Mar 25, 2006 10:55 AM
4721 Views
(Updated Mar 25, 2006 10:56 AM)
Eight years ago, a girl who used to infest the same Heavy Metal Chat room as yours truly and a whole bunch of others, made a huge mistake. She gave out her phone and address to the wrong person!
The payload? She was molested.
As theatrical as that sounded, it really did happen. The incident is just one testimonial to the fact that the Internet is not a safe place to be in.
Lets take a look at what transpired. Your address and phone number are two very vital pieces of information. It can be used to pinpoint where you are, leech out more information about you and also open a portal to mental and physical harassment by the millions of vermin that crawls the face of this planet. Giving out your address, phone number and other vital pieces of info, is the same as writing your name and phone number in a public toilet - It opens the floodgates and provides easy access to GRIEF.
Safety Measure 1: Protect your Privacy
You fill out scores of online forms in a day. Some of them might require the right contact information while others might only require a name and an email ID. When it's the latter, don't bother giving out your valid contact information.
Most times I put in vague addresses like: PSYXX, 6th Lane, 6th Cross, 6 Park Avenue, Never Never Land.
It works. So why bother giving out real information and getting yourself into trouble. Save the real part of you, for REAL people. The ones you have known and grown to trust.
Safety Measure 2: Leave no traces
That little folder in your machine called TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES can be a reservoir of disaster.
When you sign into a website that you have subscribed to, vital information is kept in a little text file called a COOKIE. This resides in your machine and makes it easy for you to automatically log into a site that you have previously accessed (like you sign into Mouthshut and the next time, you dont need to enter your password or anything because it stays signed).
While cookies are convenient, there is a malicious piece of code called a COOKIE GRABBER. You can trigger a cookie grabber by accidentally clicking on a link in a mail or accessing a rogue website. What the cookie grabber does is, it collects all the cookies from your machine and gives the other person, complete access to your user name, passwords and other info. Scary?? Very!!
So how do you handle it? Clear the CACHEwhenever you are done. In most browsers, this can be done by using the OPTIONS menu option in the TOOLS menu. This might slow down your progress next time, but it saves you from losing a lot of stuff or even getting harassed.
Leave no traces behind for people to get to you.
Safety Measure 3: Shielding Children
No need to emphasize on this one. There are several programs that apply a PARENTAL LOCK on your Internet facility. You can buy or download one, install it, set it to filter out all the bad websites... and voila, your children are protected from seeing sights that they shouldn't be seeing.
Safety Measure 4: Trash Rogue Mail
A good percentage of online grief comes right into your mailbox. One wrong click and you're in big trouble. There are two things you can do to minimize this:
Keep your eyes open and TRASH anything that looks suspicious. If the source is unknown, then probably the content isn't friendly either. JUST CHUCK IT!!
Turn off the PREVIEW pane in your mail client. This can again be done via a simple menu option. The PREVIEW pane reads every mail you click on and displays a preview. By doing this, it automatically runs any malicious program that might be there in the mail.
Finally, get rid of OUTLOOK EXPRESS and get another mail client. I've been using Mozilla's THUNDERBIRD and haven't had any grief.
Safety Measure 5: Know your enemies
Read and research about the viles of the internet. If you know what you are up against, you are better equipped to handle it. Prevention is often better than cure.
I'm ending this piece here. There are the usual safeguards like getting strong VIRUS PROTECTION, Backing up your data etc. Those are too generic to talk about so I'll just stop at this.
If you have any thought to add, please make full use of the COMMENTS SECTION to voice it. For now...
~finis~
