Bullying has been a problem for decades.  There was a time when bullies would hang out after school and wait for their victim to exit the building.  Once out of the school, the bully and his “henchmen” would follow the victim shouting rude comments until they were off school grounds and then the victim would be jumped and beaten.  Bullies chose their victims because of how they dressed, how they wore their hair, if they wore glasses or braces, if they had freckles and even simply because they were honor students.  Bullies have taken the joy out of many childhoods.  Today, bullying has made its way out of the schools and onto the Internet.  The age of technology has seen the rise of the cyber-bully.

There are no longer limits to when and where a cyber-bully may strike or who the bully’s audience is.  The taunts and rude comments that used to be confined to one area are now spreading like wildfire over Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.  The victim doesn’t even necessarily know who is responsible for the bullying because it’s all done in a cowardly fashion; while hiding behind the veil of the Internet.  The cyber-bully will take an unflattering photo or video of the victim and post it to all social media along with captions to make the posts even more embarrassing.  The 2004 movie, “Mean Girls” portrayed a group of snobby girls who made a “burn book”.  In this book were photos and comments about other girls in their school who were hated by them for one reason or another.  At the end of the school day, the mean girls would get together to decide if someone else would be added to the burn book.  Today, the burn book has been replaced by the Facebook “hate page”.  The sole purpose of these hate pages is to embarrass the victims.

Cyber-bullying has become such a problem that recently, there have been many news stories about kids as young as 10 taking their own lives because they were bullied over social media.  The bullies of long ago were cowards because they never went anywhere without their followers; today’s cyber-bullies are just as cowardly because they never show their faces.  They’re very brave as long as they have their computer keyboard handy, but wouldn’t have the guts to speak up face to face.  Because of the anonymity, I’m sorry to say that the cyber-bully could be the victim’s real-life best friend.  Read Full Article

When you finish reading your e-mail, how do you dispose of it?  Do you “Permanently Delete” it?  Do you just send it to the “Trash” folder or let it go to the “Read Mail” folder and have it sit in either of those folders until it disappears?  Well, if you don’t “Permanently Delete”, your privacy can be at risk because once those old e-mails reach 180 days old, any government agency can read them.  You don’t have to be notified and they don’t need a search warrant to do this.

The only time a search warrant is necessary to read old e-mails is if those e-mails were saved to your hard drive.  However, if you use an e-mail provider that stores your old mail in a cloud server (G-Mail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, Hotmail, etc), once that mail has been sitting unopened for 180 days, it’s considered “legally abandoned”.  When e-mail is abandoned, it’s there for the taking.

In 1986, ECPA (the Electronic Communications Privacy Act) was put in place.  Once enacted, it gave government agencies the right to seize old e-mails from the e-mail providers.  At the time, there really was not a big risk to privacy since in 1986, storage space was so small that as soon as an e-mail was read, it was deleted.  It was rare that any e-mail would sit in storage just taking up valuable space.  Things have changed a lot since then.  The cloud servers of today offer pretty much an unlimited amount of storage space so deleting old e-mail is no longer necessary.  The ECPA hasn’t been amended since it was passed, which means it’s pretty worthless considering how much technology has grown.

Citing the Freedom of Information Act, the ACLU questioned the IRS on their practices of obtaining the e-mail of ordinary citizens.  According to the IRS, their criminal investigation department does not get warrants when they request old e-mails. 

The ACLU then cited the Freedom of Information Act when requesting the same information about old e-mails to the FBI.  The FBI answered by implying that they, too, do not obtain warrants, however, they wouldn’t admit to it flat out.  The FBI did give the ACLU excerpts from two of their Domestic Investigations and Operations Guides.  Both guides (one dated 2008 and the other dated 2012) stated:  “FBI agents only need a warrant for emails or other electronic communications that are unopened and less than 180 days old.”

The IRS and FBI examples show that an amendment to ECPA is long over-due.  There has been a law in place since 1877 which makes it necessary for any government agency to obtain a search warrant if they want to read the mail of US citizens that has been sent via the US Postal Service.  Now we need protection like this to include any and all electronic communications as well.  Until that amendment happens, make sure you keep your privacy safe by always clicking on “Delete Permanently” when you finish reading your e-mails.  Some may think this is necessary only to cover criminal activities, but it’s not; it’s simply a matter of personal privacy.

Please take the time to download the Internet Privacy Guide located at the top of this page.  It’s completely free, yet it offers valuable suggestions on how to keep your privacy safe.

One concern for Internet users is being banned from websites.  Maybe the site owner doesn’t like one of your posts, or you posted too much, but the result is the same:  you’re banned!  Whether or not you think the ban was justified doesn’t matter.   Even if you don’t understand the reasoning, the Webmaster for that site has banned you and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Or is there?

Once you delete your cookies, make a new username and password, you should be good to go.  You try to sign in with your new information and you find that you’re still banned.  How can this be?  Well, not only was your username banned, the site has also banned your IP Address.  NOW what do you do?

You have a couple of options to remedy this problem.  Anytime you want to go to that particular site, you can get in your car and find the nearest public Wi-Fi, but that would be inconvenient.  You could look into getting a new Internet Service Provider (ISP), but that would cost you some money, especially if you have to break a contract with your original ISP.  Another option would be to use a proxy service that has multiple servers to choose from.

By using a proxy service, you can change your IP Address whenever you need to.  All you have to do to get back on that banned website is to delete your cookies, sign in with the proxy server and create a new username and password from the proxy IP Address.  You will then have access to that site.  If you didn’t learn your lesson after the first time you were banned and get banned again, you can go through the process again and use another server to get a new IP Address.  However, this wouldn’t be the ideal situation since there are others who are using the same server.  If the new IP Address you are using gets banned, they too will be banned from that particular website.  After a few tries, you should be able to know what you did so it won’t happen again.

But, getting around a banned website isn’t the only benefit.  When you use a reputable proxy service, all of your information is encrypted.  If you surf the Internet from home or from a public hotspot, you will be protected by this encryption.  All you have to do is sign on to the proxy and any information you enter into your computer will be safe from hackers because it will be unreadable to them.  Also, when you use a reputable service, you can be assured that the lines of communication are never monitored.  This means you will even be safe from the unscrupulous people who run some of the free proxies. 

Personally, I use Private Proxy and I love it!  No matter where I go, I know I could go anywhere on the Internet knowing I’m protected.  You can try it out for yourself.  Simply click on the link for the Risk Free Trial and I think you will be just as pleased as I am.

I can’t even remember how many times I’ve been asked by both friends and strangers if it’s a good idea to use a proxy server.  The answer I always give is “Yes!!!”

Whenever I travel, I usually drive, so that means when I’m on the road, I’m usually working.  If I stop at Panera for a quick snack or if I’m staying in a motel over-night, I bring my laptop in so I can get things done.  Because of this, I’m relying on public Wi-Fi during my trips.  With all the talk of identity theft and hackers, I always wondered if someone sitting at the next table or staying in the next room was a hacker.  I tried to be cautious, but the worry was still there until I discovered Private Proxy.   Now, I can go anywhere and work on the Internet without worrying about my privacy.  Yes, there are free proxies available, but I was always told that you get what you pay for and some of those free proxies aren’t run by very scrupulous people.  These people can, and sometimes do, monitor the information being sent out and will use it against you.  Another thing to consider is that since the proxies are free, they are public and anyone can use them (just like public Wi-Fi).  No information you send out is encrypted.  With Private Proxy, I’m assured of an unmonitored, encrypted connection at all times.  This way, I feel much safer knowing that no one can read my personal information.

I also like that no one can figure out if I’m home or on the road.  Since Private Proxy gives me a choice of many rotating and static connections in the US, Canada and the Netherlands, I can be “seen” as being in the States even when I’m over-seas.  It also works to my advantage in the opposite way.  If a friend invites me to her child’s birthday party and I have had enough of ball pits and clowns for the year, I can choose one of the proxy servers on the other side of the country so it looks like I’m traveling.  Not that I don’t like my friends, their kids or their parties, but there is only so much of the bad magic tricks and silly string one person can handle! Read Full Article

Millions of people, every day, depend on one piece of electronic equipment to do just about everything:  their smartphone.  Back in the day, very few people had cell phones, and those that did used them to make emergency calls every now and then.  Over the years, the simple cell phone has evolved into the smartphone.  The smartphone is a multi-functional device that allows a person to send e-mail, update social networking, shop on line, play games and do anything else that can be done on a computer.  Many cars have built in GPSs, but if yours doesn’t, that’s OK because you can use your Navigation app on your smartphone.  In fact, one of the least used functions of a smartphone today is actually the one that allows you to make phone calls.  It’s amazing that this one, small device can do so much, but what does this mean when it comes to privacy?  Because the smartphone holds a large quantity of personal information regarding our shopping habits, social networking, e-mail and even banking, it now makes it easier for you to be tracked and targeted for on-line ads. 

Every day, more and more people are downloading hundreds of apps made specifically for the smartphone.  If you’re low on gas, the GasBuddy app can tell you which station has the lowest prices with the shortest wait time (which came in handy during SuperStorm Sandy when gas prices went up and the lines were hours long!).  Banks now offer apps that make it easy to deposit a check from anywhere.  All you have to do is snap a picture of your check using your smartphone and it’s deposited into your account.  If you’re in unfamiliar territory, you can count on Google Maps to find directions to the hotel or restaurant where you are to have your business meeting, then after the meeting, you can use the e-mail function to check in with your office to let everyone know the status of that big project.  After your workday is done, you can relax in your room and read your local newspaper, watch your local news, update your social networking status, play games or even read a book.  If you’re feeling under the weather, just log onto WebMD and enter your symptoms to get a quick diagnosis or if you are having trouble with your toddler, you can check in with your favorite parenting site to see what others have done to remedy the issue.  You are never far from home or the office as long as you have your smartphone.

 But what does all this convenience mean to your privacy?  Every site you log on to and every app you download requires you to enter some personal information, which is all saved to your smartphone.  Don’t forget that many on-line businesses share information gathered with third parties.  Is it worth risking your privacy in order to have the convenience of doing just about everything from this one device?  Surprisingly, most people choose convenience over privacy.  They feel that entering a birth date or zip code in order to have 24 hour access to websites no matter where they travel is well worth the effort.  They don’t realize how this can jeopardize their privacy since millions of people may live in a particular zip code and millions more can have a particular birth date.  One important factor isn’t taken into consideration:  only one person has that zip code and birth date on that particular smartphone.

 Each time you enter personal information for a smartphone app or download, you are risking your privacy.  On-line marketers can use your information in order to target you for specific ads.  They know what city your home is in from your zip code, they know your age from your birth date, they know which websites you frequent, and through the GPS function on your smartphone, they know where you are at any given time.  Add your e-mail address into the mix and these marketers can fill your inbox with ads for more apps, shops, products or anything else.  Your browser will also be giving you suggestions on apps or products you may be interested in because your history shows what you have purchased or downloaded.

 App developers claim that a consumer must give their personal information in order to really benefit from their apps.  There is, however, some debate as to what the risks to privacy are that has even Congress involved.  As of now, what is being discussed the most is a way for consumers to choose a “Do Not Track” option on the sites they frequent but, so far, there is no solution to the privacy issue. Read Full Article

We all have many concerns when it comes to our privacy.  There are so many things to think about when it comes to identity theft or being hacked when using public Wi-Fi or wireless routers.  But do parents of young children think about what could happen if their children are given total, unsupervised access to the Internet?  Judging by some of the things I see and read, I don’t think they do.  Children as young as 8 years old are being allowed to log onto the Internet with no parental supervision, which means that these parents either don’t realize that this can put their children in danger, or that these parents refuse to believe that their children will find dangerous places on-line.

Do Not Talk to Strangers

There was a time back in the 60s and 70s when parents were criticized for using the television set as a babysitter.  Busy parents would sit their children in front of the television to watch cartoons while they did their daily chores.  The children would be occupied for hours watching their favorite characters get into all kinds of mischief while mom and dad did the yard work, cooking and cleaning.  Today, instead of the television, more and more parents are sitting their children in front of the computer to occupy themselves on the Internet.  The cartoon characters that the children of the 60s and 70s watched got into a lot of trouble, but those characters never enticed the children watching to come join them.  With the Internet, it’s a completely different story.  There are sites that children are finding that allow them to talk to random strangers.  These strangers sometimes will get the children’s trust, then will get the children’s personal information like full names, addresses and telephone numbers.  You wouldn’t allow your 8 year old to walk the streets of a large city alone, would you?  Well, allowing your 8 year old to “walk” the Internet alone is just as dangerous.

The solution isn’t as simple as not having Internet service.  Because of budget cuts, schools all over the country are turning to the use of e-textbooks because it’s just too expensive to buy new books each year for each child.  In order to access these e-textbooks, students must log onto the schools’ websites.  Here, they can not only study, but they can also get extra help with their homework from teachers who volunteer to tutor.  In other words, today, having a computer with Internet access is a necessity for all students, from elementary school through college.  Since parents also need to use the Internet for various personal and business projects, it’s not uncommon for each member of the household to have their own computer.  Each computer is not only Internet ready, but each one likely has a webcam built right in.  It’s dangerous to allow a child to have a computer with Internet access in his or her own room, but the combination of Internet and webcam makes it all the more dangerous.   There are parents who will not even allow their children to walk to a school that may only be a block or two away, but they will feel it’s perfectly all right to allow those same children to be alone on the Internet.  Parents:  you teach your children not to talk to strangers on the city streets, but now, you need to extend this to the Internet.  Word is spreading from child to child about sites that will let them talk to strangers.  Make no mistake about this; if your child has not yet heard of or found one of these sites, they soon will and you need to be ready for it.

One of these “talk to strangers” sites is Omegle.  The concept of the site was to use the Internet as a meeting place for people who would normally never have a chance to meet in real life.  It is a place where strangers can chat with other strangers from all over the world.  Omegle was created by Leif K-Brooks, an 18 year old living in Brattleboro, Vermont.  The site was up and running on March 25, 2009.  Within one month of going live, there were 150,000 users.  The number of users is not going down and the site is still going strong.  There is no registration necessary to use the site, there is no charge for its use and it’s not monitored.  Yes, there is a disclaimer that says that users must be at least 18 years old, but on the Internet, you can be any age you choose.  That being said, Omegle is one of the more popular sites of very young children.

In the first year or two, Omegle’s chat was done via text only.  Today, users have a choice between text and video.  Mixing a child, a stranger and video chat can be a very dangerous combination.  One young girl’s story comes to mind when I think of children video chatting with strangers:  Amanda Todd.  Canadian teenager Amanda Todd was just 13 years old when she found that she could video chat with strangers from around the world.  She was a pretty girl who liked when boys and even grown men would tell her how beautiful she was.  One day, a man she was chatting with convinced her to lift her shirt and flash her breasts for him.  She did it.  What she didn’t know was that during that brief flash, the man on the other end of the camera took a screenshot of her.  She didn’t realize that one frame of a video chat could be frozen like that.

During her video chats, Amanda didn’t think there was anything wrong with giving her name.  The man who Amanda flashed on camera knew her name, made a page on Facebook showing that he was a boy Amanda’s age and sent her a friend request.  Amanda accepted.  This “boy” told her that the following semester, he would be going to her school and asked her if she could get her friends to accept him as a Facebook friend.  Once he had her entire friends list, he proceeded to send each one on that list the photo he took of Amanda lifting her shirt.  He also sent the photo to the school’s website for everyone to see.  That one moment of what Amanda thought of as teenage silliness made her a target for bullying.  Everyone in the school called her nasty names and not even her closest friends would associate with her anymore.  Amanda was very depressed for months and her parents decided that the best thing to do for the family would be to move.  Things were good for a while and Amanda was making new friends at her new school.  She even made a new Facebook page listing her new school and with a new list of friends.  This is what her tormenter was waiting for.  He again sent her a friend request that she accepted and he sent the photo to everyone on the new list and her new school’s site.  Amanda couldn’t take any more.  She wrote flashcards and used them to tell her story in a YouTube video.  On October 10, 2012, just a few days after posting her video on YouTube, Amanda’s parents found her hanged body.  Amanda’s tormenter has disappeared and has never been identified.

The story of Amanda Todd isn’t the only one of its kind and it demonstrates what can happen to a child when left alone with the Internet.  Children do things on the spur of the moment and think nothing of it, like flashing a stranger.  They sometimes are only thinking in the moment, not of any consequences that their actions might have.  Aside from worrying that they may be inappropriate photos of their children floating around the Internet, parents also need to think about what information their children are giving out that could become a privacy issue.  There have been children chatting on-line, thinking they are chatting with a child their age, so they have given information such as full name, phone number address and school name.  The “child” they thought could be a new pen pal or foreign boyfriend or girlfriend could in reality be a pedophile.  Supposedly, the chat on these sites is anonymous, but that doesn’t stop people of any age from freely giving out information.  Not only do some chatters lie about their ages, they also lie about their locations, so one who is thought to be living in Asia could really be right about the corner.  Even with only a name, someone could look that name up on Facebook and get all the information he or she needs in order to stalk someone.

In addition to Omegle, there is another site where anyone, including children, can randomly chat with strangers.  The name of this site is Chatroulette.  Once again, a teenager created this site.  He is Andrey Ternovsky of Moscow, Russia, who was just 17 when he came up with the concept.  The idea came to him when he was watching The Deer Hunter.  In that movie, prisoners of war were forced to play Russian Roulette as a way for their guards to find amusement.  Chatroulette is like Russian Roulette because every connection could bring you in contact with a different stranger each time, or you could connect with the one you just ended a conversation with.  This site covers the world just like Omegle, but the one difference is that you need to register to use Chatroulette.  This may seem like it would make it difficult for a child to use the site, but it’s not.  Registration is free, so no credit card or bank account information would be needed.

Unofficially, a study was made on the subject of Chatroulette.  Here is what this study brought to light:

1. Connections with and from people in the US accounted for over half of all connections made.
2. Only 11% of all connections were female, while 89% were male.
3. Many video connections showed nothing but an empty chair.
4. 1 of every 8 connections that showed someone on the other side of the camera was of a naked and/or masturbating person.

Will you still allow your child to use the Internet without your supervision?

One other thing to consider that is very troubling is that both sites, Chatroulette and Omegle, as that you allow them access to your webcam.  A lot of children who have computers set up in their rooms don’t turn them off and always have the Internet running.  Think of how remote access to your child’s webcam can impact that child if the webcam was turned on when your child was dressing for school, or even just sleeping.

Concern has been voiced about these sites.  American psychiatrist, Dr. Keith Ablow, who is also a best-selling author commented about Chatroulette that, “Parents should keep all their children off the site because it’s much too dangerous for children.  It’s a predator’s paradise.  This is one of the worst faces of the Internet that I’ve seen.  It’s disconnecting human relationships rather than connecting them.”  Really, now?

On CBS’s The Early Show, Ernie Allen, President of the National Center of Missing & Exploited Children said that Chatroulette is “the last place parents want their kids to be.  This is a huge red flag; this is extreme social networking.  This is a place kids are going to gravitate to.”

Chatroulette creator Andrey Ternovsky was quoted in The New York Times as saying, “Everyone finds his own way of using the site.  Some think it is a game, others think it is a whole unknown world, others think it is a dating service.  I think it’s cool that such a concept can be useful for so many people.”  When asked, he said he was aware of some people masturbating or standing around naked in front of their cameras, but added that this is not a use he agrees with.

Many parents will feel that their children would never know how to find sites such as these, but that’s not the case.  Don’t be so quick to say, “Not MY child” because it’s only a matter of time until your child will hear about these sites from their friends or classmates.  Children are finding and using Omegle and Chatroulette with disastrous results.  The only way to stop this is for all parents of young children to closely supervise them each time they go on the Internet.   Take the computer out of your child’s room and put it in a common area of the house.  Shut it down with a parental password in place when the child goes to bed so there is no temptation to go on-line after the parents have gone to bed.  Even though you know you can’t keep your child innocent until they move out of your house, you still don’t want them seeing adult content when they’re still in elementary school.  If you make a small effort, your child’s privacy, and yours, can stay safe.

For more tips and suggestions on how to keep you and your family safe, please download the free Privacy Guide offered at the top of this page.  You will be glad you did.

The founders of Instagram were approached by Facebook in early 2012 regarding an offer to buy the then newly created company.  The price offered:  $1 billion.  It took a while, but in September 2012, just before Facebook went public, the sale was finalized in the amount of $750 million. Instagram’s founders and its few employees couldn’t be happier about this deal, but did they realize that it was about to become a privacy fiasco for the thousands of people who had photos posted to the site?  Shortly after the acquisition, a new policy was put into place that says Facebook has the right to sell any or all of the 5 billion-plus photos that were posted on Instagram’s site.

Just 3 months after Intstagram’s purchase by Facebook, on January 16, 2013, a new policy regarding photos was put in place.  Starting on that date, Facebook has the right to sell any photo that was posted on Instagram without paying, or even notifying, the users who posted those photos.  If you read the updated policy and deleted your Instagram account before January 16^th, this was the only way you could have stopped the sale of your photos.  However, if you didn’t read the update and your account with Instagram was still active as of that date, you are in danger of your photos being sold.  Instagram users certainly weren’t happy about this detail.

What all this means is that if you use Instagram to post photos and did not delete your account before January 16, 2012, you could be facing a huge privacy concern.  Any photos that you posted on Instagram after the effective policy date can be sold to any advertiser and used in any way.  You could be on your way to work or school one morning and see a photo of you and your friends partying at a local bar up on a billboard advertising that bar.  Or maybe the billboard is for a beach resort that you visited and the photo is of you lying on the beach in a very skimpy bikini.  Another possibility is that you could be skimming through a magazine in your dentist’s waiting room and see a print ad featuring you and your friends standing in front of the newest casino.  Would you be shocked at any of this?  Would you be even more shocked to know that everyone involved with creating this ad, except you, will be making money off of your images?  Does this sound like a good deal?

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) has taken notice of this new policy.  “It’s asking people to agree to unspecified future commercial use of their photos.  That makes it challenging for someone to give informed consent to that deal.”  That was a statement issued by Kurt Opsahl, Senior Staff Attorney for the EFF.

Since it is unspecified what types of photos can be sold and used, the policy leaves an endless amount of possibilities.  Any type of business, hotel chains, cruise lines, airlines, bars, restaurants, etc., can purchase your Instagram photos from Facebook without asking you for consent.  Your photos can be used in brochures, television commercials, print and Internet ads…any kind of advertisement that the purchaser sees fit.  And because there is no limit on the types of photos used, your kids can be in danger.  One day, you may see a billboard of your kids running around on a beach used to advertise the kid-friendly resort you visited last summer.

If you want to avoid all this but didn’t delete your Instagram account before January 16, 2013, you can still delete your account to regain some control over your privacy.  However, keep in mind that any pictures you posted to Instagram after January 16^th up to the date your account was deleted can still be sold since there is no language in the new policy that protects those photos.  Read Full Article

The Promote and Share feature is the latest money making idea to come out of Facebook.  This feature allows one of your Facebook friends to promote one of your posts by sharing it on their news feed.  So if you post about a new baby, job promotion or anything else, all a friend needs to do is click on the “Promote and Share” button to get your word out.  Of course, this isn’t free “advertising”; there will be a $7 fee for each “promote and share”.  This is causing a lot of concerns about privacy because no one can opt out of this feature and anyone can Promote and Share without permission from the original poster.  Even though Facebook says this feature will work with the original poster’s privacy settings, it’s still something to worry about.

The reason Facebook came up with this new feature is because they claim there was a demand for it.  They have said that this feature is beneficial to all because it allows users to share good news posted by their friends so that this news can be moved to the top of the newsfeed.  This will allow other friends who may have missed the original post to share in the excitement of that new baby, house or job.

Facebook issued a statement as follows:  “This feature respects the privacy of the original poster – i.e. it will promote to everyone who originally saw it.  You can only promote posts to the people that your friend originally shared with.  If you have mutual friends, they’ll see that you shared it and promoted it.”  If this is the case, then why would someone pay $7 to share a post that any friend could simply scroll down to find?  Yes, this feature is beneficial, but in my opinion, it’s really only beneficial to Facebook’s pockets.

Sure, there are people who will take advantage of Promote and Share.  They realize that many friends don’t have the luxury of spending all day on Facebook and statuses do get buried way down in the newsfeeds.  With Promote and Share, they can know that more people will have a chance to see the post since it will be moved up to the top of the newsfeeds.  I don’t know why anyone would pay $7 for this, though, when all anyone has to do is scroll down to see earlier posts, or visit a friend’s wall to see if there is any new developments in their pregnancy, job search or other special event.    Read Full Article

When you meet new people, how well do you know them before you invite them into your home?  Today, when most people hear about identity theft, they think of hackers stealing personal information over the Internet.  Sure, you have to protect yourself on-line, but you also must be careful of new acquaintances and friends that you meet in the real world.  How trusting are you?  Here is a scenario that was relayed to me recently:

My friend Pam had always wanted to take a class in pottery but there was never anything offered in her area.  One day, she received a class schedule from her local community college and saw the perfect class for her:  Pottery 101.  It was a 10 week course, close to home and the price was right, so she signed up.   The first day of class, she was early and chose a seat towards the back of the room.  Tony came in the room shortly after and sat next to her.  They had some time to talk before class started and found conversation very easy.  There was no romantic interest, but Pam thought that Tony would make a great friend.

Pam and Tony would go out for coffee every night after class, sometimes with a group and sometimes alone.  Either way, they really enjoyed each other’s company, so they started making plans to go out on weekends.  The first time Tony picked Pam up at her apartment, she gave him the grand tour, which included her home office.  Tony admired the antique safe that was in a prominent position.  Pam told him that she bought it at an estate sale and it was where she kept all her important papers.  She said she never had a combination for it, and jokingly added that she felt that it looked impressive enough to deter any burglar.  Because of this, she felt it didn’t need to be locked.

For months, they hung out together.  Pam talked about her family that was living in another state and how difficult it was sometimes to live so far from them.  Tony could sympathize since he had recently become a US citizen, but his girlfriend wasn’t yet able to come over from their native country.  Time went on and they became almost inseparable friends and confidants.

After knowing each other for a little over a year, Tony announced that he was going to visit his family and girlfriend overseas.  Pam was so happy for him because she knew how much he missed them all.  She drove him to the airport and saw him off.  She didn’t expect to hear from him during his trip, but she was to pick him up in two weeks.  Pam had all of Tony’s flight information and got to the airport a few minutes before the plane landed.      Read Full Article

SOPA (Stop Internet Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) are two bills that came to a vote in Congress in January 2012.  These bills were supposed to help fight copyright infringement on the Internet, but, if they passed, the government would be able to block certain websites for most Internet users.  This gave the government far too much control.

At first, there didn’t appear to be a problem and it was thought that both bills would pass in the Senate and House.  A protest staged by some popular websites showed Internet users what their Internet would look like if the bills were passed.  Sites like Wikipedia blacked out their sites for a day.  This got people to understand that giving the government full Internet control was a dangerous thing and a letter-writing campaign began.  Thousands of letters were sent to state representatives telling them to vote “No” on both of these bills.  The campaign worked and in October 2012, the bills were taken off the table.

With that threat out of the way, Internet users thought it was safe.  Then, an international treaty, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) came up.  ISPs (Internet Service Providers) would have to “monitor and censor online communications” under ACTA.  Not only was this seen as a threat to privacy, it was also seen as threatening to our freedom of speech.  During the panel discussions on this, some of the points were leaked out to the public.  Citizens of quite a few European countries took to the streets to protest the passing of this treaty.  The protests worked.  In July, the treaty was voted against by the European Parliament and was taken off the table all over Europe in December.

During this time, lawmakers in Washington, DC didn’t give up on their plan to remove copyright infringing content from the Internet.  The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and the Cybersecurity Act (CSA) were brought up.  Though both bills caused concern, the one that was considered most dangerous was CISPA.  This was because so many who were set against SOPA were now supporting CISPA.  The bill was supported because companies found that under it, they could share personal information with the government without consent and not have to worry about litigation.  Even with this support, both of these bills were taken off the table by the middle of November. Read Full Article