Eek! My Friends Can See What I'm Doing!

If you've been on Facebook you've probably noticed Facebook's new real-time friend activity ticker on the right-side of your profile and you may have asked yourself, "Do all my friends see my activity?  The answer to this depends on how you've chosen to manage your privacy settings.

Using Secure Passwords: How to Stay Protected

It's a good thing you are reading blog if you are still using you dog's name or your birth date as a password.  In a previous post I discussed a couple methods of creating secure passwords which I still really like.  But I recently came across this video from Common Craft who are wonderful at "explanation" and this is no exception.  If you prefer the ease and brevity of video tutorials, then take a look at this short video on password security.

There's never going to be anyone more concerned about your online security that you, so be sure you are taking the right steps to keep yourself protected starting with your passwords.

5 Privacy Settings You Shouldn't Overlook

Participating in social networking using Facebook can be fun and useful.  And while it can also open an individual up to unnecessary exposure to others it doesn't have to.  If you have a teen on Facebook be sure to sit down with them and review their Privacy Settings and don't forget about your own.  While adults may not need the same level of privacy protection, often times it's what we'd prefer anyways.  Model for your kids how to protect yourself online, they learn best by what they see you do versus by what you tell them to do.  Anyone with a Facebook profile can control who sees their personal information by selecting a privacy level.  Most privacy levels are defined as viewable by:

• Everyone


• Friends of Friends


• Friends


• Only Me


• No One


• You can even customize some features to be viewed only by specific friends

To adjust your Facebook profile privacy settings start at the privacy settings page.  You can find this under the "Account" menu at the upper right-hand side of the page.  Click on "Privacy Settings".  If you then click on the "Customize Settings",  you can view all of the controllable privacy settings of your Facebook profile. For the safest setting choose the option to allow only friends to view all of the settings on the page.

There is a lot you can control, but be sure to set the following to a level you are comfortable with:

1. Personal information you share. Profile information includes such things as photos, interests, videos, friend list, and anything else you may include on a profile. Know that you can control who has access to the elements of the information you choose to share.  For instance each photo album can have a different level of privacy.  So you may share the family vacation photos with all of your friends, but another album you may choose share with a specific group of friends.


2. Personal information Other Share About or with You.  
It's one things when you post photos, but you don't need to allow just anyone to tag you in photos for others to see.  You can control if friends can see photos that other people tag you in.  In addition, teens like to post photos of themselves and their friends, definitely something you don't want a predator to see.  This is a setting you should teach your teen to use, or go in occasionally and do yourself.  Each photo has it's own tag so every time a photo is added, you can choose remove the tag or you can remove everyone's ability to view pictures you are tagged in if not your own.


3. Who Can See Contact Information? Information like your IM screen name, email address, website URL, address and phone number can also be controlled.  Personally, I think it's great to have it as an option, but I'm not sure it's necessary to reveal.  If a friend wants to contact you personally, they can always send a private message to you.  And to help to protect the privacy of your teen I recommend that this never be made public.


4. Who Can Find Your Profile by Doing a Search? Facebook's default setting allows your profile to be found using Facebook's search tool.  You can control people from finding your profile in the first place by changing this Facebook privacy setting.

Facebook’s Privacy Crisis: Our Privacy, Our Responsibility

It’s likely that you’ve heard about the battle users have been having with Facebook over their privacy settings.  While frustrating for sure this well-publicized war over how users want to be able to manage their privacy has been a great example of the beauty of social media.   This is an issue born out of the growing pains of social media, but it’s clear that due in large part to social media users have a voice that is finally being heard in volumes like never before.  It brought together people, organizations and legislators to advocate for what users want and what they believe they should be able to rely on.

This new-found voice is great for the individual user and we will all benefit from it.  However, users have responsibilities too.  Here's a question ask yourself.  "Is your voice credible?"   So often we can jump on a bandwagon because it sounds like a good cause yet so often people know very little before taking the leap.  I admit to having done this myself.  While I believe there were a number of reasons why the recent crisis over privacy issues is a worthy one and Facebook did need to step up and make some changes, I have also seen that most Facebook users I work with have done very little to educate themselves about how their information is being shared and use their privacy settings to their advantage and that’s not Facebook’s fault.  So I would add that another beneficial outcome from this crisis is that users might just become interested in understanding Facebook’s privacy settings.

The new privacy settings that will be rolled out over the next few weeks as announced by Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, yesterday.  These new features were announced and promised and now we have to wait to see them.   I don’t know anyone that has seen them available on their profile yet, but I’m hopeful it won’t be too long.  Insight into these changes were presented in Zuckerberg’s video blog yesterday.  So, while you're waiting, be a responsible Facebook user and take a moment to watch the video to learn what’s being rolled out.  Look for three primary changes he discusses:

• One simple master control so you can set who see all of the content you share on Facebook.  You still have the option to control content at a more granular level.


• Reduction in the amount of information that has to be available to everyone in order to use Facebook.


• Simplified the control of whether websites and application can access your information.

I have not seen these new features as they are not yet available for my Facebook account, so I can’t personally speak to how simple they really are.   In a blog by Caroline McCarthy she explains that where previously there were 50 settings that members would have to tweak in order to make all information private; now, it's more like 15.  The number of Facebook "privacy center" pages has dropped from 13 to eight.   In addition, my friends at AllFacebook have taken the time to look at the settings and share what they believe is most important.  They have put together a short guide with what looks like all the information that you need to know.  It includes information on the following:

• You Can Opt Out Of Applications


• You Can Hide Your Friends List


• You Can Hide Your Interests


• Much Information Is Still Public By Default


• Instant Personalization Is Still Opt-Out


• You Can Hide Information From The Past


• You Should Review Your Settings


• Privacy Now Only Takes One Click

I would also add that there is lot of information not required in order to use Facebook and whatever content you put out there is your choice.  So be responsible, and a good model for your children, and take the time to know.

It's great to see Facebook answer a call from the user community and I hope users will become more curious and responsible about how they put information out there.  There are well over 400 million Facebook users worldwide and in the U.S., 1 out 3 people have a Facebook account.  Social media definitely presents a shift on how we think about technology, share and receive information and ultimately how we will live our lives day-to-day, so take control of your presence in what is undoubtedly becoming a very social world.

Social Media: Whose World Is It?

Lately I've found myself in a number of conversations with parents discussing social networking/media, most often Facebook, and their involvement or participation in this still relatively new mode of communication.   I'm struck by the variety of opinions regarding how much involvement parents should have in what many perceive as their child's social world.   There appear to be three main camps parents fall in with regards to their position on social media.

• Nope:  Not interested in getting involved with Social Media, "It's not for me."


• On the Verge:  Would like to understand more, but don't know where to begin.


• Plunged:  Have made the leap and have a social media account and are either actively involved or slowly becoming more familiar with it.

I don't know that there is a "right" position to take, but before you take any position, it might be helpful to take a moment to look at social media separate and apart from being a parent and explore what social media is in general, how people are networking, where is it going and what that might mean.   As I write, the world of social media is evolving rapidly and a precise definition is a bit difficult to pin down.  There are many definitions for social media out there which try to explain it from specific angles from marketing to educational to personal.  For the purposes of this discussion and my focus on the everyday user I'll be addressing social media from a personal perspective as it relates to social networking.

What is Social Media?

In my opinion, social media could be defined simply as,

"Social Media:  Tools that assist us in engaging with a far greater number of individuals and groups than would otherwise be possible given traditional methods of social networking (i.e. school, church, special interest groups, etc.)."

In essence, it's where sociology meets technology and the synergy created by this pairing is growing providing an incredible amount of potential for us to connect with, interact with, share and learn from others.  And it's right here where I believe many of the "Nopes" and those "On The Verge" run into a stumbling block for two reasons.  First, if you don't have comfort level with technology jumping onto the bandwagon with yet another new application using a device you have not yet mastered might seem unappealing and not worth the effort.  Secondly, the exponential growth of the network and the vast number of people, products and services one may be networked with can be daunting.  Together these can make the thought of becoming involved in social media and growing a social network seem very unattractive, understandably.  That said, let's go back to what I said about social media - it allows us to connect with, interact with and learn from others.   In other words, it helps us create relationships with one another and it will - slash that - it is now becoming one of the most common ways in which we connect with one another.

How to People Use Social Media?

I could not name all of the social media sites currently being used, but suffice it to say that there are many and it's growing and changing too.  The most commonly mentioned sites are probably Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and while those are robust in their user-ship the social media world is quickly redefining itself as the number of users grows.  More sites are being added, many are growing and others are losing ground all due in large part to the users who are helping define what is valuable.  To help us grasped what this bucket of social media sites looks like without naming them all let's break them down into some categories.

[caption id="attachment_130" align="aligncenter" width="372" caption="Social media categories with examples. Not intended to be a complete list."][/caption]

The graph below was presented by Amy Portfield in an article recently published by the Social Media Examiner in which a study of 1000 social media users wee surveyed to understand when, what and where they use social media.  The graph underscores a couple of things.  First, social networking sites attract different types of users. (Notice the absence of a "news" category for Myspace users where this is a predominate area of interest for users of other sites.)  People have a presence on certain sites because there can find and share information that interest them.  Second, it's not just about being social.  In fact, you might say that learning and sharing is just another way of being social because  I do find it interesting that there is not a "socializing" category anywhere  on this graph.



Source: Amy Porterfield,  "Study Highlights Growing Social Media Addiction" Social Examiner,  Web April, 16, 2010.

Does everyone who participates in social media have an account on all of these sites?   Certainly not!  Just like choosing where you shop, travel, socialize, eat, etc., individuals determine which sites are valuable to them based on their own interests and what they find meaningful.  Having a presence on at least one site, such as Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter to get started, will allow you to connect with, interact with, share and learn from others.  And that is how relationships are built using social media.

As I've mentioned a number of times, social media is changing rapidly and weaving its way into our lives whether we like it or not.  It's a social phenomenon driven by tecchnology.  Think about it, the Facebook application was launched in 2004 and Twitter saw it's first Tweet in March of 2006.  Today if Facebook were a country it would be the third most populated (Techxav) at over 400 million while Twitter's population has grown to 27 million in just four short  years.  Compare that to the evolution of cell phones which also received a lot of initial resistance from users, do you recall?!   The first truly portable cell phone was released to the public by Motorola in 1983 and it took 12 years before the number of wireless subscribers reached only 28 million n 1995, whereas Facebook hit 100 million in four and half years.  And where did they announce this?  On Twitter which was only two years old at the time.   And remember texting?  Do you recall ever saying, "Texting?  I don't get it.  When would I need to use it?"   Now, we have laws in effect because people text too much and at the wrong times.  (One unfortunate side effect that accompanies rapid growth as seen with cell phones, texting and social media is the lag in establishing social mores and proper etiquette in how we incorporate such things into our lives.)  Today there are over a billion cell phone users and the majority have text-enabled phones.  I think it's safe to say that social media is here to stay and the number of users will only continue to climb.

What Does the of Social Media Look Like?

Big question!  Good question!  What we can be fairly confident of is that is will continue to grow and weave itself into our lives and we will become more connected because of it and maybe smarter as well.  Communicating with social media makes it so easy to share information with others and that's what people find valuable and meaningful.  And when there is valuable and meaningful information to be had people will remain connected.  I'll refer you to two articles that delve into answering this question and you may find of interest.

• Convergence: The Future of Social Media -  by Julian Hall


• Social Media in Higher Education:  McGraw-Hill Brings Together Social Media and Education Experts to Discuss the Future of Social Media in Higher Education

The first provides some insight as to why social media is here to stay specifically as it discusses how social media brings together the many aspects of our lives.   The second is important for parents to understand how social media will become an important tool for how children learn in school.    What also might be helpful is to understand how others like you are participating.  Here's a great link to social media demographics from Flowtown illustrating who is using social media which may provide some insight as to where you might want invest your energies.   What's interesting to see is that the age group most engaged in the popular social media sites are those 35-45 years of age which might be a surprise to many who associate social media only with young adults.

What Might All of This Mean to Me?

The answer may be different for all of us except for a few points that appear to be universal.

1. Social media isn't going away.


2. More and more of our lives will converge into the space of social media.


3. There are many benefits to be had being involved with social media, not the least of which is having a deeper connection to the world in which we live.


4. Want it all in a nutshell?  Here's a very short video portrayal by Erik Qualman of how far social media has penetrated our lives and tries to help you answer the question, "Is social media a fad or a revolution?".

Turning back to the original discussion of this blog which was about parents involvement social media?   The first thing that should be clear by now that the world of social media is not just a kid's world and it's certainly not just for socializing.  I would also add that, parent or not, there are many good arguments for at least dipping your toe into social media if you haven't already made the plunge.  If you think you're ready, here are ten things to consider that may be helpful as you think about getting started:

1. Safety/Security:  Social media is not unlike any other type of communication or interaction we have in the offline world. There, we take measures to be safe and to protect our valuables. Being online isn't any different.  We should be concerned with those very same things, it just may take a little more effort and patience to learn something new.  There are tools in place to provide you with the security you need and there are also some things you may need to learn too.  The information is out there, just ask.


2. Etiquette:  Social media as about relationships and while there may be some logistical bumps in the road as we learn to define what's appropriate and what's not in this online world, the golden rule still applies.  Treat others as you would like to be treated. Just like you wouldn't walk into a group of your son's classmates and show them pictures of him as a little boy on a toilet, you also wouldn't post those pictures on his Facebook Wall for all to see.  Yes, this has happened.


3. Quality Not Quantity:  You may see kids and even some adults try aggressively to ramp up their friends or followers.  To each his own.  I mean, when do you have enough?  There's no trophy when you get there, wherever "there" is.  The win is by engaging with people, groups and organizations that add value your life. How do you teach this to your children?   Lead by example!  Talk about what you've learned, what you've shared and how others have benefitted from their relationship with you.


4. Relationships:   As in the offline world and in life, people can benefit from and they can be hurt by their relationships with others.  So have discussions with your children about who they friend, why they friend them and who they should not friend. This is probably a good topic for another blog, but I do want to point out a few things here.
   
   
   
   • Kids and Adult Friends:  You may think having your kids "friend" family members is just fine, and for the most part it probably is. But, if there are cousins, aunts, uncles or any adult whose profiles have the potential of displaying information that may not be age-appropriate for your children, then you need to either discuss with your child why that may be okay and have them de-friend them or have a conversation with the adult and ask them to place the child on a limited profile.  This is a privacy feature on Facebook that provides the user of the account with flexibility when it comes to who is allowed to see certain portions of the users profile.  You can establish a limited profile for selected people and these individuals will never be informed that they are only viewing a selection of the features that are available on your profile.
   
   
   • Social Media Can be Good for Those at Risk:  The relationships established through social networking can be very supportive and have been found to be effective tool for suicide prevention.  According to the Defense Centers of Excellence (DCoE), social media is proving to be a relevant tool, not a passing fad, which is used to provide health information to support suicide prevention efforts.
   
   
   • Bullying:  While social media can be a very positive experience for most people, bullies still exist.  Does the venue make them any worse?  I don't know, but I do believe it may make them more visible.  In any event, it is our responsibility as parents to start conversations about bullying early with our kids and on some level monitor who their friends are.  And there's no better way to do this than sharing the social media experience with them while respecting their space, of course.
   
   
   
   


5. How to Begin?:  If you don't know where to start, then ask.  Ask me, ask friends or jump online because there are a variety of ways to learn how to begin.  (Hmm?  Maybe that should be another upcoming blog?)

My mission is to help others find more productive ways of doing things via technology and understand the capabilities that are available to them to help reduce stress of this chaotic world in which we live.  Social media is sometimes viewed as an interruption of sorts, rather than anything remotely productive.  The purpose of this blog was not to be an advocate for social media, but rather to provide some insight into social media and help others make more informed decisions about being an online social networker.  Whether you are a "Nope", an "On the Verge" or you've "Plunged", we can always learn something from each other, so please share this with someone you think might benefit from this blog.

Data: When It's, It's Gone!

As someone who is intellectually curious about and places a great of productivity dependency in hands of technology I am a bit embarrassed that recently my hard drive took a turn for the worse and died without having performed a recent backup of my data.  Truly, I couldn't believe!  Probably what most people say as a response to this unexpected event.  I had been rather religious about backing my files until I moved out of my home office and into a place that did not aesthetically and functionally allow for my external hard drive to be permanently set up which it was when I was located in my home office.  In my previous arrangement I had set up my Time Machine to perform automatic weekly backups which were running smoothly.   I recall having an inkling that without automatic back up cycle running I would need to rely on myself and would be vulnerable to losing data, so I would just need be sure to manually attached the external hard drive and run the backups on my own.   That lasted about 3 three weeks.  Five months later my hard drive died.   Argh!

I place a high level importance on productivity and should have known this was not a productive decision.  Anything that involves doing something "manually" usually isn't.  We tend to take for granted the reliability of our technical support staff who arduously oversee the protection of massive volumes of data at our places of business and forget that similar chores are also required for our personal computers.  So I wanted to share this as a friendly reminder to those of you who may have let this critical exercise fall by the wayside  And for those of you who don't even know where to begin, what follows is a brief overview of ways in which you can perform data back-ups.

• DVD/Jump Drive/Etc.:  I really don't recommend using DVDs discs or jump drives to perform data backups for your computer, I only mention it here for two reasons.

a.)  When working on a critical document or file and you want to ensure it's protection you can make a copy or back it up to have on hand until your next full system backup is performed.

b.)  If you truly do not place high priority on data backup and have no plans to do so in the future, then you probably don't have much on your computer that you fear losing, or at least you believe that's the case.  For this reason I would encourage you at a minimum to pick up large capacity jump drive (e.g. 16G or so) and take 30 minutes out of your day to take another look at yours files.  Chances are that you will find an important document or two, pictures from a special event, or music files you would rather not lose.  Copy them over to the jump drive and place it is a safe place.

• External Drives (Local Backup):   There are so many options now available for external drives both in capacity and physical size.  And the cost is coming down as well.  CNET has done a fairly extensive review and comparison of external hard drives and I would encourage you to take a look at their review before you buy.   Also, before you buy you should check out your computer's system requirements and the capacity required to backup your system.   One thing to consider with an external drive is that the backup of your data is still vulnerable to theft, loss, fire, etc.  If this is a factor that concerns you then consider the use of a remote or online back up service.

• Remote/Online Back Up: These are services that can backup your entire system via the internet with very little work required on your part.  Though some are free there is usually a monthly or annual fee and different service levels are also available usually dependent upon capacity.  The more you require backup for, the more you'll pay.  The amount of data you are backing up also needs to be considered for how long it take for a remote backup.  While most remote backups will take about a day for the typical user, some could take as long as two or three days versus a local backup which can be done in a much shorter time and even minutes in some cases.  In addition to cost and backup time you will also want to understand what it will take to set it up, how easily you can access your data if needed and whether or not the service provider offers encryption services that protects others from viewing your data.  In February of 2010 Techsoup, which offers technology solutions for nonprofits, conducted a review of top online backup service providers and discusses these questions in more detail.

Once you've decided upon your method of backup, then do it!  It's one thing to have a backup plan in place but if you aren't undergoing regular backups then what's the point.  So the last bit of food for thought is to make sure your backups run automatically.   This will surely help you avoid huge headaches because when it's gone, it's gone...or be subject to costly data recovery fees to get at lost data that could have so easily been saved.

2 Important Reminders for Managing Your Mountain of Passwords

Passwords - ugh!  While absolutely necessary and critical for our own protection they are nevertheless cumbersome, lack uniformity and can be difficult to retrieve at times.  The idea of this article was triggered as a result me having ignored what is a pretty efficient system for managing this growing library of odd phrases that have become critical keys in our lives.  It comes right down to security and access.

Security

In order for our passwords to be secure they need to be private and not easily unraveled by someone else.  You probably know by now using your birthday or phone number as a password comes close to advertising access to your private information on a billboard.  These are some of the first things a hacker would try to get passed your "secure" sign-on.  Nicknames, middle names, your kids' names, school mascots would be other examples of password with very low security.    This information is plastered all over your social media and in other places where information about you is generally well-known.   All are easy targets for would-be hackers.  We use these because they are easy to recall which makes sense.  Unless you use it everyday it's difficult to recall passwords like "dZ45!yP".  There are some simple ways around this that I think you'll find useful.

First, some things we know about creating an effective password are:

• Use a variety of character types, such as alpha, numeric, and symbols if allowed.
• The more characters the harder it will be to decipher so use at least six to eight characters unless otherwise constrained to smaller number.
• Use both lowercase and capital letters.
• Avoid passwords that are based on personal information that can be easily accessed or guessed.
• Paraphrase when you can.
• Avoid using repeating or consecutive sequences (8888, 1234..., abcd.., xxxx...)
• Use different passwords on different systems.
• Add complexity. Make only the letters in the first half of the alphabet uppercase.
• Avoid using words if possible.  Try using a an acronym for a phrase you recall easily.  (e.g. My favorite food is chocolate. = mffic)  
• Use a number sequence that you can easily recall but is virtually unknown online or by others like the year you got engaged, the year you hope to retire.  Some people can never forget the last four digits of their first phone number...I'm not one of those.  

Now that you understand some parameters around creating a password you can come up with a password that is fairly well-encrypted yet easy to remember.  A little trick I use comes from what I learned in Kindergarten, well sort of.  First, most of us recall that favorite teacher from our elementary school days or maybe it's a coach or favorite toy.  Whatever it is, there's usually something that still stands out in our memory from long ago.  If you can recall it now, chances are you'll still be able to recall in a month or year from now as well.   Next, select that number seuqence that is meaningful to you in.  Maybe it's a year, stay away from the year you were born though. Using these two pieces of information we can create a password you'll find easy to recall but attackers won't. 

For example, let's say you chose the last name of your first coach, [Aldrich] and you choose the year you started kindergarten [1970].  From those two pieces of information and applying the rules above you can get [Aldrich.1970].  We know that password authentications are sometimes limited to a certain number of characters and character type, so create a long, medium and short version.  In this example, the long will be the one we already created [Aldrich.1970] and medium and short version might look like this [Aldrich70] and [A1970], respectively.  Using this method you'll easily the pieces of info that make up your password and only need to determine if it's the short, medium or long version.  And it's personal information that would not be easily discovered if at all.  I will often times use those terms (short, medium or long) as my password hints to keep them even more secure.  


Access

Try though we might to devise highly secure passwords that we can easily recall we sometimes just can't seem to remember.  In addition, systems may lock you out after a few tries, so ensuring you have the correct password without making extra attempts is important.  Where do you store your passwords?  Let's hope they aren't on a Post-It note by your desk!  Yikes!  Here are a couple of ways to make passwords easily accessible for when you need to recall them.

1. Remember the the address book?  No, not the Mac application on your computer, but the little black book with names and numbers listed alphabetically.  I can't imagine they are getting much use anymore, but they are indeed still available.  Get yourself one, I use a small pocket-sized one because I can easily store it in a secure place.   And each time you set up an new password use the address book to record two things: the login ID and the password hint instead of the actual password.  For example, record whether you used the short, medium or long version of your main password.  That way an intruder searching for access to your stuff would get nowhere.
2. Another option which is more accessible and can be secure but will require some work on your part is to store your passwords in an email folder or on your computer IF and ONLY IF your internet service provider offers encryption, your computer is password protected and you are accessing the information in a secure area.  If you don't know these answers  you'll need to do some work.  Leo Notenboom wrote a great article addressing this issue.  I would encourage you to see what he has to say, it's very helpful.

The bottom line is that ultimately you are the one responsible for ensuring the security of your personal information.  The use of passwords to access restricted areas isn't going away in the near future or maybe ever.  So, it's important to have a plan around how you create and manage them.  Maybe one day we will all have one password that is as secure a Fort Knox which we use for accessing all of our private information and personal accounts.  Wouldn't that be nice!

Your Laptop, Your Latte and Your Privacy.

So you just grabbed that latte and found a little space for yourself in your favorite coffee store to spend some time alone getting caught up on emails, work, Facebook, banking, etc., right?   Maybe wrong, while that may be your intent, you may very well not be alone if you have accessed a Wi-Fi hot spot.   Unfortunately, hackers have become more and more skilled at getting to you.  Through Wi-Fi hot spots hackers use spybots and sniffers to seek out information on your laptop.  Hopefully, you are already utilizing antispam, antivirus and antispyware appliactions.  For a higher level of protection follow these steps to help make sure you are indeed alone!

Step 1:  Disable your laptop's automatic connect feature. Manually select available networks to ensure you are not unintentionally getting on a network that makes you susceptible.

Step 2:  Use a firewall.  A firewall has been installed on your computer if you use Windows Automatic Updates. Unless you turn the firewall off, it runs automatically. You can make your Windows firewall more secure in a public Wi-Fi location by changing your firewall setting to Block All Incoming Connections. Even with that setting, you will be able to view most web sites, check your email and exchange instant messages. For more information about firewalls for Windows click here.  For Mac users, Mac OS X comes with one built in, always has, always will.  Just be sure you've turned it on.

Step 3:  You do not want other users on the network to be able to see the files on your computer. Check the public network's website to see if the network uses encryption to hide users' files. The web site should include a privacy statement. If there is no privacy statement, do not use the network.

Step 4:  Protect yourself from Wi-Fi hackers:

• Do not keying in any passwords, credit card information or other data that you want to remain private.


• Do not check your bank balance in a public place. If it is necessary for you to type the information, do it only on a secure web site.


• Look for https at the beginning of the web site address. The "s" stands for security. Also check for a padlock on the bottom right in the browser toolbar. Using your company's virtual private network (VPN) increases your security.

Step 5:  Watch out for impostor web sites that replicate the Wi-Fi login screen. The source of the evil impostor site could be someone sitting near you.  If you get caught using an impostor, your information goes through their computer before it reaches the Internet.

Step 6:  Be aware of your surroundings.  Prying eyes may be lurking over your shoulder in an effort to steal your information.  It's not being paranoid it's being smart!  Just like you conceal and protect your PIN number from lurking eyes at ATMs., you also need to protect passwords and private information while in a WI-Fi hotspot.

Step 7:  If you are able to accomplish what you need to on a 3g network (e.g. either your phone or using a 3G network card) rather than using public wireless connections.  There is a higher level of security.

Be safe in your solitude!

-M