Here we sit, nice and cozy in the rural portions of this great country of ours. WildBlue has made it possible for us to enjoy high speed internet service by way of their Ka satellite service. Before you go skipping out into the daisies of the WWW, take a few precautions.
There are two new terms to keep in mind and to protect oneself from. One is Wardriving. This is known as drive-by-hacking. A hacker will get into a car with a laptop, an omni-directional antenna and searching software. This person will cruise in a random pattern hoping to detect locations of wireless network access or hotspots. Once this person has mapped these points he/she can return at any time and hack into the network.
Another term is phishing. The Secure Phish is a variation of this. It will present you with a web site that appears genuine, has a padlock to appear secure. Once you have been lulled into a false sense of security they attempt to get personal information from you. Do not be fooled by this. Remember, whenever you get an email from a company you have dealings with and they ask you to click on a link to go to their site, play it safe. Go to the site using your browser and typing in your link. Then you can be secure that you are on the actual site.
Now, this next one is referred to as a splog. It is a Spam-Blog, or Splog. It looks like a standard blog but it is actually a piece of adware in disguise, made to appear as a blog. They are very convincing and have embedded links that lead visitors to favorite spammer sites and other Internet content, such as pornography, gambling etc. They are becoming quite prevalent so keep a sharp eye out for any content that just doesn’t feel right. A program such as Spywareblaster or Pest Patrol can help in preventing these items from settling in on your hard drive.
We know that there will be new and more difficult to detect scams popping up on the Internet, or in your inbox in the days to come. Stay vigilant without ruining your computing experience. The best way to protect oneself is to have some kind of virus program installed, updated and run on a regular basis. I also recommend a router, even if you only have one computer. This provides you with a hardware firewall. Install a software firewall and keep it up to date and you will be well on the way to being about as safe as you can be. You can of course, wall your computer completely off from the outside world, but in that case you will be missing some of the truly wonderful things to be learned and viewed, including email from friends and family.
Enjoy the rest of your summer, getting ready for school and smelling that clean rural air. Utilize WildBlue to enhance your daily life experience and at the same time protect yourself from questionable practices on the web.
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