The Reasonable Activist

This is why I only play games on Facebook.

ARTICLE: How FB betrayed users and Undermined Privacy

SUGGESTIONS TO PROTECT YOURSELF:

1. Don’t use your real name on the internet.  Always, ALWAYS use some kind of alias not related to your real name.  (i.e. if your name is John Smith saying SmithJ069 is not a suitable alias)
2. Don’t use your real birthday on the internet.  That’s right, I have a different fake birthday for online accounts.  Actually, I have several fake birthdays, but that could be confusing if you are prone to forgetting your password and need to then remember your correct fake birthday to login to an account.
3. Do not post pictures of yourself, your friends, your coworkers, or your kids on the internet.  It is probably okay to share by email or secure server privately.  Those can both be easily hacked, but let’s face it, if someone is targeting you that closely you are probably screwed anyway.  Facebook is NOT a secure server.  It always drives me bonkers when parents who join Facebook groups like “let’s burn pedophiles at the stake” then post cutesy pics of their kids on Facebook to share with their ‘friends’ — many of whom they have never met in real life.  Where do you think online predators get pics from?  That’s right, they get them from YOU.  And, since you same people have no clue as to security, they probably also have your telephone, email, and hometown, which you were dumb enough to put on your profile.
4. Don’t tell online people where you are going.  Sure, everyone wants to brag that they have tickets to some fabulous sold-out show.  But tweeting about it?  Do that AFTER the concert.   Announcing to the world that you are in the Bahamas for the next two weeks is announcing that your home is ripe for a robbery.  Instead, wait until you get home and THEN you can post pics of the fabulous beach sunset and talk about how sunburned you are.
5. The Internet is like a megaphone.  Did you know social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc) are admissible in court?  You can be fired for griping about work.  You can lose your divorce case if there is proof of an affair.  You can even lose custody of your kids if caught saying nasty things about an ex.  Our brains are wired to think of these sites as cozy, private spaces where we can vent.  Not so.  Pretend everything you post is being shouted on the street to random passersby.
6. If it sounds too good to be true, it is.  You are not really going to win a free iPad or iPhone, just like you won’t win that car on display at the mall.  They use those entries to sell your information to spammers.  There is no such thing as a UK national lottery which picks winners by random email.
7. Check the address bar before you login to a site.  This is the primary way accounts get hacked.  Maybe one of your friends on Facebook has been hacked.  The bot sends out a message to everyone on that person’s friend list, saying “check out this vid of mine”.  You click on it, and it asks you to log in.  Only that login isn’t real.  The minute you type in your name as password, you have been screwed.  How do you protect yourself?  Check the address bar before you type in that information.  Sometimes they will try to use similar names to confuse people.  “facebook.com” might become “faccbook.com” or even “loginserver.ru/facebook.com” which just means they’ve named their page “facebook” when you are really going to “loginserver.ru” instead.  If you aren’t sure, type in the address manually.
8. Beware of certain countries.  Scammers tend to work out of countries with lax internet laws or law enforcement, because then they don’t have to worry about being busted.  Russia and Nigeria host internet scammers in the same way Somalia has pirates.  I say this as someone who knows people who, in fact, have married Nigerians and/or Russian brides.  The odds of that happening are less than 1000 to 1.  You are more likely to win that car.  Chances are, your Nigerian prince or Russian bride is just a scam artist sitting in an internet cafe overseas, who makes a living by tricking people just like you.
9. Everyone’s account gets hacked from time to time.  It happens.  If you think your friend has been hacked, send them a quick note telling them so.  Chances are, they aren’t even aware of it.  (I’m finding this alot lately on yahoo email accounts.)  Usually just changing the password is sufficient.  If you aren’t sure if you have been hacked, change your password.  Very simple.  Also, if you know your account has been compromised, a quick note sent to all your friends apologizing for any spam you may have sent and telling them not to click on any previous links, etc, from you (or if they have, that they need to change their password) is considered polite.

Stay safe, everyone, and stay secure!

The nice thing about being a extrovert in DC is I often learn the truth behind the fantastic news spewed from the press.  The media has this way of looking at issues from only one side, and then pushing that side as the only reasonable and sane way of looking at something.  It sounds perfectly logical when it is said on the television, but when I hear an opposing viewpoint from some knowledgeable soul in the city, their way sounds just as correct.  It pays to remember that the louder someone screams, the more obvious and simple the press makes their viewpoint out to be, the more likely it is some information just as relevant and diametrically opposed to that opinion exists.

Still, I can’t find the spin in the Franken rape amendment.  What happened at Halliburton was atrocious, to be sure, but it may be something in the wording of the bill itself (as presented by Franken) that caused thirty Senators to oppose it.  Congressman and senators love to pass feel-good fluff bills, so the fact that so many opposed this amendment makes me smell a dead rhinosaurus in the room.  My natural inclination is to believe in the utter corruption of Congress (which I know to be an unjust assumption) and I generally want to villify big business, male dominated environments, and sexual offenders.  This emotional charge makes it hard for me to take a step back and look at the facts logically, to ask the mundane questions.  Remember that even a miraculously wonderful bill may be scratched if the wrong miniscule clause is thrown in, and it is a common political tactic to hide sneaky self-serving (or publicly damaging) tidbits into much needed amendments.  Politics is all about throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

Where’s the damn spin?

For more information, visit: Huffington Post article

Image linked from http://www.positivenation.co.uk/

Think the HIV/AIDS epidemic is over? Check out this game to see if you can tell who is HIV positive.

http://www.posornot.com/

Comment back here if you’d like, to show how well you did or how you felt about it.  The game doesn’t keep track of ‘score’, but it only takes one wrong to fail!

(This has been cross-posted to its sister website http://healthsneak.com.)

REFERENCE:
http://www.positivenation.co.uk/issue130/features/feature1/feature1.htm – great article about disclosing your HIV+ status

The Supreme Court yesterday sharply limited the power of police to search a suspect’s car after making an arrest, acknowledging that the decision changes a rule that law enforcement has relied on for nearly 30 years.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/21/AR2009042102125_Comments.html

MY OFFICIAL COMMENT ON THE POST:
It is a hard line to draw beween safety and freedom. Part of me wonders how many dangerous criminals will not be found out because no one knew about the guns in the trunk. The other part remembers riding home from work late at night with some coworkers and being stopped for no good reason, forced to sit on the curb, and wait thirty minutes in the cold while police searched the car and didn’t find anything.

I would love for police to have the right to conduct a reasonable search, but as with any privilege comes responsibility. Too many power-tripping officers have abused this right, and like any bad apple they have made things harder for the good, responsible men and women of law enforcement.

For every problem, there is a solution which is simple, neat, and wrong.  — H.L. Mencken

I wanted to draw attention to this recently published FBI perspective on “school shooters”, which is a succinct term for students who suddenly snap, go to school armed, and kill their fellow classmates and/or school faculty.

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/school/school2.pdf

As an interesting FYI, there is also a terrorism newspaper archive now available to the general public.

http://www.theterrorismarchive.com/Home.aspx

While dull, assessments can be invaluable for the everyday layperson who suddenly wonders “Why did the government or authority in charge do such-and-such instead of so-and-so?  Doesn’t anyone have common sense?”  These perspectives give us insight into the general bureaucratic thought processes that may lead to policies appearing illogical on the outside.

Recently, a controversy over which bathroom transgender people should use has been raging in Florida. Gainseville introduced an ordinance which would allow transsexuals to use the bathroom of the gender to which they are transitioning (see video through link above). Now, this ordinance passed by a vote of 5-2, but as the controversy raged, Miami was declared the worst place for a transsexual to attempt to find a place to use the bathroom.

It can be difficult to mark the line between personal freedom and social protection.  Yet some of the trendiest clubs in DC have unisex bathrooms and we have not exploded in crimes of sexual predation – at least, no more so than usual.  Note that this law has provisions which exclude areas where people may be naked (such as locker rooms).

REFERENCES:

Orlando Sentinal Gainesville Transgender Story

Miami Times: Trannies Have No Place to Pee in Miami

GPAC.org : Looking for a bathroom that’s neither men’s nor women’s

Looking for a unisex bathroom?  Check out http://safe2pee.org/beta/