JoshCombs.com

In the modern age of the Internet, online privacy is a big topic. I am going to discuss a few things that I think can be helpful for everyone who uses the internet. It has been said once you have posted something on the internet it is searchable for ever, so it is best to think about things you will be posting. I have taken the stance where everything I post online must be work safe meaning it is something I can discuss with everyone with out offending anyone on purpose. You will always have people who get offended by the little things, those are things you will have to work around if they come up. Another aspect of online privacy are pictures you upload online, this pertains to people who go to parties and get pictures of them with alcoholic drinks, the FTC has given it’s stamp of approval for a background checking company to be able to use what ever it finds on the internet and supply it to whom ever is performing a background check on you. This means it will scrape the internet and find things associated with your name and it hits all of the important places Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and many other social media sharing sites. If you only share things that are work safe and not offensive to people you will have nothing to worry about.

Hey That’s Not Right!

If you think this is an invasion of privacy you are not the only one, the sad thing there is nothing you can do about it. If it has been published on the internet and is public it is free game according to the FTC and Federal Courts.But there are ways to combat how your information is shared and it is up to you to make sure it is set up the correct way. Most sites like Google, and Facebook will set everything up as PUBLIC unless you change the settings, so you will need to investigate what and how you are sharing when you sign up for these services.

Another way to stay ahead of the privacy game is to ensure you read the Privacy Policies of the sites you are using, they are legally obligated to tell you how they intend to use your information and data. If you do not agree with what you see you have the option to delete your account or not continue to register for the site. When you sign up for a site you have to agree to their terms of service, and this always has their privacy settings listed in it, and you are required to read them before submitting your registration for the site. This is most often the little check box you check with out actually reading the Terms of Service, which can come back to hurt you in the future if you do not fully read the terms. Apple once had in their iTunes terms of service that iTunes was not to be used to aide in the creation of nuclear devices and biological weapons (iTunes TOS Fail)

Usernames, Passwords and Credit Card Information

Your username states a lot about you, if you choose ismokeweed420 it will be tied to your name for ever and unless you want to be known as a druggie to your future employers then more power to you. By sticking with your name or a sudo name that is work friendly you will do fine. I use 3 user names joshcombs, joshua.combs or cincygeek they are all user friendly and allow the proper image to be shared of my name.

Passwords are something everyone should be serious about, have you heard about people being hacked and their Facebook,Twitter profiles being stolen to share private information or say malicious things? It could be stopped by using a proper password, most people have common passwords like puppy, myname, 123456. They are easily guessable and there have been programs written to crack simple passwords. It is called a brute force password generator/cracker. What it does is it keeps guessing passwords that are common until it gets to the common one you may have used. This is why you should always change your passwords every 90 days and never try to use the same password for multiple sites as if an intruder does gain access to one of your accounts they do not gain access to all of your accounts. Also the password structure it self is very important. Having one or more capital letter in your password along with numbers will take longer and I will show you an example of what a good password looks like. Lets use MyPassWord2011 for our example it would take 40.08 centuries for someone to crack it according to Steve Gibson’s Brute Force Password Calculator. But if we use the password of password it will take only .00217 seconds to break through the password because all of the letters are lower case, and if we change the p to an uppercase it will change it to .545 seconds and if we add a zero to it, the time for a cracking scenario is 2.29 minutes. The main thing to take away from this is the more complex your password is, the longer it will take someone to crack it. If it is not something they can overcome in a few minutes they will give up.

I encourage you to test your own password and make the changes to it if you are not using a secure password. (GRC PassWord Calculator)

Online Purchases have become standard practice since the internets inception, if you are using the password strategies that we have discussed above you will not have any issues, but if you are using a easily guessed password for the accounts that you have your credit cards associated with you are the only one to blame, unless the company has a breach like Sony, TJ Max, and other similar companies have had in the past.

Sources: Forbes, Privacy Alliance, GRC PassWord Calculator