I often find my best friend and roommate Kristen, on the computer. It is a fun late night activity for us. We like to surf the web and laugh and different things we find amusing. So last night I decided to teach her about what I had learned about internet safety. The first thing I brought up was something that I found particularly useful- how to tell if a site is “secure” or not. If the URL has https: then you know that the site is secure. This means that if you put in personal information such as your credit card number or birthday, you know that your information will be kept private. An example of a time when you should use this would be if you wanted to look up your bank information online. Before putting in your account information you should be sure that there is an “https” in the url. Kristen thought this was good to know and I proceeded to explain to her that sometimes people create links to a website that you think is one place but is really a hacker site. Thus, typing in the actual url would help to avoid this dilemma. Other random facts I told her were to never put your real birthday, and to avoid using full names when you can.
She found this all informative but the discussion got more interesting when I started talking about facebook and blogging. I told her how you should be careful what pictures you put up because there are companies that specifically look at your personal sites before hiring you. She then shared how she had recently went on a friend’s facebook that she had not seen since middle school. There were pictures of the girl smoking, partying, drinking, and other embarrassing shots. Then Kristen noticed that the girl’s dad was her friend on facebook. How would you like to know that your dad is looking at this part of your life? Not only is your dad, but the entire world can have access to your embarrassing night out. Another thing I discussed was how when you blog you should try and use “code” names for people and putting up pictures of where you live. The highlight of our discussion was when Kristen told me about someone she knows that owns a blog. This person has numerous photos of her and her family in front of their house. Their house has a very distinguishable door and coloring, which would make it very easy to find. Also, this women posted that she and her husband were going on a cruise for two weeks. Kristen said that she was driving around one day and saw this person’s house. How scary is that for her and her family? Any stranger could know that she was out of town, where she lived, and probably even more details of her life.
After our discussion I realized that I definitely need to make some changes when I go on the internet. First of all, I am always going to check for the “s” in the url before purchasing anything online. Secondly, I am going to make my blog private. I really like getting personal because the blog is for my family. However, they are the only ones that need to see it. Lastly, on my facebook I need to go through my videos and pictures and make sure there isn’t anything I wouldn’t want a family member or future employer to see.
For the students I teach I would definitely want to them to have a basic knowledge of safety on the internet. Especially during this time when facebook, youtube, and twitter are all so popular- it is even more crucial that students are careful. Thus, if I ever give my students an assignment to do research online I’ll be sure to have a discussion on searching techniques and safety beforehand.