Hello dear readers of my . Today we will look at the main safety rules on social networks.
Today, social networks are becoming more and more popular, every day new users register on networks such as VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, Twitter and others. On social networks, people can communicate, share photos and videos. And the more popular such resources become, the more interest scammers show in them, and the more dangerous it becomes to use them. In order not to run into hackers, spammers and scammers who steal personal data, you need to know the safety rules on social networks.
- When registering on a social network, it is better to come up with a random password consisting of at least 6-7 characters. The password for your social network account and your email password should not be the same, this will make it difficult for hackers. And if the passwords are different, then you can send the password for your account. It is best if you have different passwords for each site on the network.
- To access social networks, use only common and proven browsers. Don't forget to install updates for your operating system and browser as well. The same goes for a firewall and antivirus - all these precautions will help you improve your level of security on social networks.
- Never accept or install unknown files from people you don't know. Do not open suspicious messages that contain links to unknown resources, and never click on these links. Scammers can promise you anything, including photos of naked celebrities, so don't fall for them.
- Do not install social networking applications that claim to allow you to find work, download music, videos, and more, if you are not sure about the security of these applications. Often during installation they ask for a username and password for your account - all these are tricks of hackers who are trying to gain access to your account.
- Try not to access your social media accounts from other people's computers. Even if you trust this person, it may happen that there is a Trojan on his computer that will send your account information to the hacker.
- Be careful when posting information about yourself on social networks. Fraudsters often hack accounts using the “Forgot your password?” button, which prompts you to answer a security question. These questions are standard, and the user may inadvertently post the answers to them on his page. Therefore, if the social network allows, it is better to come up with your own, original secret question.
- Sometimes messages sent to you by supposedly your friends may be sent by attackers who have hacked their accounts. So if a message seems suspicious to you or contains a suspicious link, contact your friend directly or by phone to make sure that the message really came from him.
- Don't let social networks scan your email address book to avoid revealing your friends' addresses.
- To access a social network, use the browser's address bar or bookmark directly. If you go to a social network using a random link from the Internet, you may end up on a fake site that steals personal data.
- Be careful who you add as friends. Often scammers try to find out information that is only available to your friends in this way.
- Try not to use social media in your workplace. A social network can become a source of viruses or spyware that can damage office equipment or lead to the loss of your company's trade secrets.
So, we have looked at the main safety rules on social networks. Follow these simple rules and everything will be fine.
Anecdote on the topic:
Mom, why did you blacklist me?!
- It was spam from you
- What kind of spam, maam!!
- Well, like... “put it on the balance”, “I need a new jacket”, “will you give me money for a movie tomorrow?” divorce, in short.
Where he/she was yesterday, where he/she is going today and where he/she will be tomorrow – you can easily find out from your social network account. It used to be the same - you need to monitor, monitor your home and work, establish social connections... wiretapping, again. All in the past. User accounts on social networks, dating sites, etc. - ideal if you are... a detective, bailiff, debt collector or fraudster.
But the hunters are strangers personal life all the possibilities of social networks are known. We will deal with the principles of personal self-defense on social networks. So that outside characters can't find out too much. You yourself know who is taking care of the person who is taking care of him.
1: Read the user agreement
When registering, you fill out the required sections of your account; at the end there is a clause of agreement with the terms of the user agreement of this social network. You know about this point - you’ve definitely seen it a bunch of times when registering on various Internet resources! What do you usually do - stupidly click the “I agree with all the terms” button without reading the terms themselves? You shouldn't be like that. What if it says something like “any data and materials entered by the user are the undisputed property of the resource”?
The above wording means that the owners of the social network (site) can do whatever they want with the content you publish (posted on your account). Leak it to scammers, for example. Or even worse - directly sell all the photos and videos from a social account “hidden” from prying eyes to tabloid publications. And you won’t sue them—you clicked “I agree.”
You are not under interrogation - do not give all the details of your life
2: Minimum personal data in the account
“Where I studied” - school-university, but without a detailed direction of the institute course of study. You are not getting a job and there is no need to indicate all your life details. Social networks offer those who want to indicate their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives and children - why would you do this? You know your family and relatives very well, they know you too. And for other people to know about your family and friendly relations to nothing.
In general, you should fill out only the required items in the “about yourself” section. Which are marked with an asterisk. If any social network requires more “mandatory” information, you should not register in it.
3: The fewer photos and videos, the better
Modern gadgets - smartphones and tablets - along with accessible Internet connections facilitate social communications in modern society. And they make users stupid and naive. The fashion for selfie photos, videos and text descriptions of one’s life on social accounts, in great detail, is the modern norm. Stupid “norm”, by the way.
Is the “magical life” of media idols from Instagram, Twitter or Facebook beckoning you? Are you worried about putting your personal life on display? In vain. Diverse “stars” have security, lawyers and lucrative agreements with social networks (they post themselves naked for free, of course!).
4: Never give your home address
In the “where do you live” section, you just need to enter your country and city. Without a district, a street, and, especially, an apartment house. Some social networks allow you to “hide” the entered full address from outside users (unregistered or not a recognized friend). This is certainly a nice feature. But why even enter your real address?
Internet addresses are posted by users who do business online. And you don’t need to tell the entire Internet your address.
5: It’s better to have 100 rubles than 100 friends (this is the time)
Before accepting another confirmation of “friendship” on social networks, carefully study the account of the person asking to “befriend.” Especially if you don’t know him from a past life. If the account of a new “friend” is closed from access to “non-friends” and you cannot form a preliminary opinion about this character, immediately refuse friendship. Fuck it.
The higher the welfare of a certain person, the fewer “ordinary” friends he has - this is a fact. Business partners and relatives are no deeper than parents, sisters and brothers - they are “social” friends, that’s understandable. But if some kindergarten-school-university acquaintances beg for friendship... And you don’t really remember them, and you haven’t practically communicated with them in the past... Do you need such friends?
6: Personal safety on dating sites
Finding a girl-boyfriend on dating sites is easier than on real life– wider circle of potential “acquaintances”. However, a variety of sadistic scammers also use dating sites as hunting grounds.
It doesn’t matter whether the dating resource is paid or free – “dark” characters are available on any such resource. Therefore, first meetings with a persistent boyfriend/girlfriend should only take place in a safe zone - in crowded places, chosen by you.
Photos of gold tchotchkes and wads of bucks are just African-American show-offs
7: Wealth on display
Photos of your expensive jewelry, gadgets, antiques, etc. posting on your social account page is, to say the least, stupid. Yes, it makes friends jealous, but... it also attracts the attention of thieves. From their point of view, photographs of gold trinkets and premium gadgets are a direct invitation to rob you. Therefore, you should not post photos of your valuables on social networks.
8: Credit card number
In general, this is a classic recommendation - do not indicate your credit number bank card anywhere except secure payment systems. Where are you going to pay for anything purchased? In short, only clinical idiots publish or tell anyone their credit card information on social networks.
Make sure this checkbox is not checked
9: Login to your social account without checking “remember me”
The luxury of logging in/out to a social network while saving your password is only available on a personal computer or smartphone that belongs to you personally. If the computer is shared (for everyone at home), is located at the workplace in the office, or is generally random - an Internet cafe or at a friend’s house - you should not leave your password and login on it. Make sure that the “remember me” checkbox is not checked when entering your login password (it is usually active by default) - they will not be saved on this PC. This simple measure will protect your social account from theft, or use in spamming, or theft of personal data (content).
It’s easy to uncheck the “remember me” box, but it’s difficult to correct the situation after a stranger has entered your account.
10: Don't reveal your location on social media
Some social media users find pleasure in constantly indicating their current location. Following the slogan of Zhulvernov’s “Nautilus” - “mobilis in mobile” - these people move around cities and settlements without parting with the social network, constantly reporting your current location and next location. It will not be difficult for criminals to choose a convenient moment and rob such a user’s house/apartment. "A fool doesn't need a knife..."
11: Your phone number is not for everyone
There is no need to display your phone number for everyone to see. Unless, of course, you are using your social account for commercial purposes. Annoying calls from online “trolls” or scammers – do you need it?
New gadgets or fashion accessories at half price? They're stolen.
12: “Profitable” trade offers coming through social networks
Various sales and lucrative offers are pouring in on you from everywhere on the Internet, this is the norm these days. So why not take advantage of direct requests from product sellers who write to you from their social accounts? But you shouldn’t do this, especially if the price is really low - these are thieves, that’s how they sell the goods.
Afterwards, the police will confiscate your purchase and will not return the money. Because you need to buy from legal stores, and not from online distributors of stolen goods!
13: Periodically change your passwords to social network accounts
The password for each of your social media accounts must be changed at least once a year. Moreover, with the addition of symbols to the alphanumeric series. And do not use the same password in several accounts. Otherwise, “hackers” will take away your social page or spam you through it.
14: Not every attachment in a message should be opened
You have been sent a message with a file attached, and the sender strongly advises you to look at this file. Only you don’t know this sender - some kind of “leftist” character, albeit persistent. Feel free to open the attachment, there is a picture or some other nonsense, but with a cunning catch - from the moment you open it, all your button presses in your account are remembered and sent to an outside “hacker”. The image attachment contains a hacker script created to intercept your social network password.
In general, if you do not know or are not sure of the identity of the author of a message with an attachment, do not open the attachment. By the way, the more an unknown sender insists on opening an attachment, the more likely it is to be a hacker. You especially shouldn’t open messages that came to you, but were not addressed to you - like, accidentally sent to the wrong place.
Listen, give me your phone number and call mom!
15: Let the phone ring
Today, a smartphone is not just a phone. This is a universal gadget that combines a bunch of functions, incl. phone and PDA. And since you save passwords for your social accounts in your smartphone (who would even password protect social accounts on their smart phone?) - an outside caller can gain access to them. While he pretends to be calling... Decide for yourself who to allow to call from your smartphone, and who to send directly... to a pay phone (though there are almost none of them anymore). Generally speaking, smartphone data protection is something that you are highly recommended to read. And use the means of self-defense described in it. So as not to feed the scammers, literally.
16: The problem of threats in social networks is solved through admins and moderators
Entering into an aggressive and abusive dispute with a certain character from a social network is stupid. It's useless to spoil your nerves and get angry. It’s simple - write a message to the administration of the social network indicating links to the abusive correspondence and the scolder’s account. And all the work!
The user agreement of social networks (which everyone should read - the first point of this article!) always states that users cannot be aggressive, etc. In short, the administration bans careless users for lousy behavior (blocks access to the account).
Your classmates primary school- have long grown up and matured in life!
17: To prevent your page on social networks from being stolen...
... You need to set up ways to identify your loved one. If you don’t link your account to an IP address (IP addresses change when logging in from different gadgets and through different Internet providers), then specify two e-mails - the main and additional. The topic with the “secret question” no longer works (there’s no way you’ll remember later what answer you set) – link your social account to your mobile phone number. It will be almost impossible for a hacker to change the password in a social account that requires confirmation of action by phone.
18: Studying the functionality of a social network
Each social network, in each of its user accounts, has functionality buttons that ensure the security of the person who opened this social account. You need to find them, study the instructions for using them (instructions are usually located in the “questions and answers” section).
19: If a social network is unable (unwilling) to ensure your safety...
... Close your account with her immediately. Delete the page completely - yourself, if possible, or through the administration of the social network (by contacting it). There is no point in hanging out on a social network that does not provide the necessary level of security for you. A waste of time, plus a risk to your wallet/reputation.
A deception site for intercepting accounts and passwords
20: Your password for your social network account is yours alone
Fraudulent hackers are looking for new ways to obtain user passwords from social networks. They create one-page imitation websites with a design stupidly copied from a popular social network. Then they send letters to users whose e-mail they can find - they say, enter your password by following the link (the link leads to a fraudulent clone site). Like, “we want to make sure this is your account” or “you really are the owner of this page” and similar blah blah blah...
Not a single large and real social network sends messages like “confirm your password, fraudulent activity has been detected on your page, otherwise your account will be deleted” to its users. Remember - you are not obliged to disclose your passwords from Internet resources to any third (outside) party.
Social networks can be a tool for development, or they can be evil - absorbing time, cluttering the information field, provoking fragmentary thinking. So, the rules are mandatory for every user of social networks.
1. Set up your news feed. Don’t waste time on information noise - who is vacationing where, what you ate for dinner, demotivators, funny videos, etc. Read only people who are really close to you, as well as pages that contain information that is important to you.
2. Don't check the number of likes on posts. Likemania - dangerous disease, based on a person’s subconscious desire to receive strokes. If ten minutes ago you checked the number of “likes” of your photo, and now you are tempted to do it again - stop.
3. Analyze destructive patterns of social media use. Perhaps you go to social networks when you fill pauses in work. Perhaps you use the network as an excuse for procrastination (the tendency to constantly put off even important things). Perhaps you scroll aimlessly through social media when you're nervous. Find these behavioral patterns and get rid of them.
4. Set a limit on the time spent on social networks. Install RescueTime or similar service. Look at the report - how much time per month do you spend on social networks. Be horrified. set a limit.
5. Do not add strangers as friends, leave them as subscribers. Avoid information noise.
6. Turn off notifications on social media mobile apps. Otherwise, you will be on social networks constantly.
8. Clean the list of groups and pages to which you are subscribed. Do you really need the “Beads and necklaces in Krasnoyarsk from 370 rubles” community? Are you really reading all these 25 communities with funny pictures? Is it important for you to know what’s new at the XXXX laptop online store?
9. Avoid user trance. The online environment puts a person into a certain trance state. Look at the person sitting, for example, on VKontakte. He moves from page to page in fascination, he rarely blinks, he is in a kind of trance. If you ask him why he went online, most likely he won’t remember. Under this condition, social network usability experts have created many “traps” in the interface that extend the time spent and the number of pages viewed.
https://vk.com/whatisgood2?w=wall-82197743_189281
There is an interesting bug in human nature: people want to think less and simplify the existing model of the world around them. We like to live and not know reality, to eat bad food without understanding the diversity of world cuisine.
Some find it convenient to exist in a world where there is one enemy, while others find it difficult to think about the infinity of the Universe. But all these patterns of following the path of least resistance are nothing compared to what happens to us with constant use of social networks.
1. We stopped understanding what was happening
Remember how you reacted to a new law that you didn’t like. It was an emotional outburst that you were sure to share on social networks. Have you thought about the reasons for this behavior?
Someone wrote an angry “how long” on Twitter, someone shared a link to the news and commented indignantly on it. It’s just that no comprehension occurs. Instead, you wait for likes and comments. The more there are, the more you believe that you are right.
You rely not on logic and your own experience, but on the opinions and reactions of strangers. Then, having caught an emotional wave, you will produce negativity again and again, receiving a flurry of approval from your “friends”. But you will never comprehend what is happening, but will only waste precious time reflecting on insignificant events.
Your whole life could go like this.
It seems to you that you are in the thick of things, but you are not. You are in the midst of gadgets. You are simply reacting to a match, concert or rally that took place without you. You are where you were yesterday. Nothing depends on you, no matter what you yourself think about it.
2. Our picture of the world is distorted
Constantly being in virtual contact with different people, you stop perceiving reality. A distorted picture of the world and the people inhabiting it is built in your head.
Have you ever seen someone write that they cheated on their wife or watched a great porn movie? Have you read that a guy doesn’t have enough money to survive until the end of the month? No. On social networks, you will only see succulent dinners at a restaurant, photos from vacation with blue skies and palm trees, and pictures of newly purchased gadgets.
No one will show cockroaches in the kitchen, no one will talk about back and neck pain, no one will share that they pick up prostitutes every Friday.
Reality is not for you. For you - glossy images with perfect views of the sea, a friend in a photogenic pose, lunch with Instagram filters and children who never cry, never poop, but only smile, wear the most beautiful clothes in the world and play with LEGOs.
The same goes for . I read dozens of indignant comments that all trash cans have been removed in Kyiv. I thought I would return to a city littered with garbage. But it turned out that the ugly ones were replaced by cute plastic trash cans, familiar from Europe and Asia. Nobody wrote about new trash cans, only about destroying old ones.
3. We see the worst of all possible worlds.
We don't live in best place, like any person inhabiting the Earth. There is no ideal world. Spending time on social networks every day, we are convinced of this by receiving the most depressing information.
No one is sharing the news about the launch of 100 new buses. But everyone will be discussing the $10 million stolen during their acquisition.
Journalists choose terrible news stories, and we share the worst of them.
The result is such a picture of the world that you want to hang yourself. So the world you didn't choose seems the most disgusting.
4. We don't know who our real friends are.
You will not be able to say for sure who is your real friend, who is your comrade, and who is just an acquaintance. You will mix everything into one pile.
5. We forgot about the real world in pursuit of likes
You will see a stunning sunset and, of course, you will want it. But you judge its beauty by the number of likes it collects on Instagram or Facebook. Collected 100 likes - awesome sunset! No likes is not a good sunset.
I photographed this sunset while jogging and immediately processed it, significantly worsening my performance. For what?
You see a fragment of a grandiose event that lasts a matter of minutes, but your eyes are in . You are busy processing the photo and publishing it. The sunset is already over, and you missed everything.
I didn't see the sun cross the horizon. I was busy posting photos Now it's time to eat. You order spaghetti, but you start by taking pictures of it. Only now you will be eating a cold dish - processing and publishing the photo takes a lot of time. But no one will know about this, because you won’t write about it.
100 likes mean that the restaurant and the dish are excellent, but what you think is secondary. Eat your cold spaghetti, the taste of which you will not remember because you will be busy studying your news feed.
Yes, this soup got cold while I was photographing it. You also communicate with brands on social networks. Maybe try talking to a bottle of beer in a store and listen to a fresh joke? Maybe, satellite dish will amuse you with a demotivational talk about cable television? Maybe the showroom car will show you the latest TopGear in real life? Hardly. It's time to think about the absurdity of the current state of affairs.