| A
age
41-50,
writes: I'm still shocked and surprized far too often by the number of people who have been stalked, harassed or "hacked" online when all they have to do is implement some very easy safety procedures.It is a known fact well over 90% of people who claim to have been hacked, have not, they either clicked a bad link or their passwords and security measures were so inadequate that people were just able to access their stuff by using the information that is freely available online, information they themselves have put online, they simply put 2 and 2 together.I'll start off with a little story. You know all those tales you hear of people having their Facebook accounts hacked. Not Frape but when someone has truly taken over a persons page and changed their passwords? Well that's incredibly easy to do for the majority of people. I did it recently to a girl who decided she was going to bully my girlfriend online and spread rumours about her. Obviously I wasn't going to stand for that, so I gave her three warnings and when she tried to use those warnings against me (posted them online and tried to make me look like the bad guy) I locked her out of her entire online presence, all her accounts, Twitter, Facebook etc. Trust me she was vicious to my girlfriend and what I did is not illegal here in Ireland as I didn't damage, change or steal (requires storing it) any of her data so there was no criminal act, I also didn't use any software nor hack any of her accounts. I will return her accounts to her once I deem the time is right. Note: I didn't do anything other than lock her out (changed all her passwords), messing with her accounts is not my goal but as you can imagine I could make her life a living hell with this kind of access.I told you that story to illustrate a point, while you may find my actions morally reprehensible (I agree they were) my point is just like her, most of you would very easily be caught out by the same thing. So I'm going to give you a list of guidelines to ensure nothing like this ever happens to you.1. First things first. Open up a word document. Type your name into google and do a search. Open up all pages that have your name and details, all your accounts basically, even the ones where you are using a username. Do a google search of your email address too. Twitter, facebook, gmail. It's better if you do this on a computer that's not yours so that you're not logged in. The idea here is to write up all the details that are freely available into the word document. You'll be very surprized how much information you can gain on yourself by just doing a google search and putting all the data into one place. Name, address, age, schools, current job, current location, what you look like, your friends and a very good indication of what you do from day to day, where you go and with whom. From your friends/families/schools/colleges/jobs profiles even more information can be gotten about you. Think these details are innocuous? Think again.2. After you have done this self investigation decide what you do and do not want online and start reviewing your privacy settings on all these sites. Set your Facebook to maximum privacy etc, do this across the board. Delete unused accounts, bebo, etc. and other stuff, they're too easily forgotten and what's on them can be forgotten too.3. This may seem a no-brainer but the most popular passwords are still 123456, qwertyuiop and abcdefgh. Make your passwords all minimum 12 digits. Make them a combination of upper/lower case, numbers and symbols. The easiest way to make a password like this is put a word in but spread it out. I'll use the word 'flirt' as an example: 4$Fl"i43R*t This password is virtually impossible to guess or hack even with software.All the passwords to all your accounts must be different, to make it easier to remember just make them variations of the above. So maybe change the word in each different account to another word. For example your gmail may be the password above but your facebook would be 5$Ch"e53A*pThat way you only have one basic template to remember and just a different set of words. This also means you can write down your passwords as the word you use if you like and it would still be impossible for anyone to hack.IMPORTANT: Your security question must be one of these passwords, make it the same password as your actual password. The idea of a security question is to make it easy to access your account should you forget your password, (but most of us rarely need it do we?) but it also makes it very easy to gain access. Remember your google search? I bet if you look hard enough the answer to your security question is among the information you gained during that. Your place of birth is probably freely available on Facebook for example so if that's your security question it wouldn't take too long to gain access to your account. Remember just because you didn't find the answer to your security question online doesn't mean it's safe, it means you either haven't found it or you may well put that info up in the future without thinking. Make your answer a password.Change all your passwords once every 6 months. You can use the same words but change all the symbols and numbers around them. It takes a bit of getting used to but it's almost 100% fool proof against all but the most competent of hacker groups. Even Anonymous would have a very hard time hacking you, the time it would take would make it something not worth doing.Antivirus: Always on and always up to date, there are plenty of great free ones out there so just do your homework.Browsing habits:1. Always hover a link and see the address that pops up before you click it. You see those "Wow Britney Spears ate a live horse" links you see people post on Facebook? Never click those, hover over the link and you will see it looks strange, you know what will happen if you click it. It will spam your friends pages with the same link. Tip: If you see something juicy like that on facebook, just google it instead. That way you won't fall prey to it and you will get to see if it's real or not. If it looks strange or suspect then it is.2. Pass these habits onto friends, online harassment, virus' etc. are like diseases, the more people who know about them and work to prevent them the less impact they can have.3. Stick to sites you know and trust. And always examine addresses to links. You.tube.com may look very similar but that extra dot makes it suspect. If you google the address to something then you can usually see whether it's a phishing scam or not.4. Your phone. Mobile devices are great for accessing things on the go but they're just as handy for people who find/steal your phone to take over your life too. So make sure you have an up to date method (app) of locking/tracking your phone remotely, of it locking when it's idle and any other measures you can find to keep it safe and inaccessible. The same goes for all mobile devices like tablets and laptops. Always assume today is the day you will lose it.Teenagers:Special attention has to be paid to you; this applies to older people too.REMEMBER: Do not send anything to anyone else online that you wouldn't want the world to see. Don't like the idea of the world seeing pictures of you naked? Then don't send any to your boyfriend/girlfriend. The vast majority of young relationships end, the vast majority of nude and compromising pictures of girls sent to boyfriends have ended up going public; once it's out there, there's no getting it back. It has ruined lives and caused suicides, don't even contemplate it. If he/she loves you then they can use their imagination. There's nothing wrong with asking for pictures but if you say no and they don't let it go, then let them go.IMPORTANT: Never trust strangers online. Your mother should have taught you to never talk to strangers, then online is no different. Most things people post online is only a very tiny part of who they are, a lot of it can be downright lies too. You can trust absolutely nothing you see online until you have proof. I could say I'm an American Marine serving in war zone. Seeing as I am sitting at my computer when we make contact I can easily google everything I need to say and all the pictures I need to convince you of that. I could spend months creating a false persona and gain your trust, then eventually convince you to meet up with me, what happens after that then is completely my choice.Watch the movie Catfish to get an idea of how easy this is.Don't ever meet anyone in person that you met online without ensuring a number of important precautions:1. Tell your parents or other trusted adult about the person you're talking to online or the person you're going to meet. Thinks it's cool and romantic to do it behind their back? Well there'll be nothing cool and romantic about the consequences should it turn out not to be what you think.2. Always meet in public and never alone at first. If the other person insists otherwise then their motives are suspect. Bring friends the first time or at least set a time to be dropped off and picked up and don't deviate. Safety first, always.3. Get to know them by phone or video call before you meet someone in person. It's easy to type things and perfect lies but most people can be seen through when you hear their voice and/or see their face. Get to know the persons voice before you do anything else.4. Always pay attention to little signs. If a person starts talking about sex a lot and you feel it's too soon then it most likely is too soon and sex is probably their main goal. People always give away their true intentions if you pay enough attention to their tone and every tiny detail. Even the best actors can be caught out.Being stalked:1. Do all of the above straight away.2. Keep every message, every text, record every phone call. Stalking is about evidence, your word is not enough. see them driving past your place? Take out your camera and take a photo, log the time and dates of everything in a journal.3. Delete all public profiles, for things like facebook, you can download your entire profile. Then delete it. Set up a new one under a false name and only add your closest of friends as "friends".4. Tell everyone that matters to you what is happening. Tell them all to increase the privacy of all their accounts so your stalker can't get indirect access to you.5. Call the cops, show them the evidence and follow all their advice.6. There are a whole host of online services and websites that deal with even more safety tips, look them up and use their advice too.7. Do not be scared, but do be cautious. Just as you would in real life be careful what you do online and what you post online. Just remember nothing that exists online is more important than your safety, well-being and happiness, don't be afraid to delete everything.REMEMBER: The vast majority of people who get abused and messed with online only had it happen because they didn't take the right precautions. YOU are responsible for your safety online and you should always make sure you're safe. It may take a few hours to set all of the above up, but once it is, it doesn't take any effort to maintain. UPDATE: The girl whose accounts I froze out has come grovelling to my girlfriend to get her accounts back. We've denied knowledge of it but implied she'll "probably" have to wait a week to get her accounts back and told her that we have enough evidence saved on my girlfriend's accounts of how she was treating my girlfriend to take further legal steps against her (harassment is illegal here). That when her accounts are returned she is to never talk to or about my girlfriend again and all this will be forgotten. She thusfar has agreed, hopefully she'll have learned her lesson because from five minutes reviewing her chat logs my girlfriend isn't the only person she thinks she can bully and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't want a lot of the people she's been talking about behind their backs to know what she really thinks of them.Don't want to be in her position? Then follow my advice; and always treat people online with the same respect as you do people in real life or you may well fall prey to someone like me who knows you're not safe to bully people from behind your computer screen.FINALLY: If you're ever in doubt, just come here and ask us. We're more than happy to help.
View related questions:
facebook, met online, stalking, text Reply to this Article
Share |
You can add your comments or thoughts to this article A
female
reader, oohlala11  +, writes (18 November 2012):
A very good article. Bookmarked!
A
reader, anonymous, writes (6 November 2012): Can you give us an update with how we can work on removing our online past? I had a free email account that went under ad I lost access to a bunch of accounts. Is there any way to get rid of old mylife account or delete the year I spent playing yoville on face book? I've tried getting my stories off literotica without success.
Wish I had realized that my nickname was as easily identified as my name. Im known everywhere by one thing and if u google that word my entire life pops up. I don't think im the only one who didn't realize that a username could be the same as putting your real name out there! If I search my name nothing comes up but public records. My username and u know everything about me.
And no on here at least I made a different one!!
...............................
A
female
reader, maverick494  +, writes (12 February 2012):
Good stuff Cerberus. People have gotten way too careless with the internet in my opinion.
I remember when my family got a computer and internet for the first time. Back then my parents were very protective of privacy. "Don't ever put something up there, you never know where it might end up!" my mom would say. I remember everyone laughing about the prospect of sharing details online, because they thought only idiots would do that.
Fast forward a decade and some years and almost the entire world is on Facebook with their pictures next to their full names, residence, school and personal life, displayed for all to see. I don't have Facebook, I don't have Twitter, I don't use IM services. I surf through a proxy server so my ip adress can't be tracked. I use a different, relatively common username for every account I make online, and I make a different, difficult password for every one them.
When you type in my full name in google, you don't find me. And I'm perfectly content with that. I'm not the one with internet woes. I have tried to get my friends to be more cautious with their details, but to no avail. Next time something goes wrong, I'll print out this article for them to read...
...............................
A
male
reader, sojkci +, writes (12 February 2012):
 Good article. Good information. Thanks (:
...............................
A
female
reader, naley  +, writes (9 February 2012):
 Excellent article. Thank you.
...............................
|
