Protect Your Family at all times
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Your family means everything to you, so protect yourself and your family at all times.
The Dark Web is not an actual place that you can physically visit in person, but it is a place where people go to find, sell, and buy your data. I know you are wondering, “How do they get my data?” And “How can I protect my data?”
The good old days of innocence
I remember when we never locked our doors to our homes or vehicles, when kids played unsupervised, and when we did not have safety seals on products. Much has changed in a since the seventies. Considering there are more of us on this planet struggling to survive and make our mark, but mostly just surviving. Some think survival is to terrorize others and take what is not theirs. Hence the reason for locks and supervising kids at the park or even at home.
Not everyone is honest, caring, or considerate with others or themselves, which causes a cataclysmic head-on. Watching today's programs on TV, you get the idea that people become how they grew up. A victim of violence becomes violent; a sexually violated victim becomes a predator. No one takes responsibility for their actions. The forces of evil never quit or sleep. They have no remorse or moral values when it comes to anyone but themselves.
Locks are for honest people. Criminals, at any level, will do what they need to reach their end game. However, there is still hope in combatting, slowing, and deterring them.
Do not be a victim
My faith in people to do the right thing, be courteous, caring, and honest wanes. Just focus on positivity and not to want or need to disrupt the fabric of civility. Yes, I struggle with positivity one-hundred percent of the time, and my thoughts drift to massive chaos in the cosmos, but I do have hope as I pray daily to soften their hearts and minds to see the light and love of our Heavenly Father.
That does not mean they are not out there ready to strike fear and harm, so until we are all safe in His presence, we need to be vigilant, aware, and prepared to protect ourselves from hackers, terrorists, thieves, and beasts that follow the dark leader. Never live in fear and Do Not Be A Victim! Think for yourself. A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, and dangerous animals.
Three Kinds Of People
Do not let anyone tell you otherwise, but people can be taken down to the core of the simplest form and separated into three distinct groups. Yes, there are only three kinds of people in the world. Some people cross over into one of the others during their life or the day. And some people can be in two categories — it all depends on the person and their agency.
People that MAKE things happen.
People that WATCH things happen.
People wonder, “What the heck just happened?”
It cannot be any simpler than that, and cannot be said any other way. It is a plain fact.
People that MAKE things happen
Think about the people you know in the world that make things happen: Scientists, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Toyota, NetFlix, and this list can go on, which is still only 10% of us. These are people that dictate how we live. We buy their products, their services, follow their rules, their ideas, and more. Of course, this is in the big picture. You may know someone in your life closer to you that makes things happen in your neighborhood, town, community, city, or state.
People that WATCH things happen
The people that watch things happen may also be people that make things happen. 40% of the human population watches things happen on the internet, television, books, and magazines. They understan what is going on around them for the most part.
People wonder, “What the heck just happened?”
People that are in this group depend on others to help them live their lives. They are afraid to make decisions and do anything on their own. They buy and believe what they see on tv and the internet. They do not make any effort to better themselves or trust their judgment, let alone think for themselves I am not talking about people with disabilities — most of them are smarter than me and do more than me, and I have all my faculties. I am talking about people who follow one form of information without verifying it with other sources.
What is my point?
If 40% of people WATCH things happen, and we know only 10% of people MAKE things happen, then that leaves 50% of the people wondering “What the heck just happened?” It saddens and scares me to see people going through life without a clue day after day. And when you try to help, they do not take it seriously, thinking it will not happen to them. It is too late when it does happen to them as they were careless about their surroundings, privacy, and loved ones. It may just end up as an inconvenience to replace a credit card, get the car fixed, to delete lots of spam, or be life-threatening with identity theft, stalking, and human trafficking.
My point? Please remove yourself from “What the heck just happened?” to at least the WATCH things happen and take the proper steps to protect yourself by following the steps below.
Simple Steps To Protect You and Your Family
1. Be aware of your surroundings!
Many people go through life without any clue as to what is going on — reread There Are Three Kinds Of People above — and this puts them at a very high risk of danger from hackers, criminals, thieves, and worst, people that want to do physical harm to them.
Being aware of your surroundings and keeping a watchful eye will increase your safety net. Before you leave your home, please take a mental picture. Does it look the same when you come home? Turn around once in a while and look behind you. Listen with your eyes as well as your ears.
2. Plan your trip
My Son, Aria Leven Davenport, is a pilot. Before he takes off, he has to do a pre-flight check which he checks everything on the plane. Gas level, oil, wings, wheels, prop, and so much more.
100% of all aircraft accidents are human error. Whatever issue that comes up, question it: “Did the pilot do a thorough pre-flight check before taking off?” The pilot is responsible for everything on the plane, and if he does not feel comfortable flying it, he will not take it off the ground. The pilot also has to file a flight plan that includes the FOB, destination, and flight path, including elevation and speed.
Too bad it is not required before we get into a vehicle. People get in and go. Do a walk around your vehicle before you get in and when you exit. Take a mental picture of the vehicles parked next to you. The shortest trips are when your guard is down the most.
3. Be cautious of whom you trust
Trust is a commodity that is hard to earn and easy to lose. Can we trust immediate family and loved ones, such as a wife, husband, daughter, son, brother, sister, father, mother, grandmother, and grandfather? One would hope so. Do you trust your best friend with your children, home, private data, and your life? Do they trust you the same way?
Be cautious of whom you trust to share things with, but not all things are life and death.
4. Change your routine
People are creatures of habit. Get up the same time, shower the same way, put on clothes the same order, drive the same roads, stop at the same gas station and coffee house, order the same thing, go home the same path, and more. They do the same thing daily, weekly, and monthly. Change your routine a little now and then. Stop the monotony. You may or may not have someone watching you, why give them the easy way to you, if you do?
5. Use an updated, safe, and secure browser.
Avoid out-dated browsers when visiting sites that require passwords and transferring of personal data. You cannot get a virus from a site unless you download something. Use either Safari, Opera, Brave, DuckDuckGo, Tor, or Firefox.
6. Download and use Privacy plugins
Even then, Do not trust your browser 100%. It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you download and use privacy plugins to stop trackers, ads, and hidden followers if you care about your privacy and identity.
7. Clear Cache and Delete cookies
Cookies and Cache are unavoidable, but you can tell which sites you do not want to store those items from using the browser's preferences — the updated, safe, and secure browser. Please take the time to learn how to do this yourself and make it a daily check-up before and after using the internet — this is no different from planning your trip. Diligence is a good character trait.
8. Be cautious of sites you visit.
Again, you cannot get a virus from a website unless you download something infected, but you can give them data about you unknowingly. Visit reputable sites — course, even reputable sites like Google, Amazon, and others use questionable tracking and privacy practices. So who do you trust?
9. Do not use the same email address for everything.
Email addresses are free on Google and Hotmail if you are into those, but there are others. Why use the same email address for work, personal, and leisure? Incoming email can access your address book and other private data. You should use a web-based email and in the IMAP form.
A great option is to use Iron Vest's Privacy Protector.
10. Stop forwarding emails with everyone in your address book as a recipient.
The worst thing you can do to your friends, family, and business connections is to share email addresses in the digital world without their permission. I bet you also put their phone number on the walls of bathrooms and seedy alleys.
11. Do not use the same password for everything.
I am dumbfounded that today, even friends and family, are using stupidly easy basic passwords like “password” or “123456.” for their private data.
The passwords you use to access your private data and your website should use a mix of numbers, letters (small and CAPS), and special characters. Avoid using anything related to you, such as, names of your children, grandchildren, year of birth, hobbies, nicknames, and more that are dear to you; these are easy for someone to figure out once they get to know you — Trust comes into play here, again — and NEVER use the same password twice! OH MY GOSH! Just give them the key to your world and be done with it.
Us a password at least 18 characters in lengths, the longer, the better, and write them down in a safe place with notes to what they are for; remove older passwords as not to get confused as to which one is current. I have used a protect HTML file for all my passwords with links before I found LastPass in 2014.
You can use a simple but complex HostGator Password Generator tool, click and drag Snappy’s head to generate a secure password.
12. Remove Echo, Google Home, and others from your home.
Convenient and easy to use, yes. But dangerous because these devices help the companies spy on you. If you do not mind that companies track your every move, you may want to continue letting the corporate world, big commerce, and the government know how you live — why do you even have walls on your home?
13. Get your news from more than one source, and not CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC
Is this related to safety? Yes, it is. As you fill your day with information about the world, your state, and your community, it affects your character, personality, and actions. Remember: the news is something you cannot change; it is going to happen whether you worry about it or not. So to make a better choice in what your actions should be, get several views of the news from different sources.
Biased sources clutter our information, but CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC are the extreme worst when reporting news — they do not report the news. They tell you their opinions and viewpoints.
14. Be cautious of websites you sign up on
The new GDPR is to help the company, business, or entity that is collecting your data. As long as they tell you exactly what they are doing with it and you accept and agree, they are safe. So, be cautious of sites you sign up. Your data may be sent overseas and into the Dark Web.
It may be hard to do, but it is worth it.
There is no need to live in a bubble or become paranoid; just be prudent with how you live. Do Not Be A Victim. Victims are victims because they allowed themselves to become a victim — plain simple fact.
Terms of Service; Did not read (Tod;dr) is a user rights initiative to rate and label website terms & privacy policies, from from excellent Class A to terrible Class E. Terms of service are often too long to read. Still it is important to understand what is in them. Your rights online depend on them. Their ratings can help you get informed about your rights.