glass of wine aint fixing this one.
Section 6: Legal issues.
Speaking as an American, so I can?t say what other countries are like but I hope they follow some of the following, there are certain rights and privileges that are expected to be given to a nation?s citizens. Freedom of speech is one of them. Privacy is another.
That said this is not the freedom not to be hit with the consequences of said speech, namely when we are idiots, are not so protected, especially when made public by you yourself!!! Seriously, tell your boss up yours and see if he doesn?t have security escort you out. It will not end well. As for more on the privacy end, Its even theorized that in this interconnected world we now live in Privacy might go the way of Lonesome George?s species of Giant Tortoise.
Heck, In 80% of cases, when law enforcement asks, Google, Apple, and Facebook tend to comply. The 20% they don?t, such as with the fiasco between the Apple and the Government over their encryption security, they have a good reason not to. Couple this with again people posting their most intimate thoughts and photos on the world-wide web makes their job easier, and maybe getting you one harder.
Lets say you are in a place where Marijuana is still illegal. If you are trying to be a police officer at age 21 and they find photo of you on Facebook smoking a blunt at age 15, they may think twice before accepting you onto the force. SO if you plan on doing anything illegal don?t post it
A textbook example of this is with a story a sheriff deputy told a women?s group at her church (she brought me along to translate and because she thought it would be interesting as the officer was talking about web safty).
Two 14 year olds were happily dating. They had their family?s permission and well-liked by their sweetheart?s parents.
Then one day the father of the girl couldn?t find his phone so uses his daughter?s to call his. The moment the screen came on he found a image of his daughter in nothing but her underwear and in a provocative pose. You can imagine how he felt when he asked her about it.
She said that her boyfriend convinced her to send him pictures like this, that if she truly loved him she would and he would not share them.
Ladies, the correct response to ?Come on baby, if you really love me? is probably a flipping your dating status to single. Obviously being 14 was young and hormonal and therefor, but even remembering when I was that age and just old enough to grow armpit hair, that was dumb.
The next day the sheriff deputy that told this story went to the teen?s high school and did a police interrogation on him. To her horror, the kid broke his promise who shared it to a friend. She then asked the friend several times if shared it, each time saying no. Just as she was relieved that it ended to just those to the kid said he posted it online. It had been on there for 8 days.
For those of you new to the internet, most new things on the web have a bout a 3 day shelf life before people grow board and move on. Most of the time I believe its like my videos and you are lucky to get a thousand or so views?within a year. Others like Mathew Santory can make a comfortable living off of it as he can get several million views, and with each every thousand making a Dollar, a million views a video can make ten grand in add revenues.
This all said, 8 days might as well have been an eternity, and potentially with thousands of views. Given that teen sex is the widely most searched thing on the web, hundreds of thousands of potential views.
In the end the girl?s reputation was ruined as rumor began spreading around the school. As for the boys they committed a felony of distributing Child Pornography. Unlike say grand theft auto, there is no lesser sentence for this felony. You get the same label, punishments, and requirement to put it on your resume if you are 12 or 21; 14 or a 114. Part of this was the amount of financial punishments inflicted on the boy?s family. As he was a minor, his parents had to deal with the brunt of it. Between paying the court fees and several hundred thousand for the girl?s family, as the judge felt between changing schools and therapy, that was the financial worth of her suffering.
Now the boy?s family did try to counter sue the girl?s family, as because she sent him the pictures she could have easily gotten the same verdict. However, their text messages were used in evidence, and it leaned heavily towards her being pressured into this (the whole ?Come on baby, don?t you love me? garbage).
The boy?s father lost his gardening business and the family lost their only vehicle to help pay for this, and the boy now had to serve several years of jail time, which would be long enough to go to adult jail with Child Pornography Charges. When he gets out getting a higher education or a job will be difficult as what college or business will want to risk this?
This is important as let?s be honest, many people on here are minors, and many people on here have dated minors as ones or are just out of high school and doing the jailbait wait for their girlfriends or boyfriends. More importantly one just has to look at the Guy Game, an game so terrible that even when Game Informer ran its advertisements for months on end they still gave it a 1/10, earned even more infamy when one of the performers stripping for the player turned out to be 17.
Hopefully this will have helped someone dealing with the inevitable: Why isn?t my computer working question. If you have further thoughts on this subject, please add them in the comment section.
