Safe Practices for Life Online (Blog #8)

1.      What are three online social networking sites that are used to form connections and develop relationships online?

-          Facebook

-          Twitter

-          Myspace

2.      Consider the consequences.

-          There are several good and bad consequences for using social networking sites. One good consequence is that you are able to keep up with old friends, new friends, family members, etc. You are able to keep up with their lives, stay informed with what’s going on, and immediately comment on posts if needed. Another good consequence is that social networking sites are now used to post job opportunities since so many people use it. There are also several bad consequences though. One of those is that students starting out on social networking sites are sometimes unsure of what to post. Some students post too much information about themselves which then makes them an easy target for predators. For college students, another big consequence is that of what they post if they’ll find a job or not. If a college student posts too many drunken photos, or has very inappropriate things on their social networking sites, many employers will not hire them. People can also be arrested for what they put on social networking sites. WRAL news report from North Carolina wrote a post on a student who contacted a young lady and threatened to knock out his ex girlfriend’s boyfriend on Facebook. He was then arrested for the post.

3.      Define:

-          Sexting: Using technology to send and receive sexual messages including words and pictures.

-          Cramming:

-          Cookies: A cookie for a computer remembers information for you and saves it in your browser

-          Trojan horse: Programs on your computer that can destroy it. They come in forms of games, disc utilities, and antivirus software.

-          Phishing: These are people that try to steal personal information through online sources. They pretend to be a company and scam you.

-          Spyware: Program that can tract a users personal information including credit card information, passwords, usernames, etc.

-          Rootkit: This is a program that allows regular people to sign on to any computer as the administrator to the computer.

-          Zombie: This is when a computer is hooked up to an internet source that has already been hacked and is then infected with the viruses.

-          Source used for these definitions was http://www.techterms.com/

4.      Why are these screen names poor choices?

-          All of those screen names give a very immature and disgusting connotation about them. If a teacher, employer, or even friend saw things such as Pig and BoogerDude, they would automatically judge negatively about the person.

5.      Why might someone harass those with these screen names?

-          When we go out in public, we judge people on the way they look. When I see a girl that wears clothing that’s very provocative or a male that dresses with guns and marjana leaves on his shirt, you can’t help but judge them negatively. This is the same for screen names such as IMAHottie and suPaFlirt. They give a very naïve, immature, and easy view about the person using the screen name. That is why harassment could happen because of how easy a person makes themselves look.

6.      What info is being revealed through the following screen names?

-          Tom_Evans34 is too much info because it says the name of the person which is too much info to give out. Missy-13 is still bad because even though it doesn’t give her last name, it still gives a name to go off of and the 13 can either be how old she is or that she graduated in 2013 and is about 18 years old. AndyKarateKid is telling a hacker that this persons name is Andy and he does karate. So if the hacker is local, he could stalk any karate center and find Andy. ViolinGurl seems to be okay but not the best because they know she is a girl and likes the violin. She also spelled girl wrong which can give the hacker the impression that she’s dumb or ghetto. Restlinmatch to me seems okay because I’m not able to get any information that’s personal out of it.

7.      Write whether you think these are good or poor choices of user names and why.

-          i8sushi2: bad because it gives me an immature judgement on the person which hackers might also think and use against them

-          soccerstar: good because there is not enough personal information to go off of and stalk

-          puppygirl1234: good because there is not enough personal information to go off of and stalk

-          KeKe1995: bad because it gives the name and possibly year of birth of the girl

-          Bookworm: good because there is not enough personal information to go off of and stalk

-          2BorNot2b: bad because it gives me an immature judgement on the person which hackers might also think and use against them

-          Choco-holoic: bad because it gives me an immature judgement on the person which hackers might also think and use against them.

-          CapitlOfens: bad because it’s pretty much saying this person is a capital offender

-          AmrcanIdol2: good because there is not enough personal information to go off of and stalk

-          BellaIsabella: bad because it gives the name of the person

-          DarkAngel666: bad because this gives a future employer a very negative connotation about the user

-          Karla-Love-1996: bad because we know it gives her first name Karla, but her last name could also possibly be love and then 1996 gives us a possible birth year

-          SimplyMe: good because there is not enough personal information to go off of and stalk

-          gUn4hiRe: bad because I personally would not want to “hiRe” a person with this screen name

-          babyfaceLA: bad because we now know where babyface lives

-          Watup?: bad because personally I think this is a very immature screen name because it gives people a invitation to talk to them. Any stalker could use this against them

8.      Three Different screen names:

-          Ndoarj777

-          Jtayyy_4592

-          Rolyat_572

9.      How likely is it that a password can be cracked?

-          A password can be easily cracked if someone doesn’t follow the guidelines that were given to our class in the packet. But if someone followed the guidelines, it would be unlikely that someone could crack it. My score was 11 which I thought was pretty decent.

10.  Most common reason: Students write their password down where others are able to see it. This is because I know on my computer, I have my passwords written down on the desktop where others can see it and sometimes I even write them on sticky notes and leave them somewhere. I feel like a lot of students do this.

Least common reason: Other students see the password as the student enters it on a keyboard. This is because passwords come up as *** when put in so it would be hard for a student to see what they put. And if they’re sitting that close, it would be easy for the student to look next to them and catch them in the act.