Recently PC Magazine published an article on how to stay safe on the internet. These are basic ideas but I thought worth repeating. Good advice is always worth repeating.
1. If you write into blogs, don’t use your e-mail address as your user name. Spammers and Web Crawlers love to copy these off public places and send your lots of span and ads. Don’t put your email address in any Facebook comments. Just because you have good privacy settings does not mean all your friends have good privacy settings.
2. Do not write back to spammers. Your angry note asking the to remove you from their list actually verifies your address. They can now sell your email address as confirmed and charge more money.
3. I know you are smarter than this, but do not click links from people you do not know. The bigger the prize the bigger the hoax. You always hope your anti virus software will protect you, but how lucky do you feel?
4. Do not give people your password. They may only want the password for a harmless log in. The problem is that that password may also give access to your credit card or bank account.
5. Do not do banking over public WiFi. You have no idea how secure the network is. The shop owner may be saving every bit of your info which passes through his server. The guy next to you could use Firesheep to copy your session. Only use secure networks for your finances.
These are really basic simple steps, with no guarantees, but they are a good start.
Yi Grizzell
