Here’s a series of things you might have heard of as true, but aren’t, since everything you see on the internet is not true (shocking, I know):
- Ever see a FaceBook post that instructs you to click on the white space, copy & paste something, rub your head and pat your tummy (I made that last part up), and then “Prest-o! Change-o!,” you’ll see more posts from more of your friends. No, just no. Their algorithm is a mysterious thing, but you can’t hack it. In fact, it hacks you. FaceBook (and all social media sites) measure everything you do on their site: how long you linger on a post, what/who you respond to, what groups you join, what ads you remove, every single thing. The algorithm is designed to maximize the amount of time you spend on FaceBook. Yes, it wants you addicted to FaceBook. So it tries different approaches: if you argue with someone, it starts showing you more of their posts, to get you to argue more. If you share something, same. But the algorithm is clever, too. It will adjust some things, “starving” you from one friend’s posts or some site you like and only giving you a “hit” once in a while. So the only way you could “hack” it was to do random things, which would confuse it as to what you like/dislike. And who has time for that? Not only that, but you’d still be spending time on FaceBook, which means they would still be getting paid. So don’t try to hack it; you can’t. Go with the flow and use it if you like, but always remember, it’s using you, too!
- Speaking of hacking, you (probably) haven’t been hacked. Especially on social media, people receive “friend” requests from folks with whom they already are “friends” and they let their friends know, saying “you’ve been hacked.” Hacking involves assuming the identity and account access of a person. The hacker is you and you are not you, any longer. Instead, what I have described is called cloning. Clones are a ruse wherein the cloner starts another page with your name, perhaps image, maybe some info, and then starts sending out friends requests. Your page is still there, but now there is another one. While a hacker can do some damage by posting things you would never say, the cloner is less dangerous. They can ask your friends for help/money, but that’s about all the damage you can do. If you’re the type of person who gives out money to social media “friends” then perhaps the clone trick will work. By the way, if you are that type, send some my way, too! Cloners mostly exist to gin up more eyeballs looking at sites/posts by sharing them with their even-less-real internet friends.
- Ever see an extra long video with a title like “unique way to clean X” or “hack your Y.” So you watch it and it seems crazier as it goes. There’s one on cleaning your toilet–which I won’t link to, because I don’t want you to watch it–that goes on and on, with the cleaning person putting ever more odd stuff in the toilet. So you get done and you think, “that was a waste of time.” Except it was only a waste of your time: what the creator got was your eyeballs on their video, which is worth real money to advertisers. So beware such videos, and who knows if the special technique even works?
- Which recalls the internet maxim “if you’re not paying for it, YOU are the product.” Which is not to say paying for things is always better, or always results in better service. But paid exchanges have a predictable nature: I send money and I receive a thing. When someone provides a free object or service to me, they probably are relying on my reaction as a tangible thing to market to someone else. So they might be trying to manipulate me in the process. Just a caution.
- That image somebody shares of an otherworldly view of a tornado, or lightning, or a cliff-side village, or, well you get the point. If you use the Chrome browser, you can right-click and choose “search image with Google” then “find image source” to see if somewhere out there on the internet there is an original, that may be very different. If you don’t use Chrome, try “Google reverse image search” and you’ll see how to be your own fact-checker with pics on the internet. While this is mostly innocuous now, you need to get into the habit of being skeptical. PhotoShop and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have gotten pretty good, so there’s a lot of digital imagery nonsense out there. Eventually you’ll see fakes of political leaders, friends, family, etc.
- Speaking of Chrome, some really like a feature therein called incognito mode. They think that when they use this mode, they are invisible while out surfing the ‘net, so they perhaps can go to naughty sites to which they would rather not admit. Incognito mode doesn’t hide you browser history, nor does it prevent cookies. It simply masks who you are to the site you’re visiting. This is useful when reading an article from a news site that only allows three free articles, for example. But don’t think you’re invisible. Anyone with access to your computer can see where you’ve been. Oh, and if incognito doesn’t work to avoid access limits (perhaps for paid subscriptions), you can always try the WayBack Machine or the Internet archive. Sometimes brand new articles take a day or two to get archived.
- Ever get one of those “I truly believe X is a cause worth supporting, and I want # of my REAL friends to share/post this”? Another version asks you to read all the way to the end of a long post. These do not support any cause. They are simply the internet’s version of chain letters. I may be going out on a limb here, but they mostly annoy everybody who sees them. If you really care about something, write (that is, in your own words) what you really feel about it and share it.
- Pfishing is the fine art of getting someone to release important financial or personal details through an online interaction. You undoubtedly have received the infamous “Nigerian Prince” e-mail offering you a great cash windfall if you provide the sender with your bank information. Right. But it takes many other forms of which you may be less aware. A list of places you have visited, which “the average American has visited only 10.” A challenge to come up with your Hollywood name, wherein your first name is the name of your favorite pet growing up and your surname is the name of the street where you lived? Favorite foods, things you would give up forever, places you would never go, life experiences. It all seems so innocuous. But if you respond (as millions do), you add to the publicly available data about you. Hackers can send bots through the internet looking for “your name” and “whatever you post publicly.” So? What’s a common security question for websites: How about your favorite pet’s name? Your address growing up? Favorite food? Ooops. But it’s not like they have your birthday, since only all those “friends” on the internet who send you congratulations every year know that. Let’s not become paranoid, now! None of these things means you’ll be hacked. What they do is make you easier to hack. Remember the old joke about the two men going walking in the woods? The first one is wearing hiking boots, and says to the second one, “why are you wearing running shoes? Are you planning to outrun a bear?” The second one says “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.” Don’t be the person online wearing hiking boots.
- What about password security? First, why are we even using passwords? Passwords started because networked computers were for businesses and organizations, who needed a simple security procedure they could mandate to employees. As online interactions and commerce took off, it seemed like an easy transition to keep using them. Except I don’t work for Amazon, and having a different password for everything I do online is unworkable. Not to mention passwords are eminently hack-able. The good news is passwords are dying, being replaced by other security measures like texts, biometrics, and tokens. So this is a problem being solved. In the meantime, using a simple generic password phrase is fine for all your unimportant sites. But remember, it’s only an unimportant site if it has NO IMPORTANT INFORMATION. If you let the unimportant site keep your credit card on file, or it has security questions or other data, it’s not unimportant. For important sites (think banking), use a password phrase with both upper and lower cases, a number and a symbol. Surely there is an old song lyric you will never forget: “ONCE th3r3 w@s” a way… is an example. If you have multiple important sites and know all the lyrics to a favorite song, using different lines of lyrics from the same song also works well.
- Did you notice that many sites now ask you to register, usually using your name and e-mail address. Why not? Well, that’s another useful piece of information about you. Which means it can be shared, sold, or hacked away from you, and combined with all the other info about you out there. Solution? Get a second, free e-mail account for everything other than important business and friends. When anybody else asks for an e-mail, give them the alternative. You can check on it once a week in case something interesting shows up, but otherwise just let it sit there and fill up. If anybody tries to tie you to that e-mail, they don’t get anything useful!
- Back during the pandemic, my family started doing monthly Zoom calls just to keep up to date and in touch. Some won’t participate because of the much-publicized “zoom-bombing” which coincided with greater Zoom use. Zoom-bombing is when someone unauthorized enters your Zoom call and generally makes a nuisance of themselves (or worse. Some folks share pornography!). That was a problem, especially for people who post Zoom sessions on public websites (like social media). But Zoom fixed that: when you enter a zoom call now, the call moderator has to “authorize” you to join the call. If they don’t recognize you/your number, they can chat with you to confirm or simply leave you in the “waiting room.” So Zoom to your heart’s content (which may be short).
- Last, a tip I haven’t been able to confirm, but seems to work. If you access a site with many ads, and that takes a long time to load, try increasing the size of the displayed text or portion (usually <ctrl> and <+> at the same time) so only that text/portion is visible. The computer doesn’t always load things which don’t fit the screen. I noticed on my old MS Outlook Mail this hack works well, speeding up my reading and eliminating the flashing annoyances of paid adverts. If anyone can confirm or refute this, please do in the comments!