Staying safe on the internet

          Its been a strange day. I discovered my debit card had been compromised. This was most likely because of an internet faxing service I had used*, because the IRS hasn't moved into this century yet, but it got me thinking about information security, so I thought I'd share a little wisdom about staying safe on the internet.

4 ways to not get ripped off on the internet:

1. HTTPS. The first one is something that goes relatively unnoticed but has gained a particular amount of prominence in the last few months. Look at the left side of the address bar of whatever browser you're using. The address most likely starts with HTTPS. Now as you ramble about the internet, keep an eye on the addresses of sites you visit. You might notice that occasionally it starts with HTTP, with the S being omitted. And this is important: If there is no S, either get off the website or find a version that has HTTPS because it is terribly unsafe. The S literally stands for 'Secure' and means that your information is encrypted against people sniffing the info. It doesn't necessarily stop people from grabbing the raw data, but all they get when they read it is garbled nonsense. Luckily if you use google chrome, the distinction is made much more obvious, since google started identifying any HTTP based website with a 'Secure/Not secure' listing next to the address. Thanks again google!**
   
2. Grammar counts. One of the age old ways to stop an internet scam is to proofread***. The first line of defense in the war on scammers is to remember that they are cunning but ultimately lazy. They don't check their content for spelling, punctuation, or in some cases, English, because that amount of effort puts them at a net negative in the time-value calculation****, so they fling their badly written dribble as quickly and as much as possible and collect whatever comes back. Whenever you get an email or go to a website, just ask yourself: could a 5th grader write more coherently than this, and judge accordingly.
   
3. Old things. This one is a two-parter. Internet fraud artists ply their trade largely on old people; who don't understand the internet, and old technology; which doesn't work well with the internet. Often it is done in tandem, because you have someone who likes using old technology and wants it to interface with the new. This is precisely how I got duped*****, though obviously I'm not that old******. I needed to send a fax from the internet rather than a fax machine, and chose the wrong 'service' to do it. So if you need to merge old tech with new, talk to a professional instead of clicking things on the internet.
   
4. Name Branding. As uncomfortable as it is to some people with the 'buy local' attitude, on the internet, the bigger the name, the more trustworthy they are(I caution here that this just means that they are more trustworthy in a transactional-legal sense. It's the ethics question. They might screw you, but they'll just do it legally, and they wont charge you anything outside of what their lengthy and impossible to understand agreements say they will. So its kind of like deciding if you want to have a shitty day now or on buy it on layaway.) A large, well known company has a lot to lose if they don't appear to be running legally and providing a secure, safe service. Remember the Target breach? They lost some serious credibility and profit over that, and it was largely due to neglect rather than malice on their part. Imagine what would happen if that kind of thing happened regularly and knowingly?

          What I'm getting at here is that the internet preys on people who are unfamiliar with it. So take a class, talk to someone experienced, or just stay off the internet entirely and keep writing checks at the supermarket.*******

-Will

Editor's Notes:

* He's way less sure of this than he'll admit.He does enough dumb stuff on the internet that you could steal his identity with a google search.

**This is unrelated, but he has a google home and always thanks it when it does stuff for him. The disembodied voice doesn't require your appreciation you tool.

***Ironically something he needs me to do and probably how he got his card compromised.

****Based on which I am out about $300 and one cheese omelette.

***** See footnote 1. He surfs the internet like a tourist covered in steaks in a shark tank.

****** Last week he asked a date what their favorite 'Anime' is and almost cried when they said 'Naruto'. It got worse when they said they 'found out there's an anime based on Pokemon Go'.

*******I HATE EVERYONE WHO DOES THIS WITHOUT EXCEPTION