EMPOWERMENT TECHNOLOGIES LESSON 2: RULES OF NETIQUETTE ONLINE SAFETY AND SECURITY
The Internet, truly, is a powerful powerf ul tool. It can be used to promote your business, busine ss, gain new friends, and stay in touch with the old ones. It is also a source of entertainment through games, online communities, and everything in between. But like most things in this world, there is always the “other side of the coin.” The Internet is one of the most dangerous places especially if you do not know what you are doing with it. But there is no need to worry; it is never that late. “How Safe Are You?” 1.
Type of Information First Name
2.
Last Name
3.
Middle Name
4.
Current and previous school(s) Your cellphone number
5.
6.
The name of your mother and father
7.
The name of your siblings Your address
8.
9.
Your home phone number
10. Your birthday
Risks There is a risk in sharing your first name. Chances are, a hacker may already know plenty of stuff about you even if you only give out your first name. Likewise, you cannot just walk in a room and start introducing yourself to everyone. You do not know whom you can come across with. If sharing your first name is a small risk, having both your first and last is more risky. You will be vulnerable to being searched for using search engines, which include image search. Matching a name with a face is a modus to several cybercrimes like identity theft. Sharing your middle name alone is probably not the most risky of these shared information, but sharing your full name would be. Most people who steal identities study their subject. They can use this information for verification purposes. Your cellphone number should never be posted over the Internet. The internet is a public place. It is the same as posting your number on a billboard. You would now want random strangers to text or call you, or worse, pretend that they are someone else. Risky, yet not as risky as posting their full names, especially your mother’s maiden name. In fact, you may have already encountered many websites that require your mother’s maiden name as an answe r to a secret question whenever you lose your password. Disclosing this is a huge risk. Strangers may pretend or use their identity to dupe you. Hopefully, you answered “no” to this one. Giving the Internet your num ber is one thing; giving them your address is a whole other level. It would be much easier for criminals to find you. This shared information is more risky than sharing your personal phone number. Scams usually use this information to deceive you, one of which is when a stranger pretends to know your parents or pretends to be you. Letting people know your birthday is probably a must if you want to get as many gifts as possible. But having it in your profile makes you vulnerable to identity theft.;
The Internet is defined as the information superhighway . This means that anyone has access to this highway, can place information, and can grab that information. Any information, even things that have set privately, can be accessed one way or another. This is why social networking sites like Facebook continue to improve their security
features. The threat of cybercrime is very real. While you may not experience the threat now, whatever information we share today could affect our future.
TIPS TO STAY SAFE ONLINE
The Internet is a public place and it is up to you to protect yourself. Here are some tips to help you stay safe when using the Internet. 1. Be mindful of what you share online and what site you share it to. 2. Do not just accept terms and conditions; read it. 3. Check out the privacy policy page of a website to learn how the website handles the information you share. 4. Know the security features of the social networking site you use. By keeping your profile private, search engines will not be able to scan your profile. 5. Do not share your password with anyone. 6. Avoid logging in to public networks/Wi- Fi. Browsing in “incognito (or private) mode,” a feature of the browser, will not protect you from hackers. 7. Do not talk to strangers whether online or face-to-face. 8. Never post anything about a future vacation. It is sim ilar to posting, “Rob my house at this date.” 9. Add friends you know in real life. 10. Avoid visiting untrusted websites. 11. Install and update an antivirus software on your computer. Use only one anti-virus software to avoid conflict. 12. If you have a Wi-Fi at home, make it a private network by adding a password. 13. Avoid downloading anything from untrusted websites. You are most vulnerable in peer-to-peer downloads (torrents) as the download is most likely not monitored by the site owner. 14. Buy the software; do not use pirated ones. 15. Do not reply or click links from suspicious emails. Most people would dispute that there is no such thing as private over the internet and they may be right. There are hackers who can find a backdoor ever if your profile is already set to private. You have no control of whoever is looking at your friend’s screen whenever they open your profile or chat with you. You have no control over people getting access to your friend’s account and seeing your private stuff.
INTERNET THREATS
Here are some of the threats you should be aware of when using the Internet: 1. Malware – stands for malicious software
a. Virus – a malicious program designed to replicate itself and transfer from one computer to another either through the Internet and local networks or data storage like flash drives and CDs b. Worm – a malicious program that transfers from one computer to another by any type of means. Often, it uses a computer network to spread itself. For example, the ILOVEYOU worm (Love Bug Worm) created by a Filipino. c. Trojan – a malicious program that is disguised as a useful program but once downloaded or installed, leaves your PC unprotected and allow hackers to get your information. *Rogue security software – tricks the user into posing that it is a security software. It asks the user to pay to improve his/her security but in reality, they are not protected at all. d. Spyware – a program than runs in the background without you knowing it (thus called “spy”). It has the ability to monitor what you are currently doing and typing through keylogging. *Keyloggers – used to record keystroke done by the users. This is done to steal their password or any other sensitive information. It can record email, messages, or any information you type using your keyboard. e. Adware – a program designed to send you advertisements, mostly as pop-ups 2. Spam – unwanted email mostly from bots or advertisers. It can be used to send malware. 3. Phishing – its goal is to acquire sensitive personal information like passwords and credit card details. This is done by sending you an email that will direct the user to visit a website and be asked to update his/her username, password, credit card, or personal information. *Pharming – a more complicated way of phishing where it exploits the DNS (Domain Name Service) system.
PROTECTING REPUTATIONS ONLINE
In the past, doing something embarrassing was not much of a big deal. It happened; people would laugh at it, and they would move on. Nowadays, embarrassing moments are captured using any device you could imagine. What is worse is that people can easily upload it to the Internet, where it can be stored forever. This could impact not only your reputation but also the people around you. What is worse is that people tend to ignore this fact, and suffer from it later in their life. Once you post something over the Internet, search engines keep them in their archives for search results. This makes anything you post to last forever even if you delete it in your page. Something you and your friends find funny today may be something that could harm someone’s reputation later.
Before hiring, companies do a background check on the application, and the easiest way to check your background is to visit pages that are related to you. Thus, if they find disreputable information about you, it may harm your reputation even if this information has been discarded.
THINK BEFORE YOU CLICK
Here are things you might want to consider before posting something over the Internet: 1. Before you post something on the web, ask these questions to yourself: Would you want your parents or grandparents to see it? Would you want your future boss to see it? Once you post something on the web, you have no control of who sees your posts. 2. Your friends depend on you to protect their reputation online. Talk to your friends about this serious responsibility. 3. Set you post to “private.” In this way, search engines will not be able to scan that post. 4. Avoid using names. Names are easy for search engines to scan. 5. If you feel that a post can affect you or other’s reputation, ask the one who posted it to pull it down or report it as inappropriate.
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT
If you create something —an idea, an invention, a form of literacy work, or a research, you have the right as to how it should be used by others. This is called intellectual property . In other words, the copyright law includes your rights over your work, and anyone who uses it without you consent is punishable by law. Try grabbing any book then browse its first few pages and you will find a page with a disclaimer with the words: “No part of this book may be copied, reproduced…” That is a copyright page. As a responsible user of the Internet, you have to consider that not everything out there is free for you to use. Just like your own, contents that you see from websites have their respective copyrights. There are several instances where employees or business owners face copyright infringement and are sentenced to a huge fine due to reckless copying of materials. Here are some tips that could help you avoid copyright infringement: 1. Understand. Copyright protects literary works, photographs, painting, drawings, films, music (and lyrics), choreography, and sculptures, but it generally does NOT
protect underlying ideas and facts. This means that you can express something using your own words, but you should give credit to the source. 2. Be responsible. Even if a material does not say that it is copyrighted, it is not a valid defense against copyright. Be responsible enough to know if something has a copyright. 3. Be creative. Ask yourself whether what you are making is something that came from you or something made fr om somebody else’s creativity. It is important to add your own creative genius in everything that will be credited to you. 4. Know the law . There are some limitations to copyright laws. For instance in the Philippines, copyrights only last a lifetime (of the author) plus 50 years. There are also provisions for “fair use” which mean that an intellectual property may be used without a consent as long as it is used in commentaries, criticisms, search engines, parodies, news reports, research, library archiving, teaching, and education. If you have doubts that what you are doing does not fall under the policy of fair use, seek permission first. Another misconception is that fan-fiction is not copyright infringement. In reality, it is and some copyright holders ignore them but they can opt to use their rights.
ONLINE RESEARCH
Have you ever search the Internet for certain information where the search engine returned a different result? For example, if you were to search for “The Madonna” as the representation of Mary in the form of an art, you would probably use the keyword “Madonna” to search for it on the net. But if you use the same keyword nowadays, you are more likely to stumble upon “Madonna,” the artist instead. And if you used “The Madonna” to search for “The Madonna” in the first place, you will be directed in the right place. The information that we need is more likely already in the Internet. It is just a matter of how to look for it and how to use information from the most credible source. Here are some tips in conducting online research. 1. Have a question in mind . Focus on a question you want answered. If it is a series of questions, start with one. Never search everything on one go. 2. Narrow it down. Search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo use several filter s to determine the most appropriate result for you. These search engines use your previous search history and your geographical location, and send you the result which is the most related to you. Try to search “weather” and most search engines would return the weather conditions of where you are. But if all of the se filters fail, you should remember to narrow down what you are searching for.
For example, if you where to look for Tom Sawyer, the animation series, you would better use the keywords “Tom Sawyer animation” rather than just “Tom Sawyer.” Another example is if you were to look for science research experiments, it would be better to include what branch of science is it or what type of study it is. 3. Advance Search. The best way to filter information you get from search engines, is by using the advanced search. This will allow you to filter out information you do not need. 4. Look for a credible source. Some wikis, though filled with updated information, are not a credible source. This is due to the fact that anyone can edit its content. When using wikis, check out the link of the cited text (indicated by superscript number) to be navigated to the footnote where the list of sources is located. Click the source of the information and see if it is credible. The more credible sources are scientific, journals, established news and magazine websites, online encyclopedia, and scholarly databases. You can also check the URL of a website if it ends with a .org, .gov, and .edu. A website that ends with .com is intended to be a commercial websites and may be slanted to promoting a product or service. You should consider the intent of the information on the web page. In most cases, .edu websites are best for research as government and organization websites may have a tendency to make information favorable for them. Unfortunately, not all websites follow the standards in domain name conventions. Some sites use the suffixes like .com loosely; some sites are not credible even though they use a .edu suffix. Another tip to validate if the information is correct is to have multiple sources of information. Having two or more websites will you whether the information is reliable or not. 5. Give credit. If you are going to use the information from a source for educational purposes, give credit to the original author of the page or information. To properly cite a reference, you may use the format below: Name of the person or organization (the author of the information). Title of the home page in italics (title is shown in title bar but is sometimes missing or unrelated). URL. Date last seen.
Source: RBS Empowerment Technologies, First Edition ::: For class reference only. NOT FOR D ISTRIBUTION :::
