Safer surfing

be safe, not sorry

I spend half of my life online (and some say I spend the other half down the boozer - untrue) and consider my self to be web literate, and over the past couple of years I have developed my instinct as to what is safe to do online, and what poses a threat to my computer and/or my bank balance. However, computer security is a journey without a destination and I will never know everything.

Let me start by making an admission,

  1. I have inadvertently downloaded a rogue dialler
  2. several infected files
  3. and visited a website that has installed mal-ware

We grow up with an inbuilt sense of danger, that is, most people instinctively know if something poses a threat. We know which streets not to walk late at night or which brightly coloured plants not to eat (depending on our environment). Psychologists will tell you this is learned behaviour.

However, I don??â??â??t know anyone (well possible one person) who has an instinctive knowledge of what is safe an proper behaviour online. Being safe online means developing a sense for what feels right (or wrong) in a new environment.

Most people with an email address know what a 419 scam is. Yet many highly intelligent people continue to fall for what is an incredibly crude trick (the equivalent of receiving a letter through your door from some one you had never heard of promising you lots of money if you give them your bank account details). So here is an example of the original online con (often in block caps):

Subject: YOUR URGENT ATTENTION NEEDED
DEAR GRACIOUS FRIEND
IN HONOUR OF YOUR ESTEEMED SELF I AM CONTACTING YOU FOR A MOST IMPORTANT BUSINESS. MY FAMILY WAS RECENTLY DIED IN [political crisis/earth quake/other natural disaster/social turmoil ??â??â?? delete as applicable depending on what has just been a big news story on the BBC]. MY FATHER LEFT ME Fifteen million U.S Dollars ($15,000,000.00) IN A SAFE FINANCIAL INSTITUTION. etc
YOUR HELP WILL BE APPRECIATED 30% AND 70% FOR MY FAMILY IF YOU INVEST MONEY ON OUR BEHALF IN YOUR COUNTRY.
YOUR DISCREETION AND HONESTY WILL BE APPRECIATED IN SWIFT CORRESPONDENCE WITH YOU.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU,
terry jones


Pls kindly contact me on Email Privately:
tomjones_213@sify.com

Hopefully you'll be chuckling and outraged in equal measures at the above. But please, if you ever receive anything vaguely like the above...it's not genuine. Think about it, and use your common sense. Anything that appears too good to be true, is!


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