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6 easy tricks to keep protect yourself from identity theft

1. Be extra vigilant with your social security number.

Don’t give out your social security number unless it’s absolutely essential, and reduce the risk of misplacing your card by not carrying it around. Only offer up the numbers when 100% necessary. With access to your social security, an identity thief can cause a lot of financial trouble.

2. Shred all your papers.

Junk mail, bank statements and store ads all reveal different bits of information about your life. Piecing together your paper trail can disclose more than you’d imagine, so make it a common practice in your life to shred any papers that have your name, address, email, phone number or other sensitive personal information.

3. Stay on top of your passwords.

Those with online accounts should regularly change their passwords, in addition to making sure passwords are different for each site and opting for multi-factor authentication whenever possible. Equally important is ensuring passwords are unique and complex by using random combinations of letters, numbers and characters. Consider using a password manager to remember and create passwords.  

4. Dispose of gadgets properly.

Your laptops, computers, tablets and mobile devices contain a lot of personal information, so it is important to wipe them clean before discarding them. According to the Federal Trade Commission, people should overwrite, delete or physically destroy their hard drive prior to disposal. Similarly, personal information on mobile phones should be deleted before devices are discarded.

5. Check your social media privacy settings.

If you’re active on social media and not wary of your privacy settings, then you can accidentally give out more information than you realize. Check all your social media platforms — including those you are no longer active on — to see what information you have shared, who can see them and if you have any strangers in your direct circle. Depending on how private your account is, consider keeping things like addresses and birth dates off of social media.

6. Secure your internet and Wi-Fi.

The FTC recommends securing your wireless network at home and making sure information on your network is encrypted. This step scrambles information so hackers can’t get a front-row seat of what’s going on in your network. When in public, make sure you’re connecting to secure and encrypted Wi-Fi networks. It’s also a good habit to not do any financial transactions while on a public network. Read more

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KEEP YOURSELF SAFE ONLINE! You see how easy it is for hackers to hack?! Take the extra steps and precautions to protect yourself and your rights on the internet. 

How to Protect Yourself Against Heartbleed, the Internet’s Latest Big Security Breach

Heartbleed is on a rampage, affecting users’ passwords for thousands of websites. Here’s how you can fight back.

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Personally....I watch movies online all the time. But is it really that risky to our computers? Are hackers really just sitting there, waiting and watching for us to slip up? If they access our computers, they can access our whole lives. It’s just something to think about.. something as simple as watching a movie could potentially ruin your life. 

Be careful — hackers are hiding viruses in online movie subtitles

Security research firm Check Point revealed a new exploit on Tuesday that affects several media players.

The vulnerability allows a hacker to infect your device and gain full control through through subtitles.

The exploit, which puts 200 million users at risk, impacts video players and streamers like Popcorn Time, Kodi, Stremio and VLC.

Here’s how it works: malformed subtitle files allow hackers to embed code into the subtitle files in popular pirated movies and TV shows.

Subtitles are a non-suspecting source for hacks. When a user utilizes them, the malware is dumped on their desktop and the attacker is notified.

Once they have control over a device — PC, smart TV or smartphone — the hacker can do whatever they want, from stealing information to installing ransomware. Read more (5/25/17)

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Whoaaaaaa.....what? Dolls recording us now? What in the world could be next. Something like this seems next level insane. What would you do if you found out something in your house was recording you? Who was listening? Why were they listening? What were they listening for? ERRIE right?! I think most people agree this is a little too much, and that we deserve much better than (pardon my language) some creepy shit like this! No thank you!

Post you thoughts about this on my message board in the top left corner of my blog!

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Ways we can stop the NSA from watching us? I don’t know about anyone else in this class but I’m in. This is a very informative article that shows it’s audiences how to be safer and more secure. 

Documents reveal the privacy tools that the NSA hates

In 2014, thanks to leaks from NSA contractor Edward Snowden, many Americans became aware for the first time of how little privacy they have from the Federal government.  The NSA sucks up virtually every email, text message, phone call, chat, and image sent from computers and cell phones, but there are measures you can take to defend your privacy. 

from Engadget:

It’s tempting to imagine that few online safeguards will stop NSA surveillance in its tracks, but that’s not true. A new leak from Edward Snowden’s files reveals that there’s a surprising number of ways to thwart these snoops, at least as of 2012. While you may already know that the NSA sees Tor’s anonymity network as a problem, it hates the heavy encryption on chat protocols like CSpace or Off-the-Record, internet calling systems like ZRTP or highly secure email systems like Zoho. Use two or more of these services in tandem and you may as well disappear completely – the NSA considers the combination a “near-total loss.”

So what are the easy pickings, then? For the most part, it’s relatively simple web encryption, such as what you get at loosely-protected chat and webmail sites. And while this is no longer a shocking revelation, many ostensibly secure virtual private networks aren’t that hard to crack. The good news is that the internet is getting more secure. Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others have all introduced greater levels of encryption, so it’s less likely that surveillance agents will casually scoop up your conversations.

read the rest

The thing about the major tech companies like Google and Yahoo is that they scoop up all of your information on their own. They also have “back doors” that give access to government agencies when called upon. 

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The Republican bill allowing internet providers to track our browsing habits is difficult to understand. I assume it made more sense in the original Russian.

George Takei (via resistdrumpf)

People are bringing up the original Russia to describe our internet policies right now....yikes... do you think that the government should be able to track our browsing so easily? Do you agree with what they are doing? If you agree, don’t you think that it’s a little bit weird that they are watching you basically all the time while you’re online, seeing how you shop your spending habits your personal information? Just something to think about. 

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So according to Republicans who voted yesterday: Trump’s taxes need privacy protection but your internet privacy doesn’t. Right. Got it.

(via resistdrumpf)

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And they can steal your address book

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As you can see, even with the patriotic act the NSA can ‘spy’ on Americans. Is that fair? Is that right? 

FRONTLINE: With or Without the Patriot Act, Here’s How the NSA Can Still Spy on Americans

While it may only be temporary, the National Security Agency on Monday lost its authority to collect Americans’ phone records in bulk after the Senate failed to extend provisions of the Patriot Act authorizing the controversial domestic surveillance program.

But these Patriot Act provisions represent just one component of the NSA surveillance capabilities exposed in 2013 by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

Under an entirely separate law, the 2008 FISA Amendments Act, the government still has the authority to access the communications of users of popular Internet sites such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. Section 702 of the law, which does not expire until 2017, gives the government the ability to collect the content of an Internet user’s actual communications — not just metadata.

An even older and more obscure Reagan-era law, Executive Order No. 12333, provides U.S. intelligence with nearly identical surveillance capabilities to intercept overseas communications.

Also unaffected by the sunset of Section 215 is the use of National Security Letters, which since 9/11 have helped to dramatically expand the government’s ability to collect information about Americans directly from phone companies and Internet providers. Any FBI office can issue one, without a court’s review and with a gag order. In the past 10 years, more than 300,000 National Security Letters have been issued, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and until 2013, no major Internet or phone company is known to have questioned the constitutionality of one.

To learn more, check out recent FRONTLINE doc United States of Secrets. 

The two-part documentary follows how the U.S. government came to monitor and collect the communications of millions of people around the world — and here at home — and the lengths to which officials tried hide the massive surveillance from the public.

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Are you guys aware of things like this? Are we as americans being well informed? Personally I think no, and I think it is wrong for so much of our private internet life to become public? Any thoughts from classmates?

The Senate and Congress have voted to repeal our internet privacy, allowing cable companies to sell off your sensitive information to whoever wants to buy them. Before, they would ask for your permission to do so, now, with this repeal, these companies WILL sell:

• Your name • Your address • Your IP address • Your current subscription level  • Geographic location • Children’s information • Health information • Financial information • Social Security numbers • Web browsing history • App usage history • The content of communications 

Now it’s in Trumps hands to sign that bill into law (which we know he will do). Funny how these politicians, who were easily brought, forget that they’re not immune to their own laws…

Bonus:

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How often are we being watched?

The answer: always. Literally. People love free things, and that ties into how we are being surveyed believe it or not. FOr instance, rewards programs get you free things sometimes, but they also let that company be able to see your shopping and spending habits. See what I mean? We are being watched constantly, and personally I think that is creepy. The article attached also states that when they asked people what they thought of things like this, many people stated the word ‘creepy’ too. It really makes you wonder who is watching you at this very moment? The big thing this article says as well is that a majority of people think that they need more protection and privacy, but they feel as though there is nothing they can do about it, it is simply out of their hands. 

Read more here to see about how people are taking action to inscrease their internet privacy: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/01/the-convenience-surveillance-tradeoff/423891/

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RULES FOR LIVING YOUR LIFE SURROUNDED BY INTERNET

1. Assume everything you do and say will be made public.

2. Do not be seduced by privacy settings and passwords, which are temporary illusions that distract from the reality of the previous point.

3. Understand that context and data are often one in the same. When you enter information on the internet, assume that you include the who (you), the what (the data), the when (the time of data input), the where (the site on which the data is being placed), the how (the device on which you input the data), and the why (the purpose of the site).

4. Believe that all of your credit card transactions are being kept in a colossal, searchable ledger that one day will be made available for all to study.

5. Believe that data does not disappear when you delete it.

You’re welcome.

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So clearly not everyone was happy with the results of this presidential election, and now President Trump is making huge decisions about our lives and our privacy that could change a lot of what we think as social norms. Do you think he is changing too much internet privacy rules? Or do you agree with him? Let me know your thoughts!

President Trump is expected to sign into law a decision by Congress to overturn new privacy rules for Internet service providers.

Passed by the Federal Communications Commission in October, the rules never went into effect. If they had, it would have given consumers more control over how ISPs use the data they collect.

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Could this really be true? Would you invest in something like this? 

For $50, this tiny box will keep everything you do online anonymous

From National Security Agency spying to governments blocking portions of the Internet in times of unrest, recent controversies have demonstrated just how little freedom we actually have online

But what if there were a way to stay hidden 24/7 on the Internet, free from detection and censorship?

Meet this new Kickstarter project, anonabox | Follow micdotcom