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In what feels like eons ago, I wrote a blog post on protecting your data when in public. I looked up that post. I published it on January 20, 2020, just three months before most of us stopped going out in public. Good timing, eh? Now that most people are out and about, here is that post again revised with updated information from the FBI regarding juice hacking. Read on! USB condoms Let’s start with USB condoms, because, frankly, that’s why you decided to read this post. It’s okay to be honest. We’re friends. The cable you use to charge your phone and your tabletRead More →

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If you have had students who have submitted particularly good work or work that illustrates common errors, you may want to share the work with your current students. Since the students’ names are not on their files—or you have removed them—you think you are sharing the work is anonymous. It may not be, but you can make it so. Metadata Most files have metadata—data that is attached to the file but is not visible. For example, PDFs of journal articles contain metadata about the article. PDF managers, like Mendeley and Zotero, pull that metadata into their own databases. Those programs then rearrange the data howeverRead More →

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If you are not yet using a password manager, it’s time. It’s past time, actually. You are way overdue. Protect yourself There are three big things you can do to protect yourself online. Use a different password for every website. If someone gets hold of your username and password for, say, gmail, the first thing they’ll do is try that username/password combination at more lucrative websites, such as bank websites. Having a unique password for each site guarantees they won’t be able to get into any of your other accounts. Use a long password—at least 16 characters—that includes lowercase letters, capital letters, numbers, and specialRead More →

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Last week, after a student confessed to using a “study guide” site to complete one or more of her homework assignments, I did some Googling. While I think I found what she was using—the words and phrases were changed up—I discovered that another of my students was using the answers in their entirety. That led to more searching. Here are two sites that a few of my students are using. CourseHero.com First, let’s find your college or university. In the top navigation bar, click on “Find Study Resources” and search “by School”—K-12 or higher ed. For my college, here are the “Popular Departments.” Under eachRead More →

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USB condoms Let’s start with USB condoms, because, frankly, that’s why you decided to read this post. It’s okay to be honest. We’re friends. The cable you use to charge your phone and your tablet serve as both a power cable and a data cable. Electricity and information both flow through this same cable. As long as you are home, you are safe. When you venture out into public, however… Let’s say you’re at the airport and you’d like to top off your phone’s battery before boarding your plane. You plug your USB cable into one of those now-ubiquitous charging stations. Unfortunately, someone with nefariousRead More →

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The greatest threat to your online security is the strength of your password. No more excuses. The academic year is over for most of you. Set aside an hour to devote to your online security. You know all those websites you log into? They should each have their own password. Seriously. If hackers break into one site, they use those usernames and passwords to try logging into other sites. If your passwords are unique, they will fail. Also, those passwords should be long and contain different kinds of characters. Use a password manager If you don’t already have a password management system, get one. No,Read More →

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I made the jump from Windows 7 to Windows 10. I generally like this upgrade, although connecting to my college’s VPN has gotten much harder. Well, not harder, just more tedious. In Windows 7, I could click on my internet connection icon in the system tray, and then click on “HighlineVPN,” and I was connected. I didn’t think it such a miraculous thing until that functionality disappeared in Windows 10. I can still do those same steps, it’s just that now when I click on “HighlineVPN” a new window opens where I can click on “HighlineVPN” again (?) which then gives me the option toRead More →

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Years ago you created a Dropbox account and installed Dropbox on your home computer, your work computer, your personal laptop, and maybe even a work laptop. It was, and is, a great way to access all of your files wherever you may be. Do you remember when you used to email files to yourself? Or tried to remember whether the newest version of a file was on your home computer, your work computer, or a flashdrive – wherever you might have left that flashdrive, whichever flashdrive it was? Dropbox has even more powerful functionality with Microsoft integration. You can now edit documents with others, live,Read More →

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You’ve probably heard about Heartbleed by now. This Gizmodo article does a nice job explaining what it is and why it’s problematic. How do you know which of the sites you’ve logged into are at risk? How do you know if that service has updated their software to fix the bug making it safe to change your password on that site? There are 496 sites for which I have a username and password. How am I supposed to know which ones are vulnerable. As a LastPass user, LastPass will tell me. [If you’re not yet a LastPass user, this previous blog post, although a bitRead More →

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If you are going to hand your laptop to a prostitute as collateral while you visit an ATM, might I suggest that you use a service like FolderLock to secure the personal health information of the 652 clients you have stored on said laptop? This was the news story I was reading this morning that immediately preceded me choking on my toast. The woman of ill-repute thought the laptop more valuable than the forthcoming cash, so she pawned the laptop. Now, I doubt that anyone who had their mitts on the laptop really cared about the healthcare records, but I still wouldn’t want to beRead More →