Online Security

April 24th, 2014

This week we learned about online security, which included how to protect your online accounts, what kind of data your online activities generate, and information about viruses such as the heart bleed virus that has been publicized recently.

I would say that my online activities are pretty safe and protected. All of my passwords for my various online accounts are different, and are never anything easy. As annoying as it can be to have to include numbers, letters, symbols, a hieroglyphic and the blood of a virgin included in every new password that a website has you create, it is definitely for a reason. All of my passwords are long and complex, I’m always super hesitant to download anything, I never enter my credit card information on anything that isn’t an organization that I am extremely familiar with, and I don’t visit websites that aren’t secure. But there’s only an extent to which you can protect yourself. Sometimes viruses, like the heart-bleed just find you. I think that ironically, technology enables us to be protected from other technology. Who hasn’t gotten an email along the lines of, “There’s a virus going around. This is ho it’s embedded. This is how it attacks you.”

My online activities generate a lot of different data, in a lot of different places and purposes. I have a lot of online work that has been published for the Human Rights Campaign’s website. I have written a lot of various poetry, prose, and spoken word that was just for my own enjoyment and has been published to mainly Tumblr, as a means of self expression and communication with others. I do a lot of researching, blogging, and creation on the internet. I also use it mainly for social interaction, such as Facebook and tumblr. The majority of the data that I generate is creative, and word based.

One thing that I found interesting about the NASA article is that they don’t actually look at your data, just your metadata. They’re simply looking for “trigger words” or “tip-offs of sorts” so that they can look for anything that might be problematic. It’s just the skeletons of what an online user is actually generating, not the actual content. Americans make such a big deal about the government invading their privacy, when they don’t actually know what the government is looking for.

 

As far as my project goes, I think I’m making good progress on it. I’m always finding new items to add to my site, but I’m honestly worried that my project is somehow going to fall short, or be missing something. Next week during class, I’m hoping to meet personally with Professor Hajar and do a check-in to see how I’m coming along, or if she has any suggestions to what I might want to add.

 




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