How Else Will Your Privacy Be Taken?

In the article Looking for a Job?  Beware of this Privacy Risk, you learned how looking for work could lead to a breach in your privacy.  This is a risk for only those who are currently looking for a job.  There is another privacy risk that should be a concern to everyone, regardless of age or state of employment.  Employers and schools are demanding to know your social media information.

Many companies do not want their names mentioned in social media unless they have control over what is being said.  The only way these companies have to keep control over this is by checking each employee’s social media accounts to make sure nothing derogatory is being said about the company.  Because anyone can set privacy controls, the only way to know everything that an employee says on social media is to have full access to the accounts.  That is why employers are asking for the log-in names and passwords of all employees. 

 

Employers are not only looking for what is said about the company, or if the employee has the company name listed as their place of employment, they are also looking for anything inappropriate that may be posted.  Pictures of wild parties or visits to a nude beach may just get you fired.  True, these parties and beach pictures were taken on your leisure time, but now, unless you have a contract, you are considered an “at will” employee.  This means that your employer can terminate your employment for any reason.  Even if you have a contract, most of them have a morals clause, so any inappropriate postings could void the contract.

Losing Privacy While Seeking Employment

As we all know, the rate of unemployment all over the US is staggering.  Many of these unemployed people are without jobs through no fault of their own.  Many companies are closing their doors, and with so many people out of work and looking for jobs, this gives employers a chance to try new methods of weeding out “undesirable” candidates.  One of the methods now being used is to ask each candidate to agree to a credit check at the time an application is submitted. 

 

What does a credit check have to do with one’s ability to work?  Well, according to employers, if someone has bad credit, they are considered a high risk for corporate theft.  So, if you have bad credit, you will not be getting an interview.  By using this theory, instead of creating a time frame for 20 interviews, that number can be lowered to 5 or less with the click of a button.

True, prospective employees aren’t forced to submit to this credit check, however, if you don’t agree, your application will not be considered.  The employers hold all the cards on this. 

 

There are a few flaws with this method of choosing potential employees:

1.  Each time a credit check is run, it lowers your credit score.  Credit reporting services don’t see this as an employment check; they just see it as you looking to get approval to raise your credit limit or to add yet another credit account.

2.  If you file applications with several companies, all of which are receiving your credit report.  This means that an unknown number of strangers are privy to not only your credit score, but also know each bank and amount you have credit with.

 

3.  You will not be given a chance to explain your low credit score.  Employers don’t care WHY the credit score is low; they just care that it IS low.

4.  Employers don’t take into consideration that you haven’t paid your bills because you’ve been unemployed.  They see the low credit score and automatically assume that you will steal from the company.  It doesn’t seem to cross anyone’s mind that you want a job not to steal, but to earn money to pay your bills in order to raise your credit score.

Is Social Media Stressing Your Kids?

It’s part of my job to search the Internet for subjects that have to do with Internet privacy.  In the past couple of months, I’ve seen a lot of questions on answer sites that have to do with kids and social media.  Most of these questions involve getting “Likes” on their social media pages.

Kids today are under enough pressure in their real lives when it comes to school and grades.  Now, it seems that these kids are adding pressure on themselves all because of social media.  Instead of worrying about having an active social life with real friends, these kids are stressing over the fact that their Facebook profile picture isn’t getting enough likes.  If they don’t have enough followers or “Likes” on Instagram and Twitter, it’s like the end of the world.

I have seen 13 year olds begging for likes because it’s “embarrassing” that their profile picture only got 10 “Likes” on Facebook.  Others are depressed that they only have 15 followers on Instagram.  Others yet are blogging on Tumblr about personal things and asking strangers to read their blogs and follow them. 

 

They are actually going on answer sites to beg for “Likes” and followers.  Not only that, it has become so important to them that they are actually going to sites to buy “Likes” and followers.  It’s scary to think that these kids are our future, yet they find nothing wrong with the practice of buying “Likes”.  When did it become acceptable to buy rewards instead of earning them?  I’d like to know how many parents are keeping track of their kids’ social media pages to see that they are actually cheating and if they approve of this cheating.  In other words:  What are we teaching our kids?

The cost isn’t a lot, but in order to pay the $1 to $3 charge, a credit card or PayPal account is needed.   This brings up a whole other issue:  privacy.  Do you know who your kids are giving your credit card number to in order to buy these “Likes” and followers?  What about the actual followers?  They need to be able to see everything posted in order to “Like” things on your children’s pages.  Strangers will know where your children live, what they look like, what schools they go to.  These strangers will see posts saying that the family will be away on vacation or pictures of your kids at the beach.  They will be able to see those slumber party videos posted to Facebook, which include other parents’ kids.  How will those other parents feel knowing that strangers are watching what should be private videos? 

 

Parents need to teach their kids that social media isn’t something to get stressed out about, or depressed over.  It wasn’t intended to stress over; it was intended as a way to express our thoughts and keep in touch with friends and family.  I doubt very much the intention was to make teenagers feel bad about themselves because only 3 people “Liked” their profile picture. 

 

The minimum age for social media is 13 years old.  Some kids are mature enough at 13 to realize that what happens on social media really isn’t what’s important.  For others, it’s a place that means everything.  Parents need to teach their kids that while it’s good to be creative on Tumblr and Instagram and share views on Facebook and Twitter, it should not be the defining factor in a teenager’s life.  Each parent knows their own child best to determine whether or not social media is right for that child. 

 

In order to keep your privacy safe, parents must teach their kids not to give out personal information over the Internet.  Another way to stay safe is to surf the Internet anonymously with a proxy server.  Please take advantage of our FREE trial offer and see how changing your IP Address and encrypting every connection will make you feel safer knowing that you can’t be found.

Personal Information Sold at Goodwill

Have you ever donated old clothes, books, furniture or other items to a Salvation Army or Goodwill store?  Well, one donator to Goodwill in central Indiana donated a bit more than he intended.  If his donations were checked before being put up for sale, this may not be an issue.  Unfortunately, a box containing 39 pounds of one family’s personal information was sold to a woman for $27.69.

Emily Watson opened a box that she bought from a Goodwill outlet store in the Indianapolis area and found someone else’s sensitive records.  If items can’t be sold at the retail stores for any reason, they are put in bins and sent to Goodwill outlet stores.  These are closed boxes sold by the pound to anyone who wants to take a chance that there is something valuable inside.  Ms. Watson bought one such box and when she opened it found personal information all belonging to one family.  The box contained Social Security cards, tax returns, pay stubs, banking information, dental and other medical records, divorce papers and insurance documents.  There were also family photos and addresses of family members.

This had happened to Ms. Watson before.  At another time, she purchased a box containing personal information, so she opened the box in the store before buying it.  When she saw what it contained, she pulled out all the items to show a store employee, who referred her to the manager.  When the manager looked through the paperwork, she said, “It doesn’t look harmful to me.  It’s OK.”  Ms. Watson then made the purchase because she was afraid that it would get into the hands of someone not as honest as she.  She was afraid for the people the information belonged to. 

After purchasing the box, Ms. Watson tipped off WTHR Channel 13 as to her find.  WTHR 13 Investigates then opened an investigation as to the allegations made of Goodwill selling personal information.  The station sent undercover “shoppers” to three Indianapolis area Goodwill outlets and found that at every outlet location they visited, they were able to purchase someone’s personal information.  This didn’t just happen once; out of 28 visits in 2 months, personal information was purchased 24 times.   WTHR employees were able to purchase valid debit and credit cards, leases, automobile titles, medical histories, immigration papers, bills, employee drug test results, college transcripts, IRA and 401K statements and all other kinds of legal documents containing personal information. 

 

The personal information donated to Goodwill, then sold by them, contained thousands of pages, filling three boxes.  Some Social Security numbers found belonged to police officers stationed at the Indianapolis Metro Police Department.  When WTHR spoke with Sgt. Eric Eads, who is an identity theft expert in the department, he said, “Let me put it to you this way:  this is a police nightmare here.  If someone got ahold of this stuff.  It’s just shocking the amount of Social Security numbers and tax records you found.”

Another person whose tax records were found by WTHR employees is Elesabeth Leclercq.   She is quoted as saying, “It’s terrible.  I don’t even know what to say.  I’m still stunned and in a state of shock.”  Julie and Brett Snyder also found out that their information had been sold along with information on their children.  Mrs. Snyder said, “This isn’t anything we would throw away.  I mean, we wouldn’t have just handed this over to Goodwill.  It’s shocking.  We are completely shocked.”

The person whose information started it all when Emily Watson purchased it is named Rose.  She refused to give her last name, but she did give a statement.  “It’s pretty devastating and I’ve had nightmares about it” she said. 

Make Sure Your Password is Secure

Just about every day, there’s an article in the newspaper or a story on the news that talks about cyber-crime, usually in the form of identity theft.  Most Internet users feel that they are safe because they are “cautious”; they never download from strange websites, nor do they open an e-mail unless they know who sent it.  The problem is that these “cautious” people forget one of the most important aspects to keeping their privacy safe:  the password.  Maybe laziness or forgetfulness is the reasoning, but in this World Wide Web full of hackers, many thousands of people are still using the same password for everything they do online.  Some may argue that each password is “different”; however, having variations of the password “ABCD1234” doesn’t count as being different.   If you or someone you know is guilty of this way of thinking, you should really read on.

  

One of the first lines of our privacy defense is the password.  Whenever you sign up to become a member of a website, you need to enter a log-in name and a password.  Most sites will not accept passwords shorter than 8 characters and many require them to be alpha-numeric and case sensitive.  If you choose the password “platypus1”, you will not be granted access into that site if you mistakenly type in “Platypus1” on your next visit.  The password must be an exact match.  So, if you are a registered user on 10 different sites, you need 10 unique passwords.  “Platypus1”, “Platypus2”, “Platypus3”, etc. just won’t cut it. 

In order to try to make each password unique, many people will use different names combined with birthdates.  It’s not uncommon for a man to have “Pamela823” (his wife and her birth date, August 23) for one site, then choose “Henry312” (his son and his birth date, March 12) for another site.  A problem could arise, however, if that man signs on to Facebook using a public hotspot and is hacked.   Once the hacker knows the Facebook password, he could look to see the names and birthdates of the spouse and children.  So, if the Facebook password is “Pamela823”, this hacker will try that same password for an email account.  If that doesn’t work, he’ll look to see the son’s name and try “Henry312”.  Hackers are very good at what they do, so before you know it, this cyber-crook is going through your bank account.

There is a corporation in Virginia called Siber Systems, Inc., that realized how difficult it is for many people to come up with unique passwords.  With this in mind, in 1999 they developed RoboForm, their first product with consumers in mind.  It now has worldwide users numbering in the millions.  Demand was so great that RoboForm is now available in 30 languages.

RoboForm takes your information and each time you register for a site, it comes up with a unique username and password.  You don’t have to do a thing.  The only password you need to remember is the master password from when you first used it.  So, you log on to your computer, enter your master password into RoboForm and RoboForm goes to work for you after that.  It not only generates unique passwords, it remembers them for you.  Another plus is that each password is encrypted, making it almost impossible to be hacked.

Due to the success of the original RoboForm, in 2004, Siber Systems expanded its product line with RoboForm2Go.  This portable version of RoboForm is on a USB flash drive that you plug into your computer.  No matter where you travel, you will have RoboForm2Go with you.  Not only that, it will work in your native language.

RoboForm is the perfect solution for creating unique passwords and then remembering what they are for each site that you visit.  It is a great tool for keeping you safe when you surf the Net.

To add even more protection to your Internet surfing, you should use a proxy server from a reputable company.  Please take the time to visit Privacy Partners and take advantage of the FREE trial offer.  You will be glad you did once you see how safe you feel knowing that you can surf the Internet from anywhere knowing that every time you connect, your information is encrypted.

What Is An IP Address?

Anyone who uses a computer has heard the term “IP Address”, but what exactly does that mean?  What is an IP Address?

 

An IP Address, or Internet Protocol Address, is the digital “address” assigned to every device connected to the Internet. Internet Protocol is the technical standard that should be followed while using the Internet.  This protocol was developed in the 1970s.

There are two versions of IP that support the computer network addressing.  They are:  Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).  The most commonly used version is IPv4.  With this version, the IP Addresses are four bytes (or 32 bits) long.  IPv6 is the newer version, which allows IP Addresses of 16 bytes (or 128 bits) long.  Whichever version is used, the IP Address has two main purposes:  host or network interface identification and location addressing. 

IPv4 addresses are typically shown in a “dot-decimal” sequence.  They are made up of four parts, using numbers that range from 0 to 255.  Each part is separated by a decimal (or dot) and each group consists of 8 bits.  An example of this is shown below:

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) is responsible for coordinating the global pool of IP Addresses and then providing them to the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) so they can be assigned to end users, including Internet service providers.  The main address pool used by IANA was depleted on February 3, 2011.  This is the date that the last blocks were assigned to the 5 RIRs.

IPv4 addresses were depleting so rapidly due to the explosive growth of the Internet, that the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) was forced to look into new technologies in order to expand the address capacities.  The solution they decided on was to completely redesign the Internet Protocol.   In 1995, IPv6 was named as a means to replace IPv4.

In this new version, the address size was increased to 128 bits from the original 32 bits.  Even considering a growth explosion, this should give a sufficient amount of available addresses well into the future.  A typical IPv6 address would look like this:

This new formula is capable of automatically changing the routing prefix of whole networks without the need to redesign or renumber the system.  This will be necessary if global routing policy changes.