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In the last lesson, we were discussing goals we can set as individuals in order to stay safe in an ever-evolving web, as well as discourage the enshittification of the internet. Now we're going to cover the last two items in our list:
- Encourage anonymity and educate on base level boundaries while discouraging overfamiliarity
- Curate internet learning environments; instruct others on how to create a secure online persona
Encouraging anonymity starts with your profile. Do you have your real name on your social media accounts? What about your real age? Selfies? How about where you've lived on your Facebook account? The schools you've gone to? If someone were to look at your profile long enough, would they be able to trick you into thinking they're someone you know? Is your profile private to onlookers? Do you tell people the city you live in when they ask? If you Google yourself or your usernames, what do you find?
The biggest mistakes I see on social media come from kids and teens - almost as if internet safety is no longer taught by parents or teachers anywhere now that kids grow up with devices attached to their hands. If you're a kid or adult who sees others waving around personal information, consider messaging them privately or pulling them aside to remind them of the dangers of sharing personally identifiable information. Part of being anonymous is helping others remain anonymous. The internet is an ecosystem of its own, and users should feel empowered by protecting one another.
For younger kids and teens, I recommend getting familiar with the basics in a few different spots (Updated Dec 2023).
These links give the coverage to important topics, like critical thinking about what you read, avoiding scams, password strength, dangers of the web, and more. If you're new to computers, or if you've had a computer/phone for a long time but don't know much about the internet at large, these are exceptional options for you. CrashCourse is even great for adults! These teachings should be foundational to how you navigate the web. Knowing your boundaries, how to secure your information on a basic level, and knowing when someone online may be malicious are pivotal to a successful and safe existence on the internet. While these are mostly comprehensive, they don't completely cover the later topics in this section of the course, so I will be going over those myself as well.
By discourage overfamiliarity, I mean the same thing as encouraging anonymity, just from the other side - when internet friends are sharing intimate information with you, do you reciprocate? How certain are you about who they say they are? Do you warn your friends when they take part in a Selfie-Saturday or similar trends? Do you shut down questions for personal details? Do you know common security questions that you shouldn't answer (like your first pet, your mom's maiden name, or anything else on this list)?
(Pictured: List of common security questions)
These questions are common for banking, social security, loans, and more security-focused sectors. Usually, you have to pick two or three questions, so that if you're ever locked out of an account, you and you alone can answer these to get in. However, people will also pose these questions as viral trends on social medias to get you to answer them. If they can connect personal identifiable information together, there's a high likelihood for someone to try and get into your account. Strangers can call into customer service, use your answers to break into the account, and even get more intimate information like banking or credit card numbers.
Curating internet learning environments is less about making your own form of internet education, and more about sharing trusted resources that get buried within the flood of the web. Even something as simple as making a post linking to interesting technology or a knowledge base can be helpful to others. The main thing I wanna stress is inviting people into learning spaces instead of making fun of or highlighting ignorance. In the modern age, it's almost impossible to research anything online if you don't know how, so coming across positive technological learning spaces is even harder for the folks who know nothing about it. Word of mouth is possibly the most successful way to share information and resources from online spaces.
Instructing others on how to make a secure persona could be as simple as sharing information or writing blog posts with your friends. To start, we need to construct an identity.
Don't think about age because we aren't including it but instead, think about a user name to start. If you've been on popular social medias, they usually require that you create a handle, or a personal user name that is unique. This could be any mix of words and characters that end up as a one-of-a-kind on their platform. Cryptidize is my handle on most sites, combining Cryptids (one of my interests) and -ize, the pre-fix for "to make into". A lot of people make usernames relating to things they post or are interested in. Some other usernames I could use for myself could be: SynthlyBass for my love of electronic music, Easy_Techy for my desire to break down tech into layman terms, or CryptidArtStuff if I wanted to be really lazy. Handles can include numbers, but refrain from putting your birth year within it. Something like LazyPlayer98 or ThinkingSmall02 might give someone an idea of how old you are.
Then comes your profile picture - which can be just about anything. Your dog, the sky, a drawing of a tree - just make sure there's nothing in the image that can be drawn back to you. Street names, strip malls, even certain cars can help people narrow down where you're located, so be careful about what images you use and share.
Most profiles add a spot to put in a bio, or a short piece of writing about yourself. Instead of putting your name and age, put in something silly, or more about what you're interested in, what you'd like to be called, your pronouns, anything! For example, here's what my profile says on Twitter -- Cryptidize: V. To make into a Cryptid. // Cryptid - He/They/Xe/It // I draw // local mothman, knower of things -- Silly, with the name I'd like to be called online, my pronouns, and some things about myself (albeit vague). How about another example from my sibling -- A light breeze carrying thoughts, memories, and the occasional opinion. I am associated to @Cryptidize in an inextricable manner. -- Again, a little silly, but no identifiable information while still showing off personality and what he uses his account for.
Just these three things (username, profile image, bio) are enough that we make an identity. And it really does not need to get more complex than that. I know a lot of Discord servers and even people on Twitter that refuse to let you join or follow them without you listing your age. In certain scenarios, you shouldn't list your age ever. If you're under 18, it's pretty much a rule that you shouldn't post your age - you shouldn't even post that you're a minor. By doing so, you are quite literally putting a target on your own face. If you want to know how, go back to the first links in my article and check out Internet Safety 101 - they have a good collection of resources on trafficking, online predators, and the concept of grooming. Even if you're familiar with those terms, I highly recommend becoming more aware of the topics in depth. If you're over 18, simply placing "I am over 21" or "adult" in your bio may be handy, and you may even get away with listing your age. However, your age plus your birthday can be a slippery slope, as your full birthday is some of the information people need to access personal accounts.
"Cryptid," I hear you saying, "what if it's too late? I've already posted so much on my profiles, how will I ever get my security back?" Well, here's the issue. Google is currently locked in a lawsuit about how they lie when they say they don't sell your data. They're also being hit with a lot of other lawsuits over their practices. The reason this is important goes back to what I wrote in an update included in the "Who Controls the Internet?" lesson.
When any app pushes information to you, through something like a notification, the data is sent to Google through Android or Apple through iPhone FIRST before it gets to you. Text messages, app notifications, even alarms are included in this data set. Our data is being sold on masse in ways we don't even know about. This is netting a company like Google billions upon billions of dollars, and they spend that money by furthering their reach, bribing companies to keep them as the default search engine and system. Google's monopoly-hold and secret money dealings with the other tech powers of the world put them in a very unique position.
Even if you control your privacy to the degree mentioned in this learning, it is becoming more and more clear that we've had very little to begin with. I don't think there's ever a "too late" though - while it does seem a little bleak that the fourth most profitable company in the world is using that power to let the governments spy on citizens, we still have small ways we can communicate safely. Specifically for hacking, activism, and revolutionaries, it is now more important than ever to talk to people in person. Digital communications are nearly if not completely compromised in ways we couldn't even imagine - law enforcement authorities can use warrants, like to Google for any devices that were near where a crime was committed in order to collect suspects. Sometimes, they don't even have to use a warrant, they can simply purchase the information or subpoena it. There is some level of "control" with these - Google allows you to remove your information if it falls under certain sensitive topics. Google also allows you to control how specific your ads get - I've turned off all the "personalization" features within my Google settings (which you should access on a desktop to see all the settings). Whether or not they honor that is where things get sticky... But it's always worth the effort if it actually works.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't still attempt to protect our privacy. Just because Google may have most of our information doesn't mean everyone does. We also have to consider what this means for their competition. Depending on how this unravels, we may finally start to see other companies investing into the phone, search engine, and navigation-map services. For right this second, however, we have to grapple with the fact that we're being completely spied on and our information is being sold to advertisers.
I will be updating this lesson as I get more information on the subject, but for now, let's get into ways you can be safe from other people in alternate ways - like how to avoid phishing, malware, trojans, and cease-and-desist letters.
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