November is coming up, and so is NaBloPoMo (try saying that fast five times!).
National Blog Posting Month. NaBloPoMo. It’s run by BogHer and I’ve signed up. There’s a huge community behind this, and it will be great getting in touch with like-minded bloggers through this community.
The challenge is to post once every day for 30 days.
Anything goes. There’s no rules. No theme, no word count.
30 days, 30 posts …
The more you do something, the better you get at it right?
So, let’s see if I can do it! Even if I don’t quite manage a post a day, it will be a great experience.
This is Chelsea Winter’s recipe, from the Winter beef & lamb mEAT Magazine. There are some delicious recipes that I want to try including Beef & Potato-Top Bake, Hearty Lamb & Rosemary Pie and The Best Spaghetti & Meatballs. But first .. Chelsea’s Lasagne!
I didn’t use anchovies (wasn’t sure if I would like them) and I chose to use red wine, not white.
I used a really large oven baking dish to make it in, and it made a HUGE lasagne!
Serves 8-10
Preparation time: 45 mins
Cooking time: 45 mins + resting
1kg beef mince
2 onions, finely chopped
5 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large carrot, grated
2 sticks celery, finely chopped
1/2 cup tomato paste
2 cups Campbells real stock – beef
1 cup red or white wine (or use stock)
2 x 400g cans chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 anchovies, very finely chopped (optional)
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 cups spinach, chopped
400g packet of lasagne sheets
Cheese sauce
100g butter
1/2 cup flour
3 1/2 cups milk, warmed
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated plus extra for topping
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C conventional bake
Mince: In your largest frying pan, heat a little oil over a high heat. When the pan is hot, add half the mince, breaking up the big lumps quickly with a wooden spoon. Leave the mince to sizzle until the underside is browned, then stir and brown the other side. Set aside and repeat with the remaining mince.
Discard any excess fat from the pan, replace over a medium heat and add a dash of oil. Add the onions, garlic, carrot and celery, and cook, stirring for about 10 minutes until soft. Add the mince back into the pan with the tomato paste, stock, wine, tomatoes, oregano, sugar, anchovies (if using) and balsamic vinegar. Simmer gently for 25-30 minutes or until reduced to a thick sauce. Add the spinach with 5 minutes to go. Season to taste.
Cheese sauce: Melt butter in a large saucepan over a medium-low heat. Add flour and cook, stirring, for 3-5 minutes (don’t let it brown). Remove from heat and slowly add all the warmed milk in a thin stream, whisking all the time, until smooth. Return to heat and cook, stirring, until thickened. Add the cheese and mustard, stirring until smooth. Season to taste and remove from heat.
To assemble: Grease your largest baking dish (or two small). Add a layer of lasagne sheets to the bottom and spread over a third of the meat sauce followed by a third of the cheese sauce. Repeat until ingredients are used up, finishing with a layer of cheese sauce. Sprinkle with extra cheese.
Cover with tinfoil with a couple of steam holes, and bake for 35 minutes. Remove the foil and cook a further 10 mins or until the top is golden brown and bubbling (you can grill it at the end to help it along). Transfer to a wooden board and rest for at least 10 minutes before you cut and serve it.
The Marketing Mix was created by Harvard Business School Professor Neil Borden in the 60’s with the initial 4 P’s – Product (creation and development), Price (where it sits in the market), Promotion (how it will be marketed and sold) and Place (distribution and markets).
Not long after three more P’s were added – Process (how the product elements are delivered), People (perception) and Physical Evidence (satisfaction). The first 4 P’s cover the marketing of the Product and the next 3 cover the Service.
With the advent of Social Media, marketers suddenly had another aspect to consider, and an increasingly important one. Up until a few years ago, advertising a brand had been very much a one way process. That is all changing now and businesses must embrace two way advertising. Businesses are no longer at the centre of the universe, that spot now has customers firmly in residence!
Customers can now talk back and interact with brands (and about brands) all over the Internet. Branding is everything and businesses need to look after their brands. But how do they do this with traditional marketing? Did you know that if a customer has a good experience they will tell 4 people, but if they have a bad experience they’ll tell 20! And if that’s on social media, that 20 could virally become 200!
The 8th P applies to Social Media!
There are many ideas out there on what the 8th P should be called, some examples are Personalisation, Passion, Personal interest, Partnership and Participation. All of these relate to online.
How do you personalise a brand? To converse online your brand has to create its own personality. This is formed by the values of the company so the brand becomes a living breathing thing, a human type personality. Your customer needs to understand who you are.
Your online brand advocates need to be passionate and really believe in the product and care about your customers. It needs to be genuine or your customers will see right through it.
Personal interest is all about interacting with your customer, getting to know them, their interests, what makes them tick. It’s not just about pushing your brand online or doing a hard sell anymore.
It’s about partnering with your customers online, listening to them, giving them what they want and making them feel important.
Omnichannel marketing (rather than multichannel) is the choice that customers now have to engage with businesses, whether that be instore, website, social media, making payment or telephone, etc. Brands must ensure they allow their customers to use as many channels as possible to engage. Brands need to share the customer’s journey, walking alongside them at every moment and being readily and easily available during any part of the experience.
Overall, it’s about particpation, in the online community and with your customers.
The 8th P is about injecting Personality and Passion into your brand, creating Personal interest by Partnering with your customers and engaging them through Participation.
My blog is not rocket science. It does not contain any national secrets. Nor any political views. Therefore I choose to share it with the world. I’ve made it discoverable by search engines so anyone may find it, and if they think something is interesting enough to share, that is fine with me. But they must attribute it to me, after all I am the author and deserve some brownie points along the way.
What is intellectual property (IP)?
Intellectual property defined by Wikipedia:
Intellectual property (IP) rights are legally recognized exclusive rights to creations of the mind. Under intellectual property laws, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literary, and artistic works; discoveries and inventions; and words, phrases, symbols, and designs. Common types of intellectual property rights include copyright, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, trade dress, and in some jurisdictions trade secrets.
The writings and images in my blog (so long as they are mine and original) are my intellectual property.
What is Copyright?
Copyright first appeared in the 1600’s when the Stationers’ Company had exclusive rights to control (and censor) all printing. The first government controlled statute was the British Statute of Anne 1710. Copyright gives legal protection to the owners of original works.
Copyright defined by Wikipedia:
Copyright is a legal right created by the law of a country, that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights to its use and distribution, usually for a limited time, with the intention of enabling the creator (e.g. the photographer of a photograph or the author of a book) to receive compensation for their intellectual effort.
IPONZ (the NZ Intellectual Property Office) defines copyright as:
in New Zealand, copyright is an automatic unregistered right that comes into existence every time an original work is created, published and performed
Who owns Copyright?
The creator of the work is usually the copyright owner. But if it’s made during employment (then the employer will own it) or if the work is ordered for payment (the person who ordered it will be the owner). Ownership may also be agreed by the parties involved.
If you take a photo and sell it to another party ie a magazine they will then own the copyright to the photo. Any contract you enter into will change not only your ownership but how you can continue to use the work. Just because you ‘used’ to own it or took the photo yourself does not mean you continue to own the copyright.
Copyright does not last forever. Literary, musical and artistic works can be protected for up to 50 years after your death. Film 50 years from the year in which it was made. Publishers copyright is 25 years from publication.
How does Copyright protect IP?
Copyright in NZ is protected by IPONZ. Unlike patents, trademarks, designs and plant variety rights which all need to be registered, copyright does not.
It’s a good idea to include a copyright notice on your work. This isn’t required by law, but it lets everyone know that your work is subject to copyright and cannot be copied or changed in any way, without consent from you, the owner.
You should keep a record of your own works because there is no government copyright register in NZ. Keep a note of the date your work was first created as well as any contracts that relate to the work. A simplistic way of keeping track is the date stamp for each post on my blog which shows when it was published.
NZ belongs to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which is governed by the Word Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). If you create an original work in NZ, under this agreement, it is protected in the other member countries under their national laws. The same applies if a work is created in one of the other member countries, it is protected in NZ.
If there’s a breach of copyright, the Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) works with IPONZ to prosecute infringements. NZ legislation covering Copyright includes the Copyright Act 1994, the Copyright (New Technologies) Amendment Act 2008 and the Copyright Regulations 1995.
What Copyright issues face users of online platforms?
The first thing you need to decide is what copyright you want to use for your online platforms such as your blog. Are you happy for people to share your content or do you want to lock it down so it can’t be used at all?
If you choose to copyright your work and it is copied or used by someone else, the cost of enforcing that copyright can be expensive. Someone may use a photo you have taken without your permission. If a simple cease and desist letter is not sufficient, or they are not prepared to pay for the use, then you will need to get lawyers involved. If the person who has used your work resides in another country, then it can be even more difficult to enforce. And if you are just one of the little guys and your work is ‘stolen’ by a large corporation, then unless you are prepared to shell out a big amount of cash to fight it, you probably have no chance of winning. These types of battles can be tied up in court for years and years.
How do you know yourself if something is copyright? How do you find out who the copyright holder is? If there is no mention of copyright on the website or blog, then you should consider it is copyright and not use it. There may be a copyright license displayed such as Creative Commons which you will need to abide by (read more about Creative Commons and Copyleft below).
What if you need an image for your blog or your Facebook page? Under no circumstances should you copy an image from Google and assume that you can use it. These images will almost always have copyright in some form. Even just searching for a ‘free’ image will not necessarily dish up something that is free of copyright! A couple of ways to source images for your blog is to use an image purchasing website such as bigstockphoto.com, use Create Commons search function (and attribute it) or free software such as Microsoft’s Clipart. The best option is to use your own photo, which is an original work and can then be used by others (if you allow them).
It’s important you know how to protect your own work online, but equally as important you must be careful that you don’t use others work without proper permission and attribution. You could land yourself in hot water!
Copyleft
So many different people have differing opinions on copyleft. If you are a musician you are much more likely to have your work copyrighted (especially important for the label who receives ongoing profits from a song). Other people believe everything online should be available for everyone. Others believe it should be available but with proper attribution but not available for commercial purposes.
Copyleft defined by Wikipedia:
Copyleft is the practice of using copyright law to offer the right to distribute copies and modified versions of a work and requiring that the same rights be preserved in modified versions of the work. In other words, copyleft is a general method for making a creative work as freely available to be modified, and requiring all modified and extended versions of the creative work to be free as well.
Copyleft is a form of copyright. It allows you to share your work, but you keep the copyright and control the terms.
GlamCamp NY Kippelboy nina Paley (2) CC BY-SA 3.0
How does Copyleft protect IP?
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organisation that offers free licensing tools for the sharing and remixing of works. It doesn’t replace copyright, but works alongside it, and has the same protections. Creative Commons licenses work around the world, they last as long as copyright does and they are enforcable in a court of law.
Creative Commons is a fair balance between copyright and sharing. It allows you to:
let people share and use your photographs, but not allow companies to sell them
look for access to course materials from the world’s top universities
encourage readers to re-publish your blog posts, as long as they give you credit
look for songs that you can use and remix, royalty-free
If your creative commons license is not used properly, for example correct attribution is not given on your work, the person using your work will have their license cancelled. They may also be liable for copyright infringement. Creative Commons gives them 30 days to fix the issue, ie provide the correct attribution, in which case they are able to use your work again. You can get in touch with the user directly or use a lawyer to contact them.
Creative Commons users must abide by the terms of the license. What happens if you don’t agree with the way they have used your work? There is nothing you can do to stop them. But you can choose not to be associated with the users work by waiving your right to attribution and you can ask them to remove the arribution so you are not shown as the licensor.
Creative Commons requires best practices for attribution of work (see example below). Attribution includes the title, a link to the original work, the owner’s name and the creative commons license type along with a note of any modification. If changes are made the user is not allowed to suggest that the owner of the work endorses the change.
Creative Commons Licenses
Creative Commons was founded in 2001 by Professor Larry Lessig. In 2009 Wikipedia started using a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license and in 2011, YouTube added a Creative Commons license to it’s own standard license option. The total amount of Creative Commons licensed works as at December 2010 were over 400 million. Now my blog has been added to that total 🙂
There are 6 different licenses to choose from, depending on how open you want your work to be. Attribution, Attribution ShareAlike, Attribution NoDerivs, Attribution NonCommercial, Attribution NonCommerical ShareAlike and Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivs. The difference between the licences is shown below.
The license chooser asks you a few simple questions such as do you want to ‘allow adaptations of your work to be shared’ and do you want to ‘allow commercial uses of your work’. It will then create a licence for you and provide the html to insert into your webpage. It will even add machine readable metadata to your html.
What is the Public Domain?
Public Domain defined by Wikipedia:
Works in the public domain are those whose intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples include the works of Shakespeare and Beethoven, most of the early silent films, the formulae of Newtonian physics, and powered flight.[1] The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, in which case use of the work is referred to as “under license” or “with permission”.
Creative Commons allows you to put your works into the public domain if you don’t want any form of copyright on them. There is a useful search function that allows you to find works that are free of copyright. This is a really great digital resource! DigitalNZ is a good resource that helps you find NZ digital content, showing the type of work, the copyright terms and what was out of copyright in NZ as at 1st January 2014,
Do not assume that all material where the creator is unknown is public domain. If you are using public domain material or anything that is out of copyright, always make sure you research it thoroughly, as you must be able to defend it in a court of law if need be.
How am I protecting my own IP?
I have chosen to use a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike NZ license for my blog.
Personally I believe that everything on the Internet should be open for everyone to share. Sharing of knowledge with others can only make the world a better more informed place. Therefore my license allows others to share, remix and change my work non-commercially (I don’t want anyone profiting from my works, that should be me!), so long as they credit me, note any modifications and use the same license for their new work.
The ‘except where otherwise noted’ on my license refers to photos of my grandchildren (and any other information or photos that I want covered differently). This text appears at the bottom of any posts with their photos
Please note: the images of my grandchildren on this blog are copyright and may not be copied and/or used for any purpose.
Is copying theft?
Have you ever made a copy? If so, does that make you a criminal? The internet opens up the world to everyone and brings us together in a totally new connected culture. Copyright was around long before the Internet, therefore we need a reform and a new way of thinking. Copyleft is a good start as it allows us to do what comes naturally on the Internet – copying, editing and pasting, ie sharing of works,
I considered I had fairly safe online practices and that my privacy was intact. That’s until we started discussing this topic in SCM501!
What does the Web know about you?
We paired up in class and researched each other online. This is something I do often, looking someone up, getting information on a business, a phone number, an email address, etc. I’ve never really thought about how easy it is to find or the privacy issues behind it.
I googled Gene Weeden and managed to get a bit of info on him, where he lived, where he’d worked, gone to school, his hobbies and his girlfriend’s details. Nothing too worrying, I think he keeps himself fairly open online but being young there’s not a lot out there on him yet, except his student life and his passion for NAC (Nelson Airsoft Corps).
I was surprised on the info Gene got on me, and mostly from Facebook which I thought was well locked down! I’m a fairly private person, not that I’ve got anything to hide, I just don’t want people knowing my business.
How much did I want to put out there online? Did I want people knowing how many kids and grandkids I have? Can you get a bit paranoid about privacy? You betcha! I decided not to go too overboard, but I needed to change things to keep myself safe. I have a very trusting nature and am generally a good judge of character but you don’t know who is accessing your information online.
There are two steps to consider with online safety and privacy.
How am I attempting to keep myself safe online?
What level of privacy will I choose and how can I enforce that?
Facebook
The first port of call was Facebook. It’s my most personal and most used social media channel and I wanted to keep it private. I did have it set to only friends having access, but when Facebook update their settings your own are often changed.
Check out this short and funny video that shows the frustration that Facebook updates cause:
Make sure you regularly check the privacy and security of your social media channels, especially after any updates, to ensure your settings are intact and haven’t been changed.
I set Facebook so only friends could view my content, and friends of friends could send me friend requests. I did leave those who could message me set to ‘friends and those who may know me’ as I’ve caught up with a few old friends through Facebook. I deactivated search engines finding me and changed it so only friends can view my email, phone number, date of birth and location.
There is certain information that Facebook will still show as part of your public profile that you can’t control, including your name, profile pictures, cover photos, networks and gender.
LinkedIn
Next on the list is LinkedIn. As this is a business oriented social platform, primarily to connect professionals, I have left only my business contact details on, including an email address, cellphone and my location, but have removed my date of birth. You never know, one day I may need to put myself out there to find a new job!
Speaking about employment, many employers now do an online search as part of their job selection process. Would your social media withstand this? I believe mine would, not only because of my privacy settings but I’m very careful of what I post online. It may be illegal for an employer not to give you a job due to something they read, but this would be hard to prove. Does your current employer watch your online presence?. Think twice about posting anything business oriented, especially anything negative or that could be commercially sensitive. I am keeping my online presence positive (read more about this on discovering my personal brand).
Remember, what you post online, stays online .. forever!
Twitter
This platform only has my name, alias @nanashype and my blog url. Twitter is very public and anyone can access and view your tweets and interactions. I mostly use this for gigatownnsn right now so I’m not too worried about the content, in fact the more people see the tweets the better publicity! If you are concerned about privacy, you can set your tweets to protected and they will then only be visible to your approved followers (but your content could still get out there if a follower retweets something!).
Often when you sign up for a new social network tool, one of the easy registration options is using your Twitter (or Facebook) account. I didn’t really understand the security risks when I allowed these apps access. You are giving the new service access to your Twitter username and connections as well as other information that you may not want to give out. This can compromise your privacy. These apps can now tweet about where I am, what I’m doing and my comments across the web. The same goes for logging in to 3rd party apps with Facebook. I am now checking these apps, reading their security and privacy policies and making an informed decision on which I will remove. I will then log into them using my email/password to ensure the sharing of information between apps is minimised as much as possible.
You can log into Pinterest with Facebook, Google+ and Twitter
namechk.com
Even if your account is completely locked down on one platform, you could be tracked through another. namechk.com is a tool that allows you to check if your desired username is available on dozens of social networking channels. It is a good idea to promote your brand consistently across all channels, so here you can check which ones are still available and register your name. You can also use it to find the best username. BUT, someone could use to find you on many different platforms. You might be completely locked down in Facebook. But do a search on namechk.com and there you are, instantly visible and most likely accessible.
A search for Nicki Turnbull showed that Facebook, WordPress and LinkedIn were taken (which are my profiles). There were at least 20 others taken under my name that are not actually me, so I will check them out (there’s another Nicki Turnbull out there!). You can actually click to the profile directly from your search, it’s that easy! There are others that I might want to reserve my name on. Searching on my alias nanashype showed a similar result.
We all need to make responsible decisions online which means thinking about our actions and if unsure of a link or app do not click on it or authorise it! I won’t be authorising any more apps!
Instagram
Instagram is owned by Facebook. So you can guarantee they are sharing information and insights between the two platform!. Here I only have my name, alias and blog url. No contact info. I don’t use Instagram, but will be when the gigatownnsn selfie competiton starts in November (more info here). Instagram can be set to share your content with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr and foursquare. So many social media platforms allow this that it can be difficult to keep track. I have decided to not link any of them, unless I particularly want to share a post or image across another channel. The only exception to the rule is my blog which has automatic sharing setup (read why below under ‘blog’). You can make your Instagram images private so only your approved followers can see them. If I continue to use it after the gigatown competion, I will enable this function to keep my images private.
Foursquare is a mobile app that tracks where you have been and where you are and recommends the best local places such as restaurants and bars to visit. Most apps now use location services with your smartphone so they can keep track of where you are. You can turn these off, but they are also really handy, especially if you are in a new city and want to find a nearby restaurant. But what does it do for your privacy? Twitter shows your location when you post, as does Facebook. Facebook allows you to check-in to places, as well as recommend the restaurant but it means your friends (and anyone else in the world) will know where you are. This is another reason why I keep Facebook private, because I do use it to check-in and review. I have decided to keep location services on for my iPhone as I find it really useful but will be a lot more cautious about which apps will get access to it.
Big Brother is watching everywhere!
Pinterest
I did my SCM501 research on Pinterest, read about it here. I find Pinterest a lot of fun and full of useful information. I don’t have any contact info displayed here except my blog url, my name, alias and location. I’m not using it right now, but when I do start I will check out their privacy policy and security settings to ensure I can customise it the way I want (not what they want).
Google+
I don’t really use Google+ so was surprised to find a lot of my personal info in there! I think we all have a love/hate relationship with Google, we know how important their search engine is but we don’t like how they collect info and make all their SEO changes. Google uses cookies to supply information for their google analytics (read more about cookies below under ‘what information is collected online’).
I removed my phone numbers and address but couldn’t get rid of the date of birth (you can remove the year, which I did). Then I set everything to only visible to Circles (people I’ve added) to keep as much information private as possible.
Blog
I have decided to not put any contact information on my blog. I have made it discoverable to search engines so people I don’t know could be visiting. I’m quite happy to share my content with the world, but don’t want random people contacting me. If people do want to get in touch they can send me a comment. They must enter their name and email address, and I will then authorise their comment. If they have already commented before, I feel they can be trusted so have set their subsequent comments to automatically post.
I’ve allowed social media sharing buttons so my posts can be shared to others channels. I keep track of this with email notifications of all comments, likes and follows. I want to make my writings public, but will monitor this to see how it goes. I can always turn it off if I feel uncomfortable. That’s what keeping safe online is all about, setting your rules for security and privacy, but continuing to monitor them and how you feel.
I’ve got my Twitter timelime embedded on my blog. Twitter is very public and mostly consumed by gigatownnsn so it may drive more people to my online community and raise awareness. I have put my Google+ link on. This is becoming a more popular channel for people to connect and I intend to use it more in the future. As my Facebook is private, for friends and family, I haven’t included that or Pinterest or Instagram as I am not using them right now. As LinkedIn is a business platform and my blog is personal, I haven’t linked to that either.
Always read the Privacy Policy of your social media platform. Just how private and secure is your information?
What information is collected online?
Much of the information collected is used for marketing. This can be the sign up information you provide to a service such as your date of birth, gender, occupation and location. This information and your posts will dictate what content and ads, services such as Facebook, will dish up to you. They will also collect information on the devices you log in with such as your phone, tablet or computer and record your GPS location.
Cookies record your browser sessions. A piece of data is sent from the website and stored in your browser. When you go back to the website, your browser sends the cookie back letting the website know about your previous activity. 3rd party tracking cookies are a privacy concern as they store your browsing history. Cookies can also store your passwords, credit card information or your address and phone number. If your computer is vulnerable a cookie’s data could be read by a hacker or used to gain access to your data. You can turn cookies off, but they are used to verify your identity when logging in to an account. I regularly delete cookies and the cache on my laptop and I use Microsoft Security Essentials to protect my laptop. I don’t have anti-virus installed on my iPhone or iPad, as the operating system is supposedly safe, but I intend to do some reading on this and make up my own mind.
The data you provide online may also be used by academic institutes for research and by government agencies. Every single thing that you post, tweet or publish online is under surveillance, including your emails and messaging. How does that feel? I am always careful of what I share and discuss online, but this does raise a big question on freedom of speech!
All services that you sign up to should have a Privacy Policy. It is well worth reading this to find out exactly what they do collect and share. I have started reading these. If you are not happy with how your information could be used then do not sign up for the service.
Do you really own your content? Most services say you do. Take Facebook for example, they say they ‘only store data for as long as it’s necessary to provide products and services’. How long is that? They go on to say that ‘typically, information associated with your account will be kept until your account is deleted’. Typically? That’s not very reassuring! For certain categories of data, they ‘will tell you about specific data retention practices’. In other words, Facebook can decide if they keep your information or not!
When you delete your account you would expect your information to be wiped, right? Facebook say your content is permanently deleted. But what about the stuff that is not stored on your timeline (or your account), such as posting to a group or sending someone a message. That information is not deleted and could live on even after your death. Which raises another point, what do I want to happen to my social media accounts when I die? Do I want them deleted or do I want them kept? Social media is a huge part of our lives these days. Business accounts will need to move to the new owner, so it’s important passwords are recorded along with other business records. But what about my personal accounts, such as Facebook. There’s a lot of information accumulated over many years. Family may want access to the photos. Often services will not give out passwords, even on your death, so it would be wise to have a system in place so they are accessible. My husband Boyd knows my passwords. I may consider adding instructions to my will regarding my social media channels.
safeshepherd.com
safeshepherd.com checks your online presence (using information you provide such as email addresses, phone number and address) and lets you know where your personal information can be found. It will give you immediate alerts whenever your are exposed online. It will then (with your permission) remove this information from the Internet and marketing databases by submitting an opt-out request which will delete the record, or it will give you instructions on how to do it manually. I signed up for the free trial, added my info and ran a check, but didn’t find anything untoward. I decided not to pay to continue. I will however regularly google myself to ensure nothing appears that I don’t want out there. I need to keep my online reputation intact. I’m fairly confident that I’m ok online now, but regular checks and a plan on how to recover are good things to have.
Identity theft
This is a very serious consideration and one of the main reasons why we all need to be safe online and keep our personal information private. Is there enough data available online so someone could steal my identity? They don’t need a lot, birth date, physical address (even just the location), email address and/or phone number. I believe I am pretty safe now after having gone through all my social media channels. You also need to be careful about what you post online, never do anything silly like post an image of your drivers licence, an addressed envelope or your credit card. You would be surprised how often this happens! Even just posting that you are going away on holiday and having your address public can be dangerous!
spokeo.com
spokeo.com allows you to search information on people. It goes out to over 60 social networks and you can search on name, email address, phone number, user name or address. It brings up your online profiles, photos and videos, blog posts, social networks, name search matches (including name, phone, email address and age) and your family members, relatives and spouse info. Spooky stuff! I ran a check on one of my business emails and it found a wealth of information. It did get my age wrong at 25 but the image is correct. The cost is only $4.95 per month for a 3 month subscription so not much of a barrier for someone to use it and snoop on you.
Tinder
Tinder is the perfect current example of why everyone needs to be safe online. The Tinder app promises:
Tinder is the fun way to connect with new and interesting people around you. Swipe right to like or left to pass. If someone likes you back, it’s a match!
It sounds like harmless fun. But it’s very much in the public eye right now after the recent death of one NZ woman and the rape of another in Australia, both having met up with men they had contacted using the app.
We warn our children about sexual predators online. It’s advice we need to heed ourselves as adults too. We must always remember that how a person appears on the internet can be very different from who they are in real life.
Passwords
Never use the same password for all of (or even some) your accounts! These days we have so many passwords for so many different things, including social media accounts, internet banking, software log-ins, so much is done online. It’s important to have a completely different password for every account.
How do you remember them all? There’s even apps for that now, such as LastPass that says it’s the last password you have to remember. All of your passwords are stored within the app. How safe is that? Personally I think it’s much safer to write your passwords down in a notebook that is securely stored, than to have them anywhere online. LastPass may be convenient, but we all need to get past the easy way, as it’s not always the safest way. Hackers will be trying their hardest to hack into apps such as LastPass to gain access to passwords.
But what burglar is going to break into your house and go looking for your little notebook with all your passwords in it? They are more likely to want your TV or iPad! Unless you are a politician with dirty emails! I do have a notebook but it’s a bit of a mess so I’m going to concentrate on getting my passwords in order and ensure I do not use the same ones across any of my accounts.
Here is a good reference to help you create a strong password. How do I create a strong password. Did you know the word ‘password’ is the most commonly used password? When you create a password the main points to consider are the length (the longer the better) and use a mix of upper and lowercase letters, numbers and symbols. Do not use any words from the dictionary or any of your personal information.
Clare’s recommendation is to choose a favourite book, song or album, a different one for each password and use the first letter of each word, interspersed with a symbol. For example the Life of Brian by Monty Python could be TLofBbyMP and adding a symbol and number makes it even harder for example TL*ofBby9MP. Use a similar format each time and your passwords should be easy for you to remember but hard enough for someone to crack!
I never let my computer ‘remember the password’ for programmes when it prompts me. I feel it’s safer to log into these each time, especially the likes of back end control panels etc. It doesn’t bear thinking about what could go wrong if someone accessed my computer! But I do remain logged in to some social media platforms such as Facebook, because I find it easier and quicker. I don’t see it as a serious threat as my laptop sits in my office and no-one else uses it. But I should get into the habit of logging out of these too. I have definitely gotten into the habit of closing the lid on the laptop after the cat decided to sleep on my keyboard, the machine wouldn’t stop beeping for ages! So there you go, it’s not just people you need to be worried about, who might steal your identity, but cats who may wreck stuff and delete your programmes!
We talked about encrypting emails in class, so they can’t be intercepted, but I’m not going to bother going to that length. Nothing I send is commercially sensitive. I don’t think I’m important enough that anyone is watching me LOL. You do need to be aware of what you are sending by email though. Think about what you are scanning and then emailing. Would it be safer to fax some documents, especially licences and dates of birth. If you are interested here’s a good link to read about email encryption.
Nana's Hype 