The internet is one of the easiest media to get your identity stolen. Everyday you can open your inbox to find emails from Paypal, Citibank, Ebay, Bank of America, etc. requesting you to go to “their website” to log in and confirm some information. When you follow the link and log in, you believe that you are logging into their website (and you are sometimes), but you are actually doing it through an identity thief’s site first. Upon logging in, you have given this person everything that they need to know to access your financial information. The worst part is, you just gave it to them!
The reason this is the topic today is because of an article I read about the Army pulling an April Fool’s Day prank offering our armed forces free tickets to theme parks. The Army has warned the troops to never give out personal information on the internet, but they wanted to test just how gullible the troops are. While the results aren’t published, I’m sure that they will show that the weakest link in information security still lies with the people using the computer.
Ways you can avoid Internet Identity Theft:
- Check your credit report regularly. By federal law, each credit agency is required to give you one free credit report every year. Sometimes checking this can mean the difference between no theft, and hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt.
- If you receive an email from “your bank” or “ebay” asking you to follow a link so you can log in and check your preferences, DO NOT FOLLOW THE LINK. Open a new browser or a new tab in your current browser. Type in the website that you normally go to (ie. for ebay, type www.ebay.com), log in, and see if there are any new announcements. If they are not, then you know that you could have been scammed.
- Run a phising filter. Both IE7 and Firefox have one. If your browser doesn’t have a phishing filter, then perhaps you need to get a new browser.
- Be cautious of any website you get a link to, even if you know the person that sent the link. This is very important. There are many viruses that will automatically send an email out to every person on the infected computer’s contact list. If you receive one of these from a friend, it could be asking you to go to a link that will install a virus without you knowing it.
- Use a spam filter. Many of these phishing email addresses are already logged as being spam, and a basic spam filter should filter them out for you. Norton has a spam filter in their Internet Security bundle, but if you don’t want to pay lots of cash for big spam filter, you can always download an open source one for free (these will generally take more technical skill to implement correctly. One can be found at http://popfile.sourceforge.net/)
- Never give out your personal information to ANYONE that you don’t know is who they say they are. If Dell customer support calls you and asks you to give your Social Security number to access your account, even if you have an account, don’t do it. Either tell them that you will call back at the number you found on the internet, or ask them to find a different way to access your account, and make them verify information to you (not items of public knowledge like address or phone number).
- If a “federal agency” requests information, ask if you can call them back, look up that department’s number on the internet and when they request your SSN, force them to cite the law which gives them authority to request that knowledge (they are required to upon request per US Privacy Act of 19).
Just remember, your identity is only as secure as you keep it. Just say no.
When the network administrator at a small private school in Alabama suddenly left his job, the school was aching for a network/computer support administrator. Why not look in the direction of your own students?
Jon Penn, son of an employee of the school, was just a sixth grader known for being a wiz at computers. When the school was in desperate need of a computer technician, they asked him if he could look at the network. He did. He found many projects geared to reducing the costs for schools, and rather than spending the tens of thousands that some companies spend on network administration, he spent barely over two thousand to get the school up to date.
Ever get frustrated that you couldn’t find exactly what you need on Google. Sure, Google knows everything but sometimes it doesn’t want to tell you. Well, many companies have realized this and decided to take a more human approach to the internet. They are “curating” Google’s index, as in, they are trying to find the relevant information for some popular topics to make it easier for you to find.
If you are like me, and have been looking for an inexpensive, easy, and non-invasive way to sync your Google calendar with your Outlook calendar, then today is your lucky day.
I logged into my Google Calendar account today to find that that they added a link at the top that says “Sync with Microsoft Outlook Calendar”
I have tried it, and it works great.
Yesterday, Apple’s Software Development Kit (SDK) was released to developers who want to develop software for the IPhone. With the announcement, they also added that any software for the IPhone would either be downloaded through the App Store, which resembles the Music Store already on the IPhones, and the ITunes Store.
While I would argue that the IPhone is an amazing tool, I hold that if you want control of what goes on it, how it’s used, or how to customize it, you should probably go with a different phone, since Apple’s idea of customizing the IPhone is giving owners the ability to move buttons. Otherwise, it’s amazing for basic users.
A freshman at Ryerson University in Ontario is awaiting his committee meeting to discuss a possible expulsion for… brace yourself… using Facebook to run an online study group. This group had 147 members (including himself), and he is being charged 146 charges of academic misconduct (one for every student but himself).
So, what’s the problem here? I believe that it is a failure on the part of the University to adapt to new technological trends. Instead of students sitting in the basement of the library discussing problems, they can do it over the internet.
If this type of response picks up, then students in all levels will need to be more careful. Whenever a person posts something on the internet, it is there in stone. There is no such thing as permanently deleting something anymore.
One of the newest additions to the Google software list is Google Streets. This is an addition to Google Maps that actually lets you go down to street view to see the surrounding area.
This will help all those people who are direction handicapped by adding landmarks to the list.
Check it out (when you get to the maps home page, click the “Street View” button to see where it’s available)
Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple computers, recently spoke in Australia, and had less that favorable opinions about Apple’s IPhone, Macbook Air, and Apple TV.
Some of the criticisms are the lack of the G3 broadband network on the Iphone, the lack of a DVD drive and ethernet port on the Macbook Air, and the 24 hour restriction to watch movies rented on the Apple TV system.
Are these things going to be resolved? There is currently no promise of any of these being changed, but if Wozniak is complaining about them, then there is a good chance that changes will be made in the future.
Ubuntu has created a website called Brainstorm which offers users a venue for requesting new changes/features, and also voting on other users’ ideas. This tool will help both the development community and the programmers at Ubuntu design and implement the features that users actually want instead of constantly being two steps behind Microsoft and Apple.
Surprising nearly every tech in the industry, Microsoft has announced that they will be lowering the price of Vista in 70 countries. This is the first time that Microsoft has done this. The reductions in the prices will be highest in developing countries where piracy rates are the highest. The US will see minimal rate reductions in the upgrade versions of the Ultimate and Home Premium versions of Vista.
Unfortunately OEM’s and full versions are unaffected in America.
