You Can’t Just Surf Anymore

It never was really safe to just surf around and clickety-click on interesting-looking stuff, but it just keeps getting truer and truer (is that grammatically correct?) that you have got to pay attention to what you’re doing on the web.

You’ve got to pay attention when you get an email with a link or an attachment. (See Cryptolocker)

You’ve got to pay attention when you’re posting to social media sites. (See Check These Facebook Settings and Before You Send That Resume)

You’ve got to pay attention to what your kids are doing online. (See How to Keep Kids Safe Online)

You’ve got to pay attention to encryption settings of the websites you do business with. (See How to Verify Security at a Website)

You’ve got to pay attention to what gets downloaded with stuff you genuinely want. (See How “Free” Stuff Really Works)

You’ve got to pay attention to property rights on published works. (See Piracy)

You can’t always stop people from doing bad things. You have no idea just how many people are involved in the the things you do, because most of your Web activity goes on “under the hood.” I can protect me. To a large extent I can protect my family. But I can’t protect you. The best I can hope to do is empower YOU to protect YOU.

You’ve got to pay attention.

What is it about the Web that concerns you? Where are you scared to go, what do you need to know more about? When you start paying attention, what is it you need to know constitutes “normal?”