Geotags

Everyone seems to want your location on the Internet. When you log into Facebook, open up Google, or join a new site and a prompt asks if you want to allow the site to use your location, what do you click?

Click no. Hell no.

Geotags are the geographical metadata attached to your device, that are telegraphed when you post from that device onto the Internet.

There may be times when using your location is unavoidable, such as if you want to use a weather app on your phone. It kind of needs to know what city you want the information for. That said, you still don't need to give the app your specific location, so disabling geotagging is not going to affect it.

If you open up Google maps on your mobile device, see where the arrow leads to before you open up the search bar. It leads right to the shingles on the roof of your house.

Check your settings right now on your phone or tablet. Make sure your exact geographical location is an empty box.

Here's why. When you take a photo of your kids in the back yard with your device, the geotag will publish your location right down to the shingles on your house. You might not think much about it, but what if you posted that picture on Twitter or Facebook? Then somewhere along the way, you mention a big trip you're going on. Vacation week in Hawaii. Thanks to your photos, now people know exactly what color your shingles are and that your house is going to be empty for a week.

Maybe people know you're single and live alone with a cat. That's all a sex offender needs to know after the geotags on your photographs can lead them straight to your house.

Perhaps I'm overreaching. The odds may be very slim, but why give crime a chance? Turn off your geotags. Strangers on the Internet do not need to know which house you live in. Heck, they don't even have to know the city, unless you post it.


 

Catfishing

This is the online version of a female walking down the street past any group of men who hoot and holler, who decide to follow you, who try to pressure you to respond to their catcalls and then get mad when you don't. This online version is called catfishing. They tend to start like this:

Although to this one's credit, there is more wording than you would normally see. Usually it's just "hi" and they keep sending the same message, then they get mad when you don't respond. I usually delete or block them.

But textbook definition of catfishing online is someone hiding behind a false identity who tries to lure you into a relationship. We've seen numerous versions of the offline version of this: on Investigative Reports, Dateline, and 20/20. It never ends well. It doesn't always end in murder, but it likely always ends with a parting of the funds.

Dr. Phil has listed a few things to look out for when you decide to entertain the thought of online dating.

• Fake photos.
• Above average poor spelling and grammar.
• They're ready to jump into marriage before you say hello.
• They ask for money.
• Too many questions.

If it seems creepy, it usually is a creep. Forget politeness. When you get continuous Google chat popups like the one above, or Facebook direct messages, just block and delete. No explanation or response is necessary.

Women ain't got time for catfish.

Hacking Is Life

It's happened to everyone at some point on the web. Even to those seasoned and technically-savvy veterans of the Internet.

It is guaranteed to happen to those who surf the Net without a parachute and in complete and total ignorance.

You've been hacked.

It's a good chance everyone who has ever owned a Twitter or Facebook account has been hacked at some point. How? When you don't pay attention to what you are clicking. Some of those too-good-to-be-true or sexy salacious stories come with a hacksaw. You usually know when one of your buddies tells you they've just received some weird message from your account.

How do you get out of a social hack? Change your password. Log out. Log back in with the new password. Use a complicated password, like: iReallywantTogoto1henew5tarwarsMovi7 or something half that long.

You really do need a unique password for every account. Don't use the same one across the board or something simple, like benandsandy if those are your kids' names.

Even if your computer is Fort Knoxed, you can still get hacked. Your information is as secure as the IT from the companies you deal with. If Amazon decides to save money on IT and put it into a new launch instead, unless they have a blackhacker on staff, all their information is put at risk if their IT is not as tip top as they can pay for.

Need an example, besides Sony (which isn't just about movies but also your Playstation)? Here are some biggies:

Netflix
Go Daddy, Dropbox, Nissan, Mastercard, Visa, Reuters... in 2012
Facebook, Microsoft, NBC, Twitter... in 2013
Target, Michaels, AT&T, US and Canadian governments, Home Depot, Apple iCloud... in 2014
Anthem, IRS, JP Morgan Chase, British Airways... most recent

There is no getting around it. The Dark Web, where all of this information gets sold as hackers make money on your behalf, is bigger than the Internet you are currently using.

You can't hide. Even if you decide to put a moratorium on Internet travel, you can't control what other companies do when you shop in person, or how secure your cable company's records are. You can only use best practices and be diligent: strong and unique passwords (so what if you have to write them down in a book), don't do banking from a public wifi (coffee shops, airports), make sure your computer is fully upgraded and not too old for upgrades (I don't use my Windows XP laptop online anymore), have a really good and fully updated antivirus program.

Captivity Survival Techniques Can Improve Your Life

Loss of freedom can mean many things.

It can mean being held against your will by another person, domestic violence, and a whole assortment of criminal behaviors that are meant to dominate another person into submission.

Sometimes we hold ourselves hostage. If we are unhappy and frustrated with our circumstances and can't see a way out, we can easily fall into captive behavior.

The Hostage Survival Skills for CF (Canadian Forces) Personnel written by Major P J Murphy and Captain K M J Farley describes a form of captivity as being emotionally distraught from a personal crisis or domestic dispute. In other words, a life crisis or environment imprisons us mentally.

It can happen when someone close to us dies, like a parent losing a child, or when we are the target of a cyberbully. Poverty can make people grind through life. We might let the circumstance consume us and keep us from moving forward or seeing the light, so we let our dreams, our goals, die where we left them.

It doesn't have to be that way.

After watching the first interview with journalist Peter Greste on Al Jazeera English after he was freed from an Egyptian prison, he mentioned there were three keys to his survival after being locked up for over 400 days. Keeping fit physically, mentally, and spiritually. He also saw his experience as an awakening. It brought people together in ways he could never have fathomed, but it was also like a rebirth. He missed the little moments more than the big issues: seeing a sunset, the stars, feeling the sand on his feet.

Here are some tips on how to survive in captivity that can translate into helping you survive online and everyday life.

You Look Disgusting

 This is a powerful video from +My Pale Skin that reaffirms there is no pleasing anyone. Chew on this for a moment: those who post hateful comments, how is YOUR life so much more perfect than ours? The only person's opinion that matters is your own.

 

Twitter can be an ugly place for women

We know that largely it is the bad guys who seem to get more press than those who are doing good. The people just going about their daily chores, minding their business, who have made some online connections, share a few photos and stories on social media, who are not on the public radar, are not immune to cyberbullies and trolls. But for anyone who has been in the #trending box or has had any sort of celebrity whatsoever -- these are the people who especially seem to attract the worst of the worst. Or you just have to be a female.

This story was recently shared by my media colleague +Alex Ruiz on Facebook:

Twitter can be an ugly place for women in sports media - The Cauldron - SI.com

It doesn't take much to elicit the ire of a troll. You only have to exist. And for some, if you're female, you are all that is wrong with the world. I guess these trolls must really hate their mothers.

You don't have to "feed the troll" to fight back. In fact, even a troll will admit that any response from his or her target will act as rocket fuel. Expect the abuse to lock into higher gear.

When the tweets get to the point that they are libelous or they egg on criminal behavior, what you can do is document every post with their Twitter handle beside it. Keep a detailed file and make two copies: one for you and one for your police report for when the abuse crosses the line from pure hatred to actual threats. Include any of their Twitter buddies who favored, replied, or shared their hateful tweets (with their Twitter handles), then go back and report and block all of their sorry little asses.

If there are too many, find someone to assist you or hire someone to take that task off your hand. The last thing you should do is close your Twitter account. I just want to scream when people do that. It means you let those bastards win. When one troll wins, they all win.

Although police departments are not necessarily equipped with the ability to fight Internet crime, or know what it is, still file a police report when it truly crosses the line to cyberbullying or you feel physically threatened. Having a police file number is a bit like a security blanket. Even if the police don't pursue the case, that piece of paper validates your experience, if nothing else, for yourself.

It's also good for you to know that some trolls are being jailed for their behavior. It doesn't mean they're sorry, but it does mean the laws are changing to your favor.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/patricksmith/isabella-sorley-john-nimmo-interview 

Hold your head high and spit in the trolls' direction. One of the best empowering tools comes from +Jimmy Kimmel Live with his Mean Tweets. There are others, but it is so important not to let a troll draw you into becoming like them.

When You Truly Can't Repay A Debt, Know Your Rights

You're one of the millions who were affected by the 2009/2010 economic fallout that suffocated the United States, and was felt by some industries in Canada. Then Canada spiraled into a recession.

Because things were great just prior to the downfall, your business was riding high. You had credit at your fingertips and things looked pretty rosy. Then all of a sudden, the shit hit the fan and you either lost your business or your job. Saddled with debt you were able to manage with the previous income, you now have no way to pay it back.

If you're over 50, well, you know the drill. Finding work that resumed the same kind of income you had has been sketchy. Maybe you found some piecemeal jobs to put food on the table and pay rent, but with very little left over to manage your bills. All your bills have gone to collections.

Some of your collectors were sympathetic to your plight, so even if you could only pay $25 every other month, it was something and it showed you were trying. Others were relentless to the point of abuse -- and some may have broken the law.

Maybe you already had a bankruptcy under your belt from decades prior and you don't have the money now to pay the larger fees required to file a second one.

No matter how hard you work to try and find the income, after downsizing, borrowing more, you can't make it work. Your only option is to ignore the debt. The collection calls continue and so does the abuse.

Years pass. Maybe you've moved or your house was foreclosed. Either way, you've had a break from the constant reminder. The calls have stopped. Then all of a sudden, a there is a knock at the door, or you learn that a bailiff wants to serve you a judgement order on a debt that is over two years old.

There is a statute of limitations

Check your province or state. In Alberta, Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan, there is a two-year statute of limitations. That means creditors are prohibited from legally suing you for unsecured debt.

Where some people screw this up is when they acknowledge the debt in writing, such as an emailed response to a creditor who decides to hound you electronically. The statute of limitations is in effect right after the last payment or acknowledgement of the debt. So if someone approaches you after two years or however long the limitation is in your area: shut up. Don't respond. Don't acknowledge. If they come to your door, don't accept the paperwork, don't even acknowledge your name. Bid them good day and shut the door.

They are not able to collect the old debt from you, even if you now have the money to pay it. Yes, it is up to the debtor to remove any of rotten credit from your report. But face it. Your credit is bad whether you pay it or not. Paying it doesn't make it miraculously disappear from your credit report.

If it seems that your debt has resurfaced and the collection process has started all over again, after the two years have expired, that probably means your debtor has illegally sold your debt to a third-party debtor.

When your debt gets to the collection stage, most states and provinces have similar legislation as to the personal conduct of a collector. In today's digital world, your debtor may even take to extremes and troll your social media accounts, publicly disclose your debt, and bully you. This is illegal.

Know your rights.