Imagine this scenario: Mr. Stranger guesses/steals your password, hijacks your Facebook account, and sends messages to all your friends that you are in trouble, stuck in some foreign country, and need money to be sent to you immediately. Some of your friends may fall for it and actually send money to Mr. Stranger trying to help you.
This kind of Facebook scam has happened many times, and a couple friends I know have even been affected (but were smart enough not to believe it.)
A few basic principles to remember:
- Any person contacting you online (through Facebook, email, instant messaging...) may not be who you think it is. It could be an impersonator.
- Use a good password that others can't easily guess. Some suggestions on how to choose a password here.
- Don't enter your password into fake (phishing) look-alike sites or pretend emails, which are just waiting for you to put in your personal info.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Saving data online, such as in Google docs
A hot buzzword in software today is cloud computing. You may or may not have heard the term before, but I'm pretty sure you're already using cloud applications.
Do you use Yahoo's email, Google Docs for word processing and spreadsheets, Facebook, Twitter, etc...? They're nice because you don't need to install/maintain any software or worry about how much disk space you have. You can pretty much access these applications from any computer that has an internet connection. And because it's all online, you can easily share it with others.
Sounds pretty good, huh? I like using Google Docs for certain tasks, especially when I need to collaborate with others, but I'm a little more careful with anything I'd consider confidential in any way, at least more so for now. (Did you know Google mail/docs/calendar just came out of beta in July 2009?) When you use online applications, you are giving the service providers control over your data and you have to trust them.
Trusting the service provider
- You must trust that the service providers are storing your data securely, and that Mr. Stranger can't easily hack into their system and take your data.
- You must trust that the service providers have written their software correctly and that the code doesn't contain bugs that might accidentally leak your data to others.
- You must trust that the service providers won't look into your saved files, and give that data to others. (For example, to a competitor or a government.)
Trusting yourself/your friends
- You should use a good password - if someone guesses your password, they will have access to any of the information you have saved online.
- You must also trust whomever you have shared your documents with - that they have good computer habits and do not have an easily guessable password, and that they won't accidentally give access to someone else.
In addition to security, there is also the question of reliability. What if their service goes down? You won't have access until it's up. What if they go out of business? You better make sure you have a backup copy, if it's important. Also what if you delete something - can you be sure it has been completely deleted (including all backups)? You don't really know. (But hopefully it shouldn't matter because it wasn't something super confidential.)
This seems to be the direction we are moving in, and we should at least understand what it means.
Do you use Yahoo's email, Google Docs for word processing and spreadsheets, Facebook, Twitter, etc...? They're nice because you don't need to install/maintain any software or worry about how much disk space you have. You can pretty much access these applications from any computer that has an internet connection. And because it's all online, you can easily share it with others.
Sounds pretty good, huh? I like using Google Docs for certain tasks, especially when I need to collaborate with others, but I'm a little more careful with anything I'd consider confidential in any way, at least more so for now. (Did you know Google mail/docs/calendar just came out of beta in July 2009?) When you use online applications, you are giving the service providers control over your data and you have to trust them.
Trusting the service provider
- You must trust that the service providers are storing your data securely, and that Mr. Stranger can't easily hack into their system and take your data.
- You must trust that the service providers have written their software correctly and that the code doesn't contain bugs that might accidentally leak your data to others.
- You must trust that the service providers won't look into your saved files, and give that data to others. (For example, to a competitor or a government.)
Trusting yourself/your friends
- You should use a good password - if someone guesses your password, they will have access to any of the information you have saved online.
- You must also trust whomever you have shared your documents with - that they have good computer habits and do not have an easily guessable password, and that they won't accidentally give access to someone else.
In addition to security, there is also the question of reliability. What if their service goes down? You won't have access until it's up. What if they go out of business? You better make sure you have a backup copy, if it's important. Also what if you delete something - can you be sure it has been completely deleted (including all backups)? You don't really know. (But hopefully it shouldn't matter because it wasn't something super confidential.)
This seems to be the direction we are moving in, and we should at least understand what it means.
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