Safe, Legal and Ethical Use of Technology

Today’s blog post (my first!) is a post on the safe, legal and ethical use of digital information and technology. Most of this information is directly from my brain or things I’ve read in the past, so take it all with a grain of salt.

First things first – how to use technology safely.

On your computer:

• Be safe with your passwords! Create passwords that are easy for you to remember but hard for other people to guess. “password” and “1234” are terrible, commonly used passwords. Try picking a proper noun (a pet, a friend, a place, or even just capitalize a hobby) and adding a number after it. You can add a special year to the end, or even just “01”. As long as it’s easy for you to remember. And never, never, give your password away, unless you trust this person with pretty much everything. Never give away your password over the internet or to someone you’ve never met face to face.

Source

• Be careful with your personal information, especially your bank account, your credit card number and your social security card. As we evolve into this technological age, we are using our computers more and more for common actions (like filing for taxes) you will have to use your personal information on the internet more often. So far, I haven’t had a problem with popular websites such as Amazon, eBay and Etsy. Two general rules of thumb is – a real website will be (for example) www.amazon.com/whatever a fake one is more likely to be www.whatever.com/amazon. If the name brand is displaced from the URL, then the website is most likely a copy. Another rule of thumb is to look for the “secure” symbol on your web browser. This is a padlock that will appear on trusted sites. It depends on your browser where (or if) this is located. For some versions of Internet Explorer, it is in the bottom bar. For Google Chrome, it’s in the top next to the web address. As far as giving your social security number away, it is required for government items such as taxes and the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid). Most websites will provide an onscreen keypad so you don’t have to type in your social security number. (One of the most common ways people obtain personal information is by recording/saving keystrokes.)
• Webcams, while usually safe, can be hacked. The best idea I’ve seen for this is put a little tab of tape over your webcam – that way, if you are hacked, the intruder will only see blurry images, if anything. And you can easily remove this tab of tape (folded under on one end for easy removal) when you actually want to use your webcam.

       [For one example of webcam misuse, check out this article. Keep in mind it
       is news and is not likely appropriate for children.]

• Generally, I don’t store any information on my computer that I wouldn’t want discovered if my computer were stolen.
• Be very careful on public computers! If possible, do online banking and other important transactions at home or on a personal computer. After using a public computer, make sure to log out of every website you visited and signed into. It is also a pretty good idea to delete your browser history. This is pretty easy to do, but different for every browser, so I’ll let you Google how to do that.
• Be smart with social networking. As a general rule, I don’t do anything I wouldn’t want to find on the internet. But I understand other people live differently – just be careful. What ends up on the internet is very, very hard to remove and could affect your job one day. As a future teacher, I already have my social networking profile set to very private settings, but people can still see me. Google yourself every once in a while to see what’s out; there type in “Firstname Lastname”. This is fun, because you can see what the world sees of you, and possibly discover someone else with the same name.
• If you are a teacher/camp counselor/coach, etc., be very careful about friending your students/campers/players. Generally, it’s okay once either you or they are disassociated from the institution (they graduated, you are no longer working at that camp, etc.) and they are over eighteen. Exceptions apply to every rule and this one is huge is not considered carefully.
• E-mail (and other internet) scams change all the time, but here are some general guidelines:

o   Never wire money to people, especially people you don’t know. It isn’t uncommon for people to pose as your friends and ask for money – if in doubt, call them or their family. More often than not, it was a scam.

o   Don’t give away personal information online

o   Most reputable websites and banks will never ask for personal information over e-mail. Again, this is most likely a scam. When in doubt, call the company. Better safe than sorry.

On your phone:

• Some things are better left in person – inappropriate texts, photos, e-mails, etc. almost never work out well for both parties involved. If you wouldn’t want your mother to see it, it’s probably not a good idea.
• If a friend is texting you asking for money, be wary. Recently a family friend almost wired money to his grandson, thinking he was in trouble. Turns out, someone had just hijacked his phone. Again, always call your friend or family member before sending money. A huge clue in these scams is that they almost always ask you not to tell others – afraid their parents/spouse/family will find out they need money.
• Also, your voicemail password is likely to be stored in your phone forever – for example, if you password is “1234” it will be stored as “call to 1-1234-77 (or whatever it happens to be, for me I press “1” for speed dial, enter my password, and the “7”s are me deleting messages.) So pick something other than your bank pin.

In general:

• Don’t use your electronic devices near water. This may sound silly but at the very least you could damage your expensive device and at the most, could electrocute yourself. Be smart. It can wait.
• Also, don’t text and drive. (Think – is my life more important that this text?)

My favorite new anti-texting-and-driving commercial

• And watch where you’re going when you text and walk. Check out this story:

How to use your technology legally:

• In general, I don’t condone committing crimes. But if you do, especially don’t videotape it and post it to YouTube. Or post on Facebook during the event. Over and over again, police have used the internet to solve crimes and find their victims. Don’t be stupid.
• Don’t use your technology at work. Some places will allow it, but be sure to check with your company’s social media policy before you do. It might be funny to video your friend/coworker doing something stupid, but it will most likely blow up in at least one of your faces once discovered.
• Don’t plagiarize! As soon as something is written, it is copyrighted whether or not a copyright has officially been applied for. The same rules apply online as they did in school – cite your sources and don’t take credit for things you didn’t do. Yes, it’s great to use other’s ideas, and you can see from this blog that I’m not against sharing them. But don’t take credit for what’s not yours. Generally, don’t copy/paste an entire article or tutorial, and don’t use more than two photos from any one website. And always link back to the original source – it is so easy to do!

Using technology ethically

• Don’t steal other people’s stuff. It’s just rude.
• Cite the correct source – “Google” and “Pinterest” are not sources, rather, just places that allow for a collaboration of ideas. It is okay to link to a Pinterest pin (because it sources back to the original source), but not okay to just say “I found this idea on Pinterest”, because it doesn’t take you back to the original source.
• Cite your sources!!!! It’s easy to hyperlink in almost every blogging and social media software. The hyperlink button usually looks like two links of a chain being placed together. Just highlight your link and press the button and voila! a link is created. Facebook and Etsy allow you to copy/paste a link and it will automatically become a hyperlink. If you want to do this old-school, type your URL into a word processor (Microsoft Word, Works, etc.) and press space. This will usually cause it to turn blue and become underlined. Now you can copy/paste this to your media as a hyperlink. And if you’re using html, use <a href= “yourwebsitehere.com”>Linked text here</a> to create a link. Now you have no excuses! (Also, be careful, because many html editors won’t take smart quotes.)

Well, that’s all I’ve got. Did I miss anything? Do you have questions or comments or stories or ideas to share? Feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to get back to you!