Covering Your Assets (CYA)

Want a virus or some malicious spyware? Hang out on Myspace and do some random clicking or open up your friend’s bulletins. Or execute some random Google searches and play the six degrees from their homepage game. I was doing some innocuous research the other day on Orlando nightclubs when a very official looking Microsoft page opened and informed me that my computer had been infected with a virus. I looked up to the address bar and the address seemed legit; a miscorsoft.com extension. The page looked very Microsoft-esque. I clicked the download button and within seconds Avast popped up with a message; something about: did I really want to download the Trojan virus I had just selected or did I want Avast to keep my computer from crashing and me from losing my mind? I chose sanity.

Avast is my computer Superman, saving me when my foolish typing and clicking fingers find malicious information online. The Avast package is a lot like Norton Antivirus, except it is free and it works. Well, it is free for your home, noncommercial use. If you have a network or an office you need to protect then there is a variety of corporate paid packages you should consider, else, get the free home version here http://www.avast.com/.

According to the website Avast was developed in the Czech Republic in 1991 and remains a Czech product, with the home office in Prague. This wonderful product didn’t pop up on my radar until last year when CNET released their 2006 report on the best 20 freeware products available on the net. My Norton subscription has just expired, right after my computer crashed, and I wasn’t inclined to renew a subscription to a service that hadn’t protected me the first time around.

Avast is easy to use. The interface is simple and it updates and scans automatically. In the last year Avast has kept my system fully operational. Since the great crash of 2006 I have a lot of paranoia. My laptop is already two years old so it may kick the bucket at any time. Keeping this in mind I try to be safety conscious. I invested in an external drive with 60 gigs of storage space. Every month I back up all the files I would never want to lose. Documents, music, and photos are the big three. And since my computer begins to run very slowly when I use it to store more than 20 albums at a time, I keep almost all my music on the external drive. Since the external hard drive is a USB device I can easily access and use the stored files, almost as if they were on my laptop’s hard drive. When I am working on term papers or presentations, I store the drafts after I have worked on them. The lesson here is back up your files. Computers can be replaced. The term paper that you have due tomorrow is going to ruin your mental stability if your computer goes down and you lose your files.

My paranoia extends beyond backing up my files into having an entire cadre of anti-virus software, all of it freeware. Ad-Aware remains a great tool for cleaning out cookies and miscellaneous junk that websites like to litter in my temp files. Ad-Aware also has paid components, but you can get the basic program for free here: http://www.lavasoftusa.com/.
That’s all for this week, happy computing.

If you have a favorite web application or gadget, email me at cbatson@mail.ucf.edu or leave a message!

(I'm working on incorporating images into the weekly blogs...this week I was thwarted by an internal problem with Blogger. Next week I promise some visuals!)

Myspace management

The alternative title I was considering is: “Don’t be that girl.” It could just as easily read: “Don’t be that guy.” What girl/guy am I talking about? The one that has risqué pictures that look like photos you would send in if you were trying to audition for an adult movie…and I don’t mean the rated R kind. Don’t be that person who is obviously intoxicated in every photo you have posted. And for crying out loud, don’t post pictures of yourself or others doing something illegal. If you were lucky enough to get away with it the first time don’t push your luck by advertising your criminality to the whole wide world.

There are other dos and don’ts for social networking sites. Always be safety conscious; don’t post your address and phone number unless you like the thrill you get when a twice convicted, violent rapist knocks on your door with a bouquet of roofies and duct-tape.

Why the academic concern with Myspace and social networking sites in general? One, you are probably in college because eventually you would like a job, a well paying one preferably. Professional industry is increasingly screening candidates’ online personas as part of the application process. Just as you wouldn’t put an email address of istealthings@gmail.com on your resume you don’t want your employer to write you off based on the information you disseminate about yourself online.

Even if your employer glosses over the picture of you on the toilet that you have posted in your pictures, your co-workers may not be so forgiving. All your potential co-workers are not seventy year old technophobes that scorn and shun social networking sites. You could find yourself on the receiving end of the office scuttlebutt wondering why you keep getting passed over for promotion after promotion while the pencil neck in the cubicle next to you is already the regional manager.

All this worrying about the future may seem unnecessary. After all, you have a few more years in school, and once you get out then you will clean up your online act. If you aren’t worried about your reputation now ask yourself a few simple questions. Would my family be ashamed of the persona I have created online? Am I contributing to improving the reputation of my university, Greek organization, or community? As more and more people join the social networking movement, more and more people have access to your information and make judgments not only about you, but about the communities that you belong to.

There are a few ways that you can maintain a risqué online persona if your attitude towards persona management is on the blasé end of the spectrum. The easiest is setting your profile to private. Next, be aware that there are lots of people out there that want your information so they can take something from you. They may want to post comments about a gift card on your page. All you have to do is fill out six forms, enroll for three services, and provide them with your social security number, and you will receive a $200 gift certificate. Meanwhile, you have just jeopardized your credit rating and financial security. In the long run that is a big trade off. Ten years from now if you can’t get financing to buy a home or car that $200 gift certificate is not going to seem like such a good deal. Plus, when employers, co-workers, and others see that you fall for these scams they make inferences about your common sense. They think, “if this person is willing to risk their own security, can they be trusted to not to risk our organization’s security?” This is especially a concern because of the virus riddled state of many social networking sites. Hackers and bored yet computer savvy people the world over are building Myspace sites designed with no other purpose than to disseminate malignant code.

If you still aren’t convinced, you may be surprised at how easy it is to access your information without meaning too. If I were to Google your name and the name of your high school there is a very good chance your Myspace profile will be one of the first returns that Google provides. Keep that in mind when you are trashing your professors online using their full names. When you spew bile about someone in a public forum, don’t be surprised if it gets back to them.

Now that Facebook has expanded their services to anyone with a job and three fingers with which they can type with, it is just as vulnerable to exploitation and data mining as Myspace. Don’t be fooled.