Category: students

For a few years now I’ve used ad-blockers on my desktop browsers, but I have done little else to protect my private data. There isn’t a rhyme or reason for it, I just never put much thought into it. I save most of my passwords in the Google Chrome password manager, except for the websites that have my very personal info like my bank’s website, MyASU, etc. For websites like Facebook and Twitter, though, I don’t have any personal information that can be taken from there and used to hurt me in any meaningful/financial way. Otherwise, I make sure that all of the websites I put my payment information or personal information into are using an encrypted code. For example, I have a Chrome extension that ensures every website I visit is using https.

I know that I need to take my online security more seriously and enact measures that give me more privacy, but there are so many things to do to ensure online security that it can seem overwhelming and expensive at times. For instance, just the act of retrieving all of the passwords I currently have saved on the Chrome password manager and transferring them to a separate password manager, like 1Password, can be very time-consuming. Using a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, can be a very good way to protect my information online. However, these have a cost alongside the password manager.

Another issue with things like VPNs is that when your data is encrypted and the website you’re on sees your location as a different country than your home country, the website likely changes to match the country it thinks you’re in. For instance, if you’re using a VPN and go to Spotify to pay for a plan for you and your friend to try and save some money. While there, you see the Duo plan, which you’ve never heard of. It’s basically a family plan but cheaper and only for two people, which is perfect for you! However, this is only available in certain countries and you won’t actually be able to sign up for it if you live in the United States. Spotify isn’t compatible with VPNs, so you’re going to have to turn that off in order to listen to music.

I need to take my online security more seriously and make a step forward in that direction, though. I doubt I’ll ever use a VPN regularly, but I might start moving my passwords out of Chrome and to a more specialized, and probably free, password manager. I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to use a VPN, but I understand why some people do. I plan on being more careful about what information I’m letting get saved in my browser as well.

Honestly, my approach to digital security has always been a bit lackluster. I use a similar password for everything (which I probably shouldn’t be sharing here), and I also save most of my passwords to my computer or phone. I rarely use incognito mode, many of my social media accounts are public, and I don’t have any encryption on my devices. These are all things I vaguely knew I should be doing, but I did not realize how important these things were until I did the readings.

I thought the Business insider piece on national security was quite interesting. The idea that giving up our personal information to protect national security actually seemed crazy to me, as I have never thought my information, in any way shape or form, would benefit our security or the government. Additionally, the Microsoft CEO saying it’s a mistake to give up that information is also surprising. His words made me realize how essential our privacy can be. Having grown up in an era where everything is online, I have never really assumed I had privacy, nor have I made a large effort to try and remain private. Satya Nadella’s words were quite thought-provoking, and make me want to begin to develop a more private online presence.

Additionally, the Washington Post article on internet extensions and selling of data was something I knew nothing about previously. I use web extensions on Firefox, including Grammarly, Chartbeat, and Tabagochi (highly recommend), as well as others, to make my internet usage more efficient. To know that those extensions (though after researching, I think I’m good) could have sold my clicks and information to companies for their own profit really frustrates me. I know that no one reads the terms and conditions, which probably benefits this practice, but it just seems incredibly unethical and inconsiderate to be doing this to consumers who want to use your product. When leaks or hacks occur from these extensions, it puts thousands of people’s information at risk, completely violating so many basic rights we take for granted.

Just from these few articles alone, there are security habits of mine that I know need some sort of change. For one, I need to protect my passwords better, as I would really hate to be hacked and lose my information. Additionally, I will likely update my privacy settings on certain social media. For example, I use my twitter for 90% journalistic purposes, so that will remain public, but my TikTok and Facebook, which I tend to post on less frequently, may get some increased privacy on my end. I’m not sure, honestly, that I will encrypt things, but I will certainly look into it. But, I will absolutely do more research on extensions before I download them. I had no idea extensions selling info was an issue, and I feel like that is something I will 100% look for in the future.

The question I struggled with and probably the reason I shrugged security off in the past is because, who cares about me?  What is someone going to want with my data and how could it affect me?  After considering the course content, these are the changes I will be making and why.

Continue using Ghostery tracking.

There seems to be a common theme about three privacy encounters online: tracking, surveillance and theft.  I aspire to go into digital marketing, and have been fascinated with tracking capabilities.  At first I was a little spooked by target marketing, but now I like it.  I enjoy seeing ads that are relevant to my needs and interests.  That said, I know that not everyone acts ethically and sometimes companies may push for data that they don’t need.  In this area I fully believe that brands need to check in with their marketers’ ethics regularly.  To monitor tracking on my computer, I use Ghostery.  Ghostery is a Google plugin that keeps me aware of people monitoring my internet use.

Incorporate security to my content curations.

I don’t think that I have taken enough time educating myself on surveillance and theft as I have with my interest in digital marketing.  I was very upset after watching the Snowden movie, but like some of the readings mention, I ended up forgetting about it.  It is important not to forget about it and to continuously ask myself, am I comfortable with the government eavesdropping?  I have a goal for myself, that I have come up with from this course, to complete a content curation each week covering various topics for digital media.  I will be adding tracking, surveillance and theft as a group topic to my calendar.

Thoroughly read terms and conditions.

When I think of identity theft online, I think of my credit card and social security number.  I never allow my computer to save my card information and I don’t use apple pay.  There are some apps that remember the information, but I try to opt out as often as I can.  Someone once took a photo of my bank card, and while not stolen from the internet, it really impacted my trust for others with that information.  A change that I will be making in response to theft, is thoroughly reading terms and conditions because I don’t ever really know what I am agreeing to and those agreements as we’ve learned, mean a great deal when trying to protect myself.

Updating my computer and apps regularly.

Having worked at a tech center I was familiar with the vulnerabilities and patching dialogue, but I never really thought I would need it for my personal data.  I thought that updates and worrying about security would be more important for a global brand.

I don’t think I even though about internet security until I was a freshman in high school, I won’t get too much into it but there were random men easily over the age of 25 messaging me. At one point I freaked out but I didn’t know what to do so I blocked them and I took down all of my pictures and that was the end of that.

Well, so I thought unfortunately as I grew older and with my career, I knew I didn’t want people to find my personal pages. I took down my again after posting some in between this time frame, I changed my name on all social media and put all my account of private. Although this helps I still don’t feel safe, I stream for a living I am in front of a lot of people daily and worry about my protection, although I never use my real name or my address I know this doesn’t stop people.

My husband is constantly telling me I need a VPN, I’m not very good with all of the tech stuff, but from my understanding, your computer has a number unique to itself that can only be your computer like a fingerprint. You can leave these fingerprints on whatever sites you use, this can be used by hackers for knowing which computer to hack or people to know your location, either way, it is scary but isn’t something most people know about so it is uncommon to do. By using a program for other VPN’s you mask your fingerprint with others making people think you’re some computer from Spain.

So I go to download the software, and again I open another can of worms. As a cheap college student can’t afford an expensive mostly program like Nordvpn, so what you can’t pay for it google the free version! I goggled an app for it downloaded it and run into some problems. It wasn’t too bad I was quite lucky, my only issue is that Google services would run with it on or any other this creates a problem when I can’t stream. More importantly, many people download app’s like there and come to find out that the anti-virus software you downloaded is a virus, so it’s very important to check everything you download first.

This all being said I have a MacBook, although this doesn’t keep me completely safe I have never had an issue even as a teen who would click on thoughts links that your not supposed to. Although I don’t love all things apple and really don’t love the prices it is the best thing you can do for your security. Although not opening your junk mail is also a good way to not get viruses.

It can be overwhelming to think deeply about what the technology companies are doing with our data. I think we were all feeling the change once we started seeing advertisements for products pop up on a news site just minutes after we were shopping for said products on another site. How could CNN or Huffington Post know that I was just shopping for Nike shoes on Amazon?

“What is this sorcery?!”  That was my gut reaction to realizing that every keystroke that I make while online can be tracked, traced, and spit back at me in a bid to sell me something. Nearly every web page that I visit is funded by either direct advertisements or by selling my information and online habits to companies that want to use it for their own profit.

In her article, “The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism,” Shoshana Zuboff describes what she calls surveillance capitalism, which is the market created by Google and other tech companies to sell your data to third parties. I knew about the ubiquitous advertisements that fund my favorite web pages, and was aware that sites use cookies, but did not understand the extent to which companies were selling user data until recently. The implications of companies using that data in a way that is manipulative or even harmful is frightening.

I will admit to not being overly worried about having my shopping habits tracked for the sake of trying to advertise relevant products to me. What does worry me are the “off-label” potential uses and abuses of my data. Zuboff mentions car insurance companies using tracking data from cars to profile drivers based on their driving habits. The Internet of Things opens a whole new can of worms for surveillance opportunities. Amazon’s Alexa smart speaker is always listening, but who is paying attention? How is that information being used?

This is a similar worry about doing home DNA tests with companies such as Ancestry.com or 23 and Me. The Golden State Killer was recently found and arrested based on DNA that was collected from him and matched against a database of DNA profiles. If my DNA will be used to catch a serial rapist/murderer all the better. But what about selling my DNA profile to pharmaceutical companies or medical insurers? How will that be used? Can DNA show markers for potential future illnesses that can be used by medical insurers to discriminate against patients by charging higher premiums? Can government step in and use our data to control us? We know from Edward Snowden that they are listening, but to what end?

As a result of this class, I will be taking a long hard look at how I use the internet and how I am making myself vulnerable to bad actors. I know that I have been too lax in my internet hygiene by not clearing my browser history and cookies regularly, not using strong enough passwords or not changing them regularly. It is my responsibility to ensure that I am safe online, not the companies whose priority is to make a profit.

Before this week, I had always thought of myself as someone who doesn’t need to take a lot of security measures. The only place I really do is with my bank accounts, but I now realize that everything is connected and for me to be protecting myself to the fullest, I need to be taking security more seriously. 

I am definitely one of those people who use the same two or three passwords with slight variations for everything. I realize that this is problematic, but for the longest time, ease of access was more important to me than having different, secure passwords. 

If I hadn’t logged into a site in a long time, I knew I could try a few different variations of passwords and eventually I’d get in. However, if I can do this, that means that anyone else who figures out even one of my password variations could too. 

On my phone I even have my fingerprint attached to my passwords so I don’t have to type them in every time. While this is obviously very convenient, touch ID can be easily falsified. I always thought this was the case, but I never bothered to look into it until this week.

This article from the New York Times does a good job of explaining why we should be wary of using touch ID.

While I know that I really have nothing to hide, at least from the government, I do want to start being more cautious when it comes to security. I’ve been way too relaxed on my security measures so far, and thinking about it further, I know that it would be very easy for someone to obtain and misuse my information with the way I have it protected now. 

The main change I want to make is to start using a password manager. Since all of my passwords are essentially the same, I think this is the best place for me to start. At least with all of my passwords being different for each site, I would have a lower chance of being hacked on a large scale. Right now, if you know the password to my YouTube you could easily discover the password to my bank accounts, and that’s unacceptable. 

Password managers help you create long, intricate passwords that are different for each website. The best password managers also encrypt this data when it is stored so it becomes increasingly difficult to hack the password managing platform itself. 

I didn’t even know that such a thing existed before this week, and if you didn’t either, reading this article could be a good place to start. 

While I know there are other things I could be doing like updating all of my system’s software regularly, something I’m notorious for putting off, or even installing plugins that could help protect me from being spied on online, I think that obtaining a password manager is a good start. 

I have a long way to go if I want to protect myself fully, but I think that with this new found realization of just how important privacy and security is, I will eventually be able to get to a place where I feel secure online.

This week’s readings and lectures have opened up my eyes to how, in a sense, dangerous being online can be. I always knew of hackers or being watched by the government, but I’ve never really thought it could happen to me. The only security measures I take are making a hard to guess, complicated password. Often times though I use this same hard to guess password on a variety of my logins, which in hindsight isn’t the best. This isn’t really a smart idea since if the hacker gets that one password, they could hack into all my accounts.

. . . . .

But something that stuck out to me in the lecture where Dan was discussing security and encryption, while using Skype. He says that him and his wife use Skype often because they don’t particularly care if anyone was to listen in. He said there would be nothing worth listening to. Which that’s how I feel. I’m not a US national security journalist, a black-market criminal, or someone working for a corporate business to steal someone else’s data, so I’m not too worried about if someone were to listen in. If someone were to listen in or somehow hack into my social media pages or email, all they would find would be a lot of irrelevant conversations, funny memes, or the hundreds of selfies I have of myself, so not really much to benefit from.

. . . . .

As an avid online, and in store, shopper the only thing I would be worried about is if someone where to get my bank and credit card information. A precautionary measure I take with that is that I have alerts set up to be sent to my phone when any purchase is made with my cards. So, I would know right away if someone were to have my card information, as soon as they use it.

. . . . .

But a security measure I think would be very useful, and one that I’m thinking of using is a password manager. From this article we learn of LastPass, which is a password manager that allows you to create a master password and just import all other login information. It also helps with deleting information that isn’t needed but is open to threats from hackers. Like I said before I often use the same password for a variety of my log in since its hard to remember all of them. With a password manager like LastPass I think it would greatly enhance the security of my information, help with remembering passwords, and also help with deleting information that could be open to a breach.

My Digital Security Approaches

My own digital security is something that I have always liked to keep myself aware of along with the effects of what I could have hacked and other damaging effects this may have.

In Terms of my various social media platforms, which includes Instagram, Facebook, Twitter etc., I have most of them set to a two-factor authentication process. I additionally will change my passwords every 3-4 months to prevent potential hacking.

Similar with other applications like my email and Icloud I also change passwords periodically. I also have notifications for all the platforms and applications I have mentioned thus far for unusual activity for further prevention of privacy invasion or hackers.

I think it is important to note that I have recently picked up habits to not click on any links sent to me via social media unless I know it was from someone intentionally. I have seen many of my friends become victims of hacking via the strategy of sending links through other users within their social media networks and then proceed to hack them after clicking these links. This article further explains the ideas that I am talking about from social media.

Shifts for Further Digital Security

Although I believed the approaches I have been using above are effective, I now believe after further research from the resources given in Module 8, there is a lot more that seem critical that I implement.

One of the major recommendations from Professor Gilmore really opened my eyes. That being his strong emphasis to update software immediately if it is available. I have a poor habit of putting off software updates on basically all software I have on my computer, but after seeing the significant increase of hacking risk that poses, I hope to immediately shift that habit.

I also have been recently looking into the password managers we discussed within the following module because of the amount of passwords I am required to keep track of. I think attaining a password manager software would not only boost my security online, but also prevent me from having to constantly reset passwords I have forgot to write down.

Lastly, I plan to look further into encryption and ensuring that setting is turned on and in-use on all of my devices. After gaining more knowledge on encryption, it seems that is one of the most effective ways to protect your content and maintain my privacy.

I highly recommend others to look into some of these different approaches I now am more aware of after learning more about digital security and its importance.

Okay fine, I’ll admit it. I have not been as concerned about my security online as I should be. To be fair, nothing treacherous has happened with my information… as far as I know.

I’ve always been extremely careful with my debit card information. And realistically the joke would be on anyone who stole my debit card.

However, after this module, I realize there is much more information of mine to go around than just my bank information.

In this week’s article by Shoshana Zuboff called, “The Secrets of Surveillance Capitalism“, I learned that my data is being sold. There was once a time when I innocently thought Google and Facebook were completely free with no consequence and life was sunny and wonderful. Now I know that people are profiting off of my activity (which I would be okay with if they shared some of the profit… just a suggestion).

So here goes my controversial opinion on that… Yes, this is intrusive. Yes, I deserve personal privacy. HOWEVER! I am a participant on Facebook, on Google, on Instagram, on Amazon, and many other sites that both have my information and present ads. If I am to be subjected to these ads, I’d rather them be personalized to the things that are relevant to me rather than random ads for weekly vegan grocery boxes or season tickets to sports games (aka things I want no part in).

I suppose this would be a big reason why I don’t plan on changing my approach to security. I exercise caution when it comes to which websites I put my information into. When I receive emails from “appleinfo3@mpdazidyqpedyvxlwa.com” requesting that I log into my Apple account to change my password, I am savvy enough to resist.

That said, I am not in a career where I need to store the information of others. I do not have secrets stored in my computer or phone. I primarily use the internet for school, staying in contact with friends, Netflix, and Amazon shopping sprees (explaining the debit card statement earlier in this post). I don’t feel that I am at high risk to be hacked.

The one thing I will be more vigilant is something I learned from the Lifehacker article called “Top 10 Tech Security Basics Every Person Should Follow“. I rarely open the app store on my iPhone, which is where all the updates appear when apps need to be updated. Whenever I do actually open the app store, there are always a huge number of apps that need to be updated – ones that I have put my personal information into. This article reminds me to update these programs as well as cleaning the app permissions. I think I’ll make this change because it’s so simple and it seems to be very effective.

Before being informed on digital security, I never took extra precautions to securing my information. I just figured that the government, companies, websites, etc. tracking our information was normal, and something we simply had to deal with. I now feel differently about this approach. 

I began to develop an eerie feeling when we had to search viable audience segments for my Digital Audience course. There are many websites where people can track what their target audience are interested in and the one we used was none other than Facebook. We plugged in the content we wanted to research and it provided us with information like: advertisements people were most likely to click on, their age, gender, relationship status, education and other demographics. They even told us what device they were more likely to do it on! I could just imagine the many ways Facebook gathered all this information from all those individuals. 

This course, as well as my Digital Media Literacy course, have now opened my eyes to how important ones digital security is. There are many things I plan to work on from now on. One thing I have always been good at is that I make it an effort to change my passwords frequently. Although, I think another thing I should start practicing is creating stronger passwords. As for password managers, I am interested and I should probably look into getting one.

The only thing that is holding me back is that I am very old school and still like creating my own passwords. I also feel like I would forget the super secure password, especially if it will autofill on my personal devices. What if I want to log into a different device and can’t because I forgot my super complicated password? There are probably many people that would argue against this and I will probably give in sooner or later. 

Another thing that was brought to my attention was that I should be changing my passcode lock on my phone more often. This is the one password that I have used for a very long time, but now plan on creating a longer, more difficult one. I found this article on most popular passwords shocking, because as a teenager, I probably have used some of these at some point and many people would also agree. While watching Mr. Robot, I saw how easy it was for the main character to retrieve personal information directly from people and how simple their passwords were, because they were either birthdates or pet names. I am definitely getting closer to getting LastPass. 

I also plan on updating my software as soon as I get an update notification -which is ironic because I just snoozed an update that I have been avoiding for a week. I promised myself I would get it done as soon as I am done with finals! Although, I think I have gotten much better at it. I used to be one of those people that would stall to update my phone because people would complain about new issues with their screen, glitches or just did not like how the new software changed the display or layout of their phone. This article by our professor really made me think otherwise. If the company went through the trouble of updating its system, it is most likely for security reasons and should not be taken for granted. 

 After reading the criteria for this lecture, it is so alarming to learn how many factors play into digital security. It amazes me how far one has to go to avoid being tracked and even then, it might not be enough.