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- Staying safe on the Internet
The internet is a great resource and a wonderful source of information
and entertainment. However, it is also a dark place full of dangers
and safety concerns. This post will try to explain some of the
dangers and how to deal with them. This is written primary for
Windows users but most things are applicable on all types of
operating systems.
Keeping your operating system
up to date
The first step you should do is to make sure to keep your operating
system up to date. If your operating system is not secure nothing
that you do on the computer will be secure. There are new threats
discovered every day and updates to fix the problems come almost
as frequent. The easiest way to keep updated is to activate automatic
updates if you are running Windows. Most other operating system
have similar way of dealing with updates.
Firewalls
As soon as you connect your computer to a network of any kind
you open up for the possibility that someone can get access to
the content and resources of your computer. The Internet is a
network of many millions of and you are connected to it. Some
of those computers are operated by people that want to gain control
of your computer and either steel the things you store on it
or to remote control it in order to perform crimes to other computers.
The way to protect yourself from this is to install a piece of
software called firewall. A firewall supervises your internet
traffic and only let things into your computer that you have
requested. (It can also prevent things from your computer from
leaving your computer.) If you are running a recent version of
Windows, such as XP or Vista you might already be running a firewall.
(Look in the safety center in the start menu to make sure.) If
you are running Linux you will usually not need a firewall at
all.
Test your firewall safety here: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
There are several free firewall packages available, for example
these:
Zone alarm: http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/free-upgrade-security-suite-zonealarm-firewall.htm
Comodo Firewall: http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
(Please consult the products web pages for any questions.)
Virus protection
A firewall can protect you from external threats but it will
not protect you against threats that you let into you computer
yourself. Viruses are one of those threats. A virus is a computer
program that are designed to do things to your computer without
you knowing it. For example delete all your photos or documents.
Other viruses simply make the software on your computer break
down so you can not use it any more until you get it healed.
It is very easy to get infected with a virus. Actually, all you
have to do is to view some web pages on the internet or open
an email containing a virus. It is usually more common to get
infected from web pages of sexual nature or pages distributing
illegal software. This is called the dark alleys of the Internet.
However, viruses exist everywhere and can infect you on any web
page.
To protect yourself you need yet another piece of software. This
time a anti virus program. This is a program that supervise your
internet traffic and everything you do on your computer to make
sure that no virus are getting in to your computer. It works
sort of like when you have to identify yourself with your passport
when you are crossing a border. All data passing your borders
will be checked against a database of known viruses before they
are allowed to do anything. If a virus is found it will be dealt
with quickly before it have had a chance of doing anything bad.
If you are running Windows you should first of all find out if
you are already running any Anti virus programs. If not, please
install such a program immediately and make sure to update the
virus database regularly. There are several different programs
available for free on the Internet. For example these:
AGV Free: http://free.avg.com/
Avast Home Edition: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html
(Please consult the products web pages for any questions.)
Web browser
Once you have a firewall and a good and up to date virus protection
you are much safer than before. But you can still improve your
safety. One very easy way to improve your Internet safety is
to simply change your web browser. (The program you use for accessing
the Internet.) Most people use Microsoft Internet Explorer. This
means that the evil people who makes viruses and other nasty
things often concentrates on taking advantage of the safety issues
of Internet Explorer. (For example Active-X.) A way to make this
threat smaller is by simply changing to a different web browser.
This does not mean that you will be 100% safe from viruses or
other bad things but it can lessen the risk. Whatever web browser
you use, make sure that it is kept up to date by installing the
latest updates or the latest version.
Here are some examples of free alternative web browsers:
Mozilla Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/
Opera: http://www.opera.com/
- Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome
(Please consult the products web pages for any questions.)
Another way to make your web browser safer is by deactivating
Active-X and Javascript if you use Internet Explorer. This is
done in the web browser settings but it might make some web pages
impossible to view. Also be very restrictive with what plug in
programs and browser help objects you allow to run in your web
browser.
Information protection
Once you have protected yourself against hackers and viruses
you will need to protect yourself against yourself. How much
do you really reveal about yourself to total strangers online?
If you are a member of a community like this, with a forum and
perhaps a chat it is very easy to reveal more that you actually
wanted to reveal. Think hard before writing something that can
be used to identify you. Personal information is like a puzzle.
Each little bit can be rather worthless on its own but several
small pieces of information can make up a complete image of who
you are.
You should naturally never, ever give out your address, phone
number or any other personal information to any stranger. And
remember that the people you meet online might not be who they
claim to be. Never trust anyone with anything.
Posting photos of yourself is another threat to your integrity.
Even if you successfully remove your face and other identifications
you will still have to deal with other issues. What about the
surroundings? What more is visible on the photo? Ask yourself
if a close friend or a neighbor of yours would recognize the
place or the person on the photo. Once anything is posted to
the Internet it is often impossible to completely remove it again.
Dealing with spam and other
unwanted correspondence
Everyone have received spam of some sort. Most often it is advertising
for products that we have not ever heard of and absolutely not
requested. These emails are dealt with by using a spam filter.
A spam filter is a piece of software that reads through all your
incoming mail to decide if it is spam or not. This is an completely
automated process and it is not perfect but it could remove most
of the spam you receive. Unfortunately it sometimes also sort
emails that you wanted to receive as spam. So you will need to
check through your spam folder at regular intervals to make sure
that no wanted correspondence gets thrown away. Most web based
email accounts like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and so on have a built
in spam filter. Make sure that it is turned on.
If you are downloading your email to an email program on your
computer you should use the built in spam filter if it has any.
If it does not have a filter you need to install an external
spam filter. Once you trust that your spam filter is not blocking
any wanted correspondence you should make sure that all spam
are deleted on the email server, without even being downloaded
first. This is done in the settings of your email program or
spam filter.
Never post your email address anywhere on the net and be careful
with who you give it to. If no one knows your email address they
can not send spam to it. (This is unfortunately not 100% true.
Sometimes spammers simply send emails by guessing the addresses
of the receivers.) You should also use a second email address
that you can use for sites like this and other similar sites
that you might not want to have associated with your personal
email account.
- If you are a member of a forum or Internet
community you might receive personal messages (PM). These works
the same way as ordinary emails exept that you can only read
them within the forum or community. But they can still contain
both unwanted correspondance and links to viruses and other threats.
Do not trust someone just becouse he or she is a member of the
same community as you. And remember to protect your personal
information.
Keeping backups
It does not matter how safe you are, sooner or later things will
break down. Hardware as well as software can break down and when
it does you can lose all your data. All the photos, documents
and so on can be lost forever. Keep copies of everything by burning
it onto DVD discs. (Remember to keep the discs at a safe place.)
You should also consider backing up your entire operating system
by making an image of it and saving it at safe spot.
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- Thanks for all the helpful tips and advice
recieved when writing these pages.
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- 2010-09-06, Added Google Crome
webbrowser.
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