Internet Safety – ‘Cyber-Bullying’ is ‘Beatable’
Part 1 of 3By Dr. Peter James – Independent researcher, writer, and web tactician.
Introduction
I shall be covering five topics in this article, all are interlinked, and all are forms of ‘Cyber-Bullying’. Just because you do not see your aggressor, face-to-face does not diminish the impact they can have on a victim or victims as an ‘Invisible’ perpetrator. No one is exempt from the tactics used by the ‘Cyber-Bullies’, young or old, experienced or not in the ways of the Internet. Everyone is a target, only experience, shared and then applied information, observations passed to the correct authoritative parties and applied diligence by each of us that use the Internet, can finally slow, halt, stop and then begin to reverse this trend, that is seemingly out of control but this is not so.
It is not my intention to preach to the converted, or suggest tips to experts in the computer field, rather brass tack information that is easily applied by most people. The bulk of the suggestions here do not need any programming skills at all, just a bit of common sense.
Everyday a constant battle waging against such people, everyday perpetrators are caught, everyday new methods to avoid detection are created, and everyday methods to avoid detection are destroyed, blocked from ever being used again by them.
This Battle goes on behind the scenes; the perpetrators do not carry a sign saying, “Hey, I’m an Internet Bully”. Likewise, those hunting them do not carry a sign saying, “I hunt Internet Criminals”. No, it is a cloak and dagger business. As an ordinary user of the Internet, you play a key role in this daily battle. Simply by applying some of the advice given below to your web activity will help to make the Internet safer and harder for the ‘Cyber-Bullies’ to achieve their goals, easier for the Internet crime fighters to catch the offenders.
One of the biggest sources of information to the ‘Cyber-Bully/ Criminal’ is your ‘Hard drive’ yes, the one you got rid of when you trashed your old computer. The one you threw in the rubbish when you upgraded to a bigger one. The one you sold so that you could afford the brand new super-duper better computer that could do everything but make a cup-of-tea. Okay you wiped it / formatted it / clever you! Rather a case of ‘Stupid you’ every hard drive contains a range of personal information on it, from the cat’s birthday to Aunt Edna’s home address, from your email address book to your personal Bank details, all useful information to the ‘Cyber-Criminal’. All recoverable by software you can only dream about, guess who has it? That is right you guessed correctly. Passing on your old hard drive also allows the illegal copying of legal ‘Operating Systems’. As each illegal copy comes to the attention of Microsoft’, they are locked + the original copy as well from any further updates. This is not a ‘make money’ move it is a ‘make safer’ the Internet move, all pirate software has flaws that allow bugs, viruses etc onto the offending computer far easier than a ‘legal’ up to date secure ‘Operating System’ does.
· Do not sell on your computer with the hard drive in it.
· Do not trashyour old computer + hard drive at the local dump.
· Do not leave it out + hard drive for the bin men.
· Do not pass it on + hard drive as a present to someone else.
· Do not sell add on hard drives or give away etc for the same reasons.
· Do remove your hard drive and store in a safe place.
· Do destroy your hard drive if no longer needed by you.
How to destroy the old hard drive: With a hammer, embed it in concrete, or lose it in the Sea. Nothing else will destroy the drive or any of the contents on it.
Every hard drive removed by the rightful owner is one less the ‘Cyber-Criminal’ can buy in bulk; literally, container loads of old computers are regularly purchased to further their activities. The hard drive you got rid of last week could be ripping of umpteen friends and Aunt Edna in a day or so from now. The method to do so was on ‘Your old hard drive!’
Your recorded CDs etc with data, personal details on etc, should be shredded or at the very least scratched heavily to destroy the readability of the CD for exactly the same reasons.
Email Precautions
You have not won anything: One of the Cyber-Criminals favourite bullying tactics is the ‘Lottery’ prize awards. ‘Microsoft’ do not run lotteries at all, National Lotteries of various countries etc rarely if ever run such events to online persons, the chance of winning is way below ‘Zero’. All emails are designed to fool you, ‘Bogus’ Telephone numbers routed to another country, Plausible false names, along with extremely bad English are all methods used to fool the ‘fools’ amongst us.
Junkmail: Do not open it ‘ever’ check it has not been ‘spammed’ by mistake from a genuine sender by reading the header only. In the event that this is not the case then delete straight away, (More reasons for this are further on in this article).
Do not use your name as an email address: Unless you absolutely have to, never use your real name in an email address, no ordinary email user needs to do this. By using your ‘Real Name’, you supply all sorts of traceable help to ‘Cyber-Bullies’. Failing to use your real name on the web was frowned upon a while back, now it is becoming a necessary step to protect ones self from Identity theft, the higher your web profile the more chance of being a victim of the ‘Cyber-Nastiness’ on the Internet.
You email address is yours: Email allows you to send mail to everyone at the click of the mouse; the click sends everyone the entire list of recipients as well. Meaning that everyone gets to know ‘so-and-so’s’ email address, that they did not know before or your best friend did not want known in the first place, silly you! Next time you send a blanket email, use the BCC facility, then your friends, associates or family will not get everyone’s address just yours and their own. You do not share your home phone number or home address with everyone you do not know. So why do you believe you have the right to share everyone’s email address without the owner’s permission?
Never open unknown received mail: Just because an email has not gone into the ‘Spam’ file does not mean it is safe, if in doubt do not open it, instead instantly delete it. In the seconds it takes to open it, a ‘Trojan’, ‘Virus’ or ‘Key logger’ can become active, trawling your address book and hard drive passing itself on invisibly to other people you know or do not know. Doing the same to their computer as the ‘Bug’ is doing to your computer now. The latter will sit there on your hard drive recording and sending information to an unknown to you at all computers somewhere else in ‘Cyber-World’
Never open unknown received attachments: The reason above also applies. In the second it takes to open it, a ‘Trojan’ or ‘Virus’ can be active, trawling your address book and hard drive passing itself on invisibly to other people you know. Some viruses sit for months like time bombs before becoming active, making them hard to locate or trace back to source.
Always use reputable valid and up to date ‘Anti-Virus’ and ‘Spyware’ programs and also ‘Legal’ computer ‘Operating Systems’ and ‘Software’ programs – the crucial bits missing from pirate software, make it much easier for others to get into your computer from the other side of the world (or even next door!).
Websites to note:
Internet fraud - http://www.fraudwatchinternational.com/
Child web safety - http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/
Internet Police UK - http://www.wiredsafety.org/gb/law/uk_police_information.html
FBI Cybercrime - http://www.fbi.gov/cyberinvest/cyberhome.htm
There are many more, most countries have them, in some form. Your first priority should be to contact your local Police in the event of personal issues and missing persons, they can help far quicker and will take all the necessary steps needed both where you are and contact more specialised units/ teams as needed.
The complete article can be read by clicking on the URL below
A, B, Catch you later dear reader!
boffin1157
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