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Don’t Be a Victim

You’re probably not going to like reading this, but chances are that you are the best friend of every virus author, adware distributor, and sleaze ball scamming the Internet. Why? Because, if you are like most people, you help these people stay in business!

The only reason that spammers send spam and clutter our mailboxes is because it works! If they didn’t make money, they wouldn’t do it. If people didn’t click on popup windows, install adware, or buy the things the ad agencies have figured out you might like, they wouldn’t keep doing it. Virus authors would have to concede defeat if nobody ever opened an attachment or otherwise triggered their viruses to spread.

The trick is to become more educated. Appendix D has useful resources for going even a bit deeper into how to protect yourself and others from bad computing and malware. It makes as much sense for you personally to learn this stuff as it does to learn about the basics of your vehicle. If you don’t learn the basics you could end up in a very messy accident, and if you don’t learn the basics about computer security, your data could suffer the same sort of fate.

Use Common Sense

Somebody once said that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. When it comes to computer software, that holds true, too. Somebody somewhere is getting something every time you install software. In the case of commercial software, they are getting your money directly. In the case of a hobbyist programmer releasing something he fiddled around with for 2 weeks, it’s the personal satisfaction of seeing others actually using his or her software. In the case of “open source” software, it’s usually the freedom from the perceived tyranny of big business. For most of the rest of the “free” software out there, there’s got to be a catch.

Before you install anything on your computer, ask yourself what the distributor is getting out of this deal. If you can’t immediately spot it, look in the fine print.

Common sense works in other places, too. If you download a typing tutor and your firewall goes off indicating that the new typing program is trying to “phone home,” ask yourself if this is a logical thing for the new software to be doing.

If you haven’t recently bought anything on eBay, then it’s probably not a legitimate e-mail if it claims your recent purchase isn’t going to go through unless you enter your credit card information. And even if you have bought something on eBay, why enter anything via an e-mail you received? Why not go to the site yourself and deal with the possible problem that way. Believe me, if there’s a problem with your account, once you login, they will let you know.

The “Just Say No” Attitude

Have you ever found yourself so deep in work that you wonder how you’ll ever get out of the mess you’re in, then somebody walks up and asks you to do one more thing? What’s your response? A lot of people instinctively answer “Yes,” even when they know they won’t be able to do it. This is bad for the person agreeing, and it’s bad for the people depending on that person. If the person had answered “No, not really,” the other person might have been momentarily frustrated, but at least they won’t be depending on someone who can’t reasonably be expected to do the job.

When it comes to computers, a lot of people carry that same attitude over to their virtual workplace. Maybe it is because they are afraid of disappointing someone, fearful of missing out on a great deal, or because they are bored, they say “yes” to practically everything that appears on the screen. They click on ads, open attachments, and unintentionally allow malware to be installed on their computers.

Some people just get so busy and are so frantic that when a flood of things pop open on their screen, they just start madly clicking on any button that looks like it might make the $^%@* thing go away. This is a very common way to allow both viruses and other malware to gain access into the computer.

Instead of an attitude that says “yes” to anything that comes up (or maybe just an attitude of “Whatever gets this off my screen the fastest!”), try to develop a very strict attitude of saying “No”, “Cancel”, or “Close”.

Are you afraid that you might miss an important e-mail attachment if you don’t open something from somebody you communicate with? Think how many more you will miss if you let loose a virus on your system!

Develop a policy of “I won’t open anything or approve anything unless I have initiated it, am expecting it, or the subject includes a previously determined code word.” If you accidentally delete an attachment that was important, you can always ask the person to resend it (or confirm with them by phone before deleting it). If some software needed rights to access the network and you told the firewall “no,” then the program will complain and you will know you need to grant it access for it to work.

“Just Say No” is safe and saves you a lot of time. Make it your mantra when it comes to computers, just like it should be when it comes to drug abuse or any other unsafe act. You will sleep better, and so will your network admin!

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