Radar celebrates National E-Security Awareness Week!
I got a helpful email from my good friends at eBay this morning informing me of a wonderful piece of news. I'm probably the last to know, as usual, but let me wish everyone a very happy National E-Security Awareness Week! I was a bit upset that I only got the email today, meaning I've missed out on an entire day of celebrations. So starting now, I'm making up for lost time. Fire up your web browsers, folks, it's time to get safe and secure! And I don't just mean secure, I mean E-Secure!
Unfortunately this laudable event may have been slightly overshadowed by some of the other initiatives Senator Coonan's been involved with lately. But some people are having a great time! still, in the interests of public information, you should go to this website and learn how to "Stay Smart Online'", if you don't know how to do that. Hint: banks don't send emails asking you to 'check' your internet banking password.
eBay can be a dodgy place, though. A few years ago I bid on a laptop, but soon got deluged by other 'sellers' who wanted to do off-eBay transactions. One guy wanted me to come and meet him in a park to buy it at an unbelievably low price, but it had to be that day. (Gee, I wonder whether it was stolen?) It did all seem a bit too good to be true, but I won't pretend I wasn't sucked in a little, at least initially. But certainly not as badly as this poor schmo.
So, trade safe, folks. But what about all the other helpful precautions that aren't to be found on the Government's website? In the spirit of National E-Security Awareness Week, here are ten other things you shouldn't do online.
- Put personal details like your real age into MySpace, lest you be contacted by people like this.
- Enter your confidential financial details into this site, because they will post you crap like this.
- Listen to any of the dangerous audio to be found here or here, as it may create fits of uncontrollable rage and/or vomiting.
- Visit the "first Star Trek fan site to have its own domain name". (Wow, what an achievement.) I think this is so risky I'm not even going to post the link.
- Please, on no account order this DVD from amazon.com. (But do read the New Yorker review at the bottom of the page.)
- Book your next holiday here. Fortunately, you can no longer book these.
- Comment on this site, because then you will probably be a sometime hardcore reader of the Radar blog – very dangerous indeed.
- Watch what I believe may be the lamest YouTube video ever. And then reflect that it's been viewed 940,000 times. And that she then redid it, and it's even worse.
- Buy an ad here, or anywhere like it. Seriously, how will anyone ever see it?
- Read any of the articles here, especially when they make you click on a million darn links for no reason whatsoever.
Dominic Knight