Internet and Your Privacy
So, I just had my birthday this past weekend. While I was enjoying my birthday early in the morning my SMART phone started going off like crazy. By the end of the day, I had 3 pages of Facebook birthday wishes. I was totally happy! Sure most of them only said, Happy Birthday. But it was the fact that so many of my Facebook friends took those 10 seconds and thought of me. It is that very feeling that puts our privacy at risk. I mean honestly you know that when someone posts on your wall that their friends see that information as well. That means, you take 3 pages of people that posted Happy Birthday on my wall that now know my birthday is April 2nd AND they may also know that I turned 29 again (thats a joke!). Then take that number times the number of friends they have. Oh my, there are over 4500 people that know when my birthday is. Anyways, my point is that, as the social networks out there strip us of the personal data that so many of us grasp on to, what choices are you making? The only way to be safe is to know what information you are giving away online. Facebook is famous for just giving away your privacy and then having you opt out if you dont want it just given out. A few months ago, Facebook was going to give all of your contact information to the software developers unless you opted out. Luckily a lot of the user base caught wind of this and it became an issue so Facebook stopped. Mobile phones are another issue. Many of the new phones have GPS. If you are a user of FourSquare or Facebook Checkin, then you let your friends know where you are when you go places. Sounds fun right?! Well the establishments want to know this information so that they can market to you directly. Imagine this, you check in to your local Publix or Bi-Lo and then you get a text message with a link of all the specials at the store. Heck it even tracks what you bought last time and make suggestions of things you may be out of. This sounds neat, right? I mean you forgot that you were out of milk and eggs so it reminds you. This is that feeling I was talking about earlier. It seems like a good idea but think about what you have to give up. You have to give them your cell phone number, email address, shopping habits and birthday. Wow, give me what time you get home and when you go to work, then it would be a stocker app but wait I have GPS so I know that too!
I am not trying to be a fuddy duddy, but I am sure you get my point. As all of these really convenient things come out, I want you to think of what you have to give up. If you hate junk mail and junk email think of junk text messages and pop ups on your phones!!!!
HTTPS for Facebook
Facebook just rolled out https:...I would highly suggest everyone switch over to this. Especially if you are using Facebook over unsecure WiFi networks.
1.Login to your Facebook account.
2.On the upper-right side of your profile, click the Account link.
3.From the drop down menu, select Account Settings.
4.Under Account Security, click the Change link.
5.You should be now able to see the Account Security Section.
6.Tick the Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible checkbox.
7.Click Save.
8.Next time you will login to your Facebook profile you should get the secure SSL webpage. To check if you have got such security page, simply have a look the your browser Web address field. If the Facebook webpage contains HTTPS your connection will be secure!
As opposed to HTTP URLs that begin with "http://" and use port 80 by default, HTTPS URLs begin with "https://" and use port 443 by default. HTTP is unsecured and is subject to man-in-the-middle and eavesdropping attacks, which can let attackers gain access to website accounts and sensitive information. HTTPS is designed to withstand such attacks and is considered secure against such attacks (with the exception of older deprecated versions of SSL).
HTTPS connections are often used for payment transactions on the World Wide Web and for sensitive transactions in corporate information systems.