GEN 102 Capella University Digital Footprints Discussion

Write:

• Describe two digital footprints you have left within the last week. Analyze each one for potential risk on a scale of 1-10, 1 being low risk and 10 being high risk.
• Write about a situation in which you or someone you know was a victim of a privacy, safety, or security breach online. Describe the situation and how it was eventually resolved.
• Put your name (use any common name) into at least two different search engines (Google, Bing, Dogpile, Yahoo, Ask.com, and DuckDuckGo are some popular ones) and review your own digital trail. Pretend you are a potential employer. What observations could you make about your own online presence? Note: If you have a common name, you may need to add additional search terms or experiment with different search terms, such as the city in which you live (e.g., Dan Smith Clinton, Iowa).
• Now that you have explored your own digital trail, identify at least three steps you can take to enhance your privacy, safety, and security on the web.

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Your post should be at least 350 words.

Respond to two peers:

Peer 1 AW

Because it is Christmas, I have left my digital footprint all over. Mainly through researching gifts to purchasing items. One example is going to Etsy to order a gift for my wife. Etsy had all of my information, likely saved by a cookie. I would rate this risk as pretty low, perhaps a 2 or 3. I have never been the victim of a security issue that I am aware of. Reviews of Etsy are positive, I have yet to see a complaint that the information given is used to cause any damage. Still, I worry about this each time I put in my card information or address. I am cautious and never use sites that I’m not familiar with. A second example is when searching for boots for winter; I went to multiple websites to compare. After this, I got countless ads offering similar boots. Many of these ads were from sites with concerning reviews. The search itself seems to have raised the risk to 5 or higher as I wasn’t expecting them to track my activity in this way. I’m still learning to understand how cookies work and tracking in general. However, I chose not to purchase from any of the sites suggested and wound up getting my boots from a local shoe store. In this way, the risk was minimalized to 1. GEN 102 Capella University Digital Footprints Discussion

A situation where someone’s privacy, safety, and security were compromised was during a legal battle between my wife and her previous partner. My wife has a Personal Protection Order against this man to protect herself, our children, and myself. When his contention of the order was denied, he was no longer allowed to come near our family. About a month later, pictures of our daughters and my wife suddenly began showing up in her Facebook messages from fake accounts. These images were ones that no one but certain friends should have been able to see. My wife is careful. She locks down information to a select few due to this man’s abuse and threats in the past. Still, somehow he clearly got access to them. He modified them to say disgusting and dangerous things about my wife, my children, and myself. To this day, we don’t know where those images may have ended up. We called the police and contacted facebook and the PPO office, but no serious investigation was launched, and ultimately, nothing could be done. It eventually was only resolved by closing out our Facebook accounts altogether for a time and making sure that no pictures of our children, or our home, or any other real-world indicators were posted. The harassment eventually ended.

I put my name into Google and Yahoo’s search engines and found some interesting but not really anything of too much concern. I should note that when I got married three years ago, I took my wife’s last name. Initially, nothing came up at all on either search engine, even with more details like city, state, and age. So I instead searched my previous last name and finally got some correct matches. To be honest, they weren’t all that problematic. There were no social media links or articles or concerning photos. Google brought up two “profiles” of me. Both of which were standard professional profiling and tracking sites. They have some free information that was accurate, like age and current city, but a lot of it was incorrect, like actual birthday, places I have lived in the past, family members, etc. To see beyond that, it prompted me to pay for a supposed background check, etc. I did not pay to see what it had. Both profiles had some things right and some things wrong. However, one site found through Yahoo did show my birth name (which is supposed to be sealed information due to my legal name and gender change) and showed everywhere I have lived in the last 15 years. Although not all of it was correct, it was a bit disconcerting. I tried following a trail to my Facebook or anything else, and it was impossible for my skill set. Perhaps because I don’t use my legal name on those sites and where I do, my presence is new for professional reasons, so that might have something to do with it. All in all, I’m not too concerned about what a potential employer might find if taking the steps I took.

I plan to take further steps to protect myself and my digital footprint. For one, I plan to do more research into the sites that I found that contained the correct information. I wish to learn how they gather said data. Perhaps I can find a way to remove myself from them altogether. Beyond that, I intend to continue leaving as minor of a footprint with my real information as possible. Perhaps only using social media for professional use and keeping any other social apps in an alias. And finally, now that I understand how cookies work, I will be deleting them regularly. I have to say it’s tempting to attempt to keep my digital footprint invisible now that I have reflected on all of this. However, this class is teaching me that it is becoming increasingly impossible to do so, especially when furthering my education and reaching my career goals.

Peer 2 AE

This week’s lesson on digital footprints was eye-opening. Knowing that I could easily be tracked made me a little uneasy. Nowadays we are so dependent on using the internet for most of our daily duties. We use it to pay bills, do school assignments, chat with people, make some needed purchases, and much more, but the thought about our personal information been exposed probably never crossed our minds. Last week I found out two ways that I left my digital footprint. The first was when shopping online. I was compiling a list of Christmas gifts for my children on Amazon. For whatever reason, I did not complete my purchase that night but left some potential items on my cart. The following day as I opened my Facebook page, I was shocked to find some of the advertising items on my feed were about similar items I had waiting for me on my Amazon shopping cart. The second encounter I realized I had left my digital footprint was when performing my readings in Constellation. I noticed that every time I logged out or the system timed out, once logged back in, the readings remained right where I left off with the exact highlights I had already accomplished. Both of these footprints happened because of and according to my readings in Fundamentals of digital literacy, my computer’s IP address, and the cookies that are generated in my browsing history. When I performed the IP Address search on http://www.ip-tracker.org (Links to an external site.) I was simply shocked that my IP address can tell people exactly where I am located. Cookies on the other hand are helpful in the sense that they help you with online tasks such as shopping and can even remember things such as your credit card information, shipping address, and your login and password for faster browsing. On the other hand, they can also be detrimental because some websites sell your information to a third party. These data aggregator stores information about your online usage and might start to offer items of personal interest. (Sole & Jackson, 2016)

An online safety situation we encounter was with my teenage son while playing video games online. Some of his friends played a prank on him by creating a fake profile and in-boxing him threats. Not only were the friends able to locate our address but were also able to provide his id and password. At the beginning of all this, I contacted law enforcement since they were making safety threats and they had our family address. Law enforcement was able to locate these individual’s homes through their IP address. Once they were discovered, the parents made them apologize to my son. All parties discussed potential risks and safety issues regarding their actions. Luckily no one was hurt and it was eye-opening to know how even younger kids can break into your system and obtain personal information.

When looking myself up in different search engines such as google and yahoo, I was able to find pictures that connect me to the United States Air Force both here in the states and when I was stationed overseas. Every time someone has snapped a picture and uploaded it on the Internet, I was able to capture pictures as back as 2005. Other information such as my Facebook profile was also available by simply typing in my name. If I was a potential employer trying to hire me and I did an internet search on my name, I would conclude that I have spent many years in the military, I have provided some honorable details celebrating tradition, and have won many awards while in the service. I was glad to find these pictures some that I was able to save to my phone as a remembrance of my military service.

Now that I am aware of how easy it is to leave behind digital trails even after you have logged off a site, I am going to mention three things that can keep you and your information more secure. Beginning with creating a strong password. A password that is 6-12 characters long and hard to guess, utilizing a combination of letters, numbers, and special characters. A password that is unique to each of your sites and one that you change every few months. (Sole & Jackson, 2016) Secondly, installing a firewall on your network to search and prevent threats such as malware/spyware and viruses. Products such as the ones mentioned in this week’s readings, Norton and McAfee. Lastly, some tips that can help you with online classifieds. Try not to agree on offers that involve shipping since the items can be fake, do not go alone to meet the seller, do not accept a check or money order as they might be counterfeit, and do not buy or rent the property unless you have seen with your own eye first. Exercising all these tips can help you protect your safety and security as you explore the wonders of the internet. GEN 102 Capella University Digital Footprints Discussion