OnGuardOnline.gov is a federal website with practical tips on securing your computer and guarding against Internet fraud. Information is delivered with videos, tutorials, and games designed to test and expand your knowledge. Topics include laptop security, social networking, malware, identity theft and much more.
Two ways to keep your browser’s search history private are to turn off auto-complete (also called auto-fill) and to clear your search history. Google provides step-by-step instructions for three popular browsers, and Leo Notenboom tackles the problem with plenty of screenshots.
To password protect a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet, go to Tools/Options/Security. Enter your password twice, and the next time you open your file, you
will be prompted for your password. This is helpful if you document is sensitive (such as a list of passwords), if you computer is shared by multiple people, or you want to email a private file.
The best defense against spoof (fake or phishing) emails is to be educated and informed about how to spot them. eBay has a good tutorial on how to protect yourself, as does Stop-Phishing.com from the University of Indiana. Number one tip: when visiting a site in response to an email that asks for some web action, do not click on the link in the email. Instead, navigate to the company site independently, either by looking it up in a search engine, or getting the URL off a billing statement.
Cookies are small text files saved on your computer by websites. Some are used to remember your website preferences (such as your login username, or local zipcode for weather or movie listings.) Others are used to track your surf patterns between websites. These are also known as “tracking cookies” or “spyware cookies.” When choosing a spyware program, find out if it detects and removes tracking cookies. For more, read Walt Mossberg.
While traveling, public computers at cyber cafes, hotels and libraries can be convenient. But they also can be dangerous. In addition to making sure that your passwords are not saved in browser history, you also have to be concerned about keyword loggers that may be watching your every keystroke, and emailing your passwords to a thief. Although the safest route would be to never use an important password on a public machine, the next best thing to do is to be sure to change all passwords you used on the road when you return to a secure computer. For more, read “5 Safety Tips for Using a Public Computer.”
Since email is not secure, never send private information (such as sensitive health data, your credit card number, or bank PIN) in an email message. A good rule of thumb is to only email only the sort of information you’d willing to send on a postcard. To learn more about secure email, take a look at PGP Freeware ( http://www.pgp.com/downloads/freeware/ ) and Hushmail ( http://www.hushmail.com/ ).
Cookies are small files on your computer created by websites to record your visits and other data that you provide to the website. For example, a weather site might use a cookie to save your zip code so on your next visit you will not have to enter it again. For an introduction to cookies and privacy, see How Stuff Works: Internet Cookies ( http://www.howstuffworks.com/cookie.htm ). For more advanced cookie topics, read Cookie Central ( http://www.cookiecentral.com/ ).
Since Google includes publicly-listed phone numbers in their search results, you can type any business or residential phone number into their search box and get the associated address and a link to an online map. If you’d prefer to have your phone listing removed from Google, you’ll find instructions here along with a list of other websites that provide reverse directory lookup.
If you’ve been bombarded with annoying Messenger Service pop-up windows, you’ll be happy to know that these can be disabled in Windows XP, 2000 and NT. Here’s a site from the University of Virginia with step-by-step how-to instructions, and another from site of the book “Internet Privacy for Dummies“.
