Tips & Tricks:
Safety, Security and Convenience in the Internet Era

The Internet era has introduced convenience in a number of areas - ease of communication, knowledge-gathering, networking, and so on. It has also introduced complications, and not-so-very-nice folk have also taken advantage of it to spread hoaxes, spam, and viruses that harm your computer (or send more spam) - and even steal identities.

Here are a few tips to help you secure your own online safety, prevent problems, as well as be a good Internet citizen.

These are just a starting point; please educate yourself to live with the minefield which the worldwide web has become.

protect yourself

Secure your computer with good virus monitoring software. We especially recommend Eset (link at the bottom of this page) for its unobtrusive operation and excellent detection rate, but there are a number of excellent options available out there. There is no excuse not to protect yourself. You should also install at least one good anti-adware application.
Even the use of antivirus and anti-adware programs is not fail-safe. It is important not only to browse smart, but also to use email intelligently. While an antivirus program worth its salt will detect 96-99.9% of viruses in email attachments, they won't stop you from clicking on a link to an infected web site. Do not simply trust that an email is from whom it claims to be. Do not simply trust that a link goes to where it claims to go. Every day I receive emails which claim to be going to Microsoft or Paypal or any number of legitimate places. Many of these even have what looks like the URL (website address) displayed. Don't trust that. At the very least, if your email client supports it, hover over the link in the email and verify that the URL is what it claims to be. Better yet, if the message is account related, browse to the relevant site yourself and sign in rather than following the link.
Update your web applications promptly. If you have a blog or other dynamic web-based application such as a content management system, be sure to stick closely to the current version. Most updates include, not merely feature upgrades, but security patches, and keeping up with the versions is crucial in order to avoid compromising the server with vulnerabilities.

save yourself headaches

Doublecheck your passwords. If you have a web site with a signin, or an email address you haven't used in some time, don't guess. Many servers are now equipped to block an I.P. from which a user has as few as three successive unsuccessful logins. Better to spend a moment to doublecheck your username and password than experience the hassle of getting your I.P. address unblocked.

be a good citizen

No matter how good of deal something looks to be, never click through a spam link, even if you are certain the offer is legitimate. Other than the few who spam just because they can, the primary reason that spammers can exist is because they can make money doing their dirty work. If nobody buys, they'll find another line of business. Please do not contribute to this phenomenon, which is not merely an inconvenience but imposes heavy costs upon Internet users worldwide. Spam is parasitical; don't contribute to it.
Did you receive a forwarded message telling you about a horrible decision "the government" has made/is about to make? An outrageous example of business malpractice? A plea to help some unknown person? Never forward these items unless: (1) the person who sent it to you has intimate and reliable (preferably firsthand) knowledge of the item reported (e.g. "My brother-in-law has been in an accident"); or (2) you can verify the claims via a reputable and reliable source. Forwarded messages of this sort are most frequently hoaxes. At the very least, when you receive a message of this sort that you are tempted to forward, visit snopes.com and check whether this has been reported as a hoax. (You will be amazed how often the story is just a rehash of an earlier version that has made the rounds in various forms for years - even predating the advent of personal computing and the widespread use of the Internet.)
Never send anything nasty back to an email address from which you apparently received spam. First, most spam does not actually originate from the email address being used. Second, even when it does, in the overwhelming majority of cases all you are doing is further punishing someone whose computer has been hijacked by a virus. Either way, in by far the most cases, you will be punishing a victim, not the real spammer. No good can come of attempting to "dish some of it back."
For the same reason as (3), do not set automated messages for non-active email accounts or accounts that do not exist at your domain. If you are setting up email for your domain, all unaddressed mail should go into a "black hole" (be deleted). Moreover, if you have an email account that is no longer in use, delete it rather than have the assigned box fill up and generate automated messages from the server. This will prevent floods of "message failed" emails coming into inboxes of folks who never sent the message to begin with.