Ways to protect yourself online
I was just browsing through Digg and came across an article called Ungoogle Yourself. Because social networking sites are increasing in popularity, reputations and behavior on the internet is no longer anonymous. A lot of students get into the problem of posting pictures of themselves on their Facebook or Myspace that they wouldn’t want anyone but their friends to see. Such pictures would include them partying, holding a beer, smoking a pipe, sucking a dick, you get the picture. But with the power of Google, your new boss can find you, or worse, your mom can find you.
Teachers are getting to where they lecture their students, particularly college students, about what they post on their Myspace or Facebook accounts. Now, there’s not as much of a problem for people who are like me and have been designing websites for years. We know how to keep our online and offline lives separated because we’ve been dreading our “IRL” friends from finding our blogs and finding out about the real us.
Make an alias. It can be the Japanese word for spring or it can be an actual name you’ve always wanted to have.
If you decide you don’t want to use an alias, don’t use your last name.
If you really want to use your last name, don’t post embarrassing photos or stories because they will be found.
When posting photos, don’t post anything where you’re doing something illegal or something you wouldn’t want to show your boss, mother, daughter, etc.
Avoid drama. Can’t stress this enough. Don’t get in a flame war with some idiot and have nasty comments back and forth on each other’s websites. That’s just more search results linking to your stupidity.
Add a privacy feature. This isn’t full proof, especially for websites you don’t own, but it helps. If it is your blog, password protect any posts you might not want everyone to see. Safeguard the password and give it to people you trust.
Always safeguard any credit card information. Don’t submit anything on an insecure website that you don’t know.
Free programs to help
- AVG (Windows)
- Clam Xav (Mac OS X)
- Comodo Firewall (Windows)
- Air Defense wireless hot spot protection (Windows)
- Sandboxie browser protection (Windows)
Mac OS X and Vista both have nice firewall software built into their operating systems. Vista’s is a little over the top, but once you disable the user account feature (where it asks permission to do anything), the firewall is quite nice. Apple’s firewall is just fine, no necessary changes.
This page was last modified on November 16, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
6 Responses
My parents don’t allow me to give out any personal information or post pictures on the web, so it looks like I’m safe on that note =P. Although, even if I were allowed to, I still don’t think I would. Maybe a myspace pic or something, but nothing embarrassing or life scarring. Very nice entry, I hope it reaches the people who need to hear it the most.
I think to people in the blogosphere, those types of things should be second nature, but there are some people who insist on posting graphic pictures or starting unneeded drama. That is an interesting think you found, though.
Has anyone heard about Capazoo.com? I read something about it online… its founders are these two brothers Michel Verville and Luc Verville.
I just visited that site and it doesn’t really have too much information about what it’s going to be. It just says, “World’s Ultimate Social Life Network and Entertainment Site,” will go live the week of Sept. 16.
Not sure if it will live up to that slogan or not.
I remember someone mentioning how they were declined for a job based on something someone found online.
I found something online about that person, well, a person with the same name. It was bad stuff, too. However, it was just someone else with the same name.
Sep 13, 2007