Why You Need to Protect Your Privacy and Identity

Most people now days store all their valuable information on their home (or work) computers. Letters, emails, medical information, passwords, banking details, photo’s your kids info...

Everything you do online is traceable, and gets tracked! You have no idea how much information about yourself is out there. Every page you visit, every email you send, every comment posted online, all of it is stored by the search engines and your service providers and are accessible from anyone who asks. [OK, not that bad, but anyone with the right ‘resources’ available to them – Richard]

All this would enable an 'e-criminal', sexual predator and worse to target you, your partner, your kids.

How to protect your privacy and identity

First things first. For the absolute beginner (like me) the first sign that we look for to make sure we are browsing safely is to check the web address. Any site that requests info from you should start with https:// and should have a little padlock in the browser status bar. Now, just so you know, just because you see the extra s in the address and the lock doesn’t mean that you are safe.

Beginners terminology:

• Malware: Short for "malicious software". Resides and runs on a user's computer without their consent or knowledge. Malware can be used as an all-inclusive term for viruses, spyware, keyloggers, worms, and Trojan horses, and other Internet threats.
• Spyware: A type of malware that collects information about users, including personal information and habits (sites they visited). It can also trigger popups and install additional malware.
• Virus: A type of malware that can replicate itself and infect other computers through a network or media (such as a flash drive). Viruses can do multiple harmful things to a user's computer, such as taking it over and using it for malicious purposes.

Make sure you have a good anti virus installed, and update it regularly. AVG is a free download and it’s highly effective too. I myself, with no help from the uber-techie (Richard) managed to install it. So you should have no problem either. Run a full scan at least once a month. More often if you are an active surfer. [Actually, just let it run its own scans. By default it runs on every Wednesday at noon. Also, it installs a nice toolbar that'll advise you on a site's security - Richard]

[Then, there's a beautiful piece of software named Spybot. Normal anti-virus doesn't always check for the millions of different types of non-virus categorised malware. Spybot checks for over a million different exploits. You'd be amazed what you find when you run it - Richard]

Think before you click... do you trust the site? Does it have contact details for the company? Call the number/s provided. If you can get through to someone, it’s a good start. Don’t download just anything! Spyware, Malware and Viruses can be hidden in anything... pdf [even through there's only been one exploit to date - Richard], Excel, Word, [screensavers, toolbars, freeware - Richard] ... nothing is sacred or safe.

Emails, texts messages with attachments, that file you want from the internet... if you don’t know and trust the source, leave it! Go look somewhere else (for example: ITPiMP Network, of which Make Money Online is a part – check it out, we have tons of resources). Criminals are also able to hack into your friends email address, and send you malware from a ‘trusted’ course.

Surf Safely. Keep your passwords and identity safe. With all these social networking sites it is easy to feel that you are anonymous and do or say things you would not normally say. This can be seen by a lot more than just your friends... your future teachers, lecturers, employers. No matter what your security settings are. Your photos, rantings, funny little game thingys (Cafe ville, farm world... you know what I’m talking about) all are as public as if you were shouting it at full volume in the middle of a popular mall on payday weekend.

[Careful what you post on social networks. There are many recorded incidents where people have been fired due to their online activity - Richard]

When accessing sites where you need to log in, resist the urge to allow the site to remember your user name and password. All this means is that any one using your computer will be able to access those sites too. Use strong passwords, and rotate [change - Richard] them frequently. A strong password contains letters in no particular order (would be hackers have programmes that use all the words in the dictionary) and preferably is mixed with numbers too. [And a combination of upper and lower case - Richard]

Go here for more info

I cannot say it better than the following sites:

An article by Chris Pirillo(that I will not quote, yes call me a prude – you’ll see why...) that has some excellent advice and should be followed religiously too! Click here to get to it. It is just two simple steps.

It is a good idea to visit the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) who dedicate their time to fighting for our online rights.

Get Safe Online provides wonderful, simple pointers. It is worth going over to their site, reading this article and following their other links. Once you have gone through all of their links you will be

On Guard Online has a MUST READ for all parents (young kids, tweens and teens). It’s a PDF on talking to your kid about on line safety. Heck, you might learn a trick or two yourself:

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