New thing, not sure if I'm happy with it. Definitely felt like I may have weighed it too much to one side. In all honesty, when it comes to things regarding Information, it is such a very sensitive subject because of opinions which in itself is a concept that's come under fire quite recently.

Not adding this part into the thing, but for anyone browsing this: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, yet that does not mean it is a fact. On the flip side, what is fact is subject to opinion. Just try to know the difference between the two and respect each others viewpoints unless such statements could potentially harm people. Like saying H20 will kill you if you drink it.

Yes, it could as with anything else, yet I'm not giving the entire basis for why that is such as you can drown in it or it could be full of contaminants. Be wary of what you learn, study the subject, and make an educated guess of if you can trust it or not.

This reminds me, since we have Trump for President and given the on-going war between him and the media, going to probably expand on the "Trusted Sources" thing. As I always say, even now, the one who holds the most information has the greatest of power. Misinformation becoming a common thing to the point where even I'm double-checking myself, it's probably time to talk about what books are.

For now, going to leave this here for any passerby: Be wary of what to trust online in terms of news, double and triple-check your sources between independent journalists and media outlets alike.

Or, alternatively, log off Facebook and Twitter until things settle down in, my best estimate is the year 2024?

its important people do read it, if you want to use the internet you need to stay safe

Updated, not even sure if anyone reads this thing or even skims it. In all honesty, I wouldn't blame them, lol. One day I'll probably cut it down.

I'd like to add a few things about online privacy. I'm an old fart. I was 32 when the Internet started. The ease with which people today give out information is shocking. Information that they won't give to the government, but they'll just hand right over to a Corporation simply for the promise of something "free" or a cool new toy. Pretty sad.

NOTHING is free. You're information is worth money and there are companies out there that harvest this data piece by piece then combine it into a profile, which they can then sell. Mostly to marketers or social/political engineering groups.

Too many public services still use birth dates for identification. Most especially medical. All you need to access someone's medical or pharmacy records is a name and birth date. In the days before computers this personal information was a lot harder to come by. So much of our public data is exposed because the systems haven't caught up with the technology.

Today, for marketing/social engineers, the holy grail is the mobile phone number. This is even better than the Social Security number because it's not regulated about who can use it. With a mobile number, they can tie all your other bits of information together into a unique profile. Whereas with just a name, you're not sure which John Smith it is. Be VERY wary of giving this number out to anyone!

So when a website, social app, or game asks for this information, ask yourself why do they need this? I learned a few things in the military about information sharing. We operated on a Need to Know basis. If the person/company doesn't have a valid need for the information, then don't give it to them.

Now if you believe that what you are getting in return is worth what you are giving up, then go for it. As long as it's a conscious decision and you know the pros and cons.

What irritates me is the recent use of social platforms that just take the information without asking. This is a dangerous precedent and if people don't say something, it will get worse. How would you like it if every new game/app you installed scanned your computer for information it wanted? There are already a couple of them out there.

There is no such thing as Free! That chat app or game launcher is getting something valuable from you, or the company couldn't afford to stay in business.

Rant over.

Thanks for posting this. It's nice of you to try to make people aware of the dangers online.

Fate

You'd be surprised just what your age and birthday can reveal

oh dang, I told a 12 year old my age and birthday on a video game... welp, I guess I'm gonna get abducted.

It's *impossible* to find someone based on their age or first name alone, unless the name is something extremely unique that no one else in the world has.

Birthday or age and name combine it may be possible, but the chances are extremely slim and you have nothing to worry about.

If you're seriously going to act like giving your first name and age out is a big deal, that's the same as saying you should cover your face when going to the mall because someone may be able to take a picture without you looking and stalk you. Yes it's possible, but it rarely happens and the chances are very low

I understand the idea here, and it's a good one, but we're teaching kids to be afraid of the internet, while in reality they could give their whole public file out and most likely nothing would happen. If a pedophile were to try something they'd be stopped by the police in real life. We're teaching children to be scared of the internet and be scared of becoming friends with people online.

This is the wrong message, they should be cautious, but not scared. 90% of pedophilia cases or abductions do not come from online or even from strangers, but from people you know. It's good to be educated on this topic, but the reality is that something happening to you is extremely slim, no matter if you give out your name/city, etc.

Again, I believe it's very important to be educated on the topic, and thank you for making this! I didn't mean this to seem rude or anything. I just mean people are making internet safety a bigger deal than it needs to be.

You made some great points in this, and you communicated that it's OK to give out small bits of personal info since it's harmless most of the time. I think some people are taking the wrong message from the post.

Very nice post Fate. I hope everyone reads this and realizes how dangerous the web, and even Minecraft can be sometimes. All of you server Owners, a little advice is that, if you make people staff on your server, they could take your IP and get into DDoS of your computer to hacking your personal files and data. Don't just go accepting people without a little bit of backround and playtime.

Nice post, hopefully people will stay safe.

OMG, it let me update this, yay! ...I should probably find an actual job with the amount of effort I've put into this thing so far. Feel free to let me know if there's any errors in it or needs some clarification, I'm looking at you Midnight.

Gmail does not actually check very far if the name you put in is even realistic. >.>

Therefore, website signups aren't that much of an issue when you can basically bounce around gmail accounts. Particularly useful if you find one email just got on a spam list.

Sharing skype and the like openly is a spam invitation. Seriously. People do this? I don't even share it to other people I've known a while in minecraft servers, but I'm more paranoid than most.

You can have very barebones protection on a windows if you just browse smarty, but there's one extra thing I use which may or many not help folks here: Firefox with Noscript.

Firefox as it's pretty much the only browser that actually can use noscript (and I like it for other reasons), and noscript as you can go to a virus downloading site, ad site, whatever - and it can't even load because stuff is blocked. The main problem, though, is allowing scripts for certain site, and news sites typically break. But I don't even like those sites as they throw so much extra junk on them anyways... I digress.

Basically, if you use noscript, it's hard to get a virus. You kinda have to try to get a virus at that point. It's convenience of every site loading easily vs having to do a couple small extra things on script heavy sites in the name of protection. And it helps shut down the move invasive trackers as well.

Just throwing it out there.

Jetra

TheMCBros99Hats to you, but I thought everybody knew this... Age and birthday can't do anything. I'm a 15 year old who is born on October 17th. Come at me

You'd be surprised just what your age and birthday can reveal to someone adept at finding clues. I am not adept so you'd be a mystery to me

Formerly from the "business" myself, an age can give a lot more info than you think.
I won't speak much about it due to legal reasons

If you'd like to know how to REALLY keep yourself good and secure, LMK.

I am a skeltal prince

I have been ex-ayled from my country and I need calseeum and gud bonz to get my throne bac


I will give you milk jug,milk jug,milk jug


if you lend me your bones account

Good, some of it I pretty much knew already and some of it doesn't apply to something I would be doing. You definitely didn't directly counter anything though.

EDIT: Oh, Jetra, it's you!
I thought you didn't post anymore.

I use Abine's Blur service to mask my data on any website where it isnt absolutely neccesary. The free version is currently enough for me.

However, since the recent hacking of Patreon and other websites, some of you might have received an email telling you to pay a guy 1 bitcoin or he'll leak your identity onto the internet.
Whatever you do, DO NOT give the guy what he wants. He'll just ask for more bitcoins later.

To those of you that are unfamiliar with bitcoins, their current value is about 321 USD per bitcoin.

If you received that email and you ARE worried about your information being leaked, I recommend trying this service: https://www.abine.com/deleteme/faq/#q6

It is premium, yes, but it is significantly cheaper than paying an extorter in bitcoins.

As my security goes I've used this.

Computer itself: Antivirus and Malwarebytes in place. Windows and other Updates should be installed as soon as they are out.

Passwords: Never use the same on multiple websites. I've 10 passwords I circle thru each 3 months.

2Step Vertification/Security questions: When a service lets you use it, do it. Anything more then just a password is good. We already know this from mojang. Before you can change anything you must answer some questions. Choose them wise. What's your favourite color is not a good security question.

Private and non private email: There are services you might use for fun as pmc, youtube etc and others you are using for work/school/college. Never use your private email on fun websites as this.

Example:
Ebay, paypal, work email, internetprovider, phonebills, family -> private mail
twitch, youtube, games, skype, anything non important to loose -> other mail

Browser addons: Addons for a secure browser
NoScript Javascript and flash is still ebola to pc security.
Adblock Sad to say but adblockers can help you block shady adds and links. Honesty I wouldn't use one but this alone is reason enough.
Siterep addon There are plenty of them, shows you what sites are shady and what not. Usual they are packed with the antivirus.

Precheck websites you don't know: When you don't know the website, there is this.
https://www.virustotal.com/ja/
It scans a site with a few antivirus databases. If it's listed, don't click on it.

Personal information: Never give out personal information to someone you don't know. Unless it's on private area (see above) or you trust that site, person. Common sense is a good indicator. How does the site look like, how long you know the person etc.

Common sense:
Again. The biggest problem sits behind the screen. You should avoid going to sites you don't know. What have other to say about this site? Put it in google, if anything scammy going on there. Its on the internet, most likely.

And the "Yes to all clickers" Oh, how much I could rage.. Read what you are doing online, eula, policy. On installers there are plenty of piggyback programs that are bloatware, not needed or simple virus.

Additional:
Public wifi is not secure, no never. Don't put in logins on public wifi. A hacker can simple monitor the traffic going on and steal your login or just hijack your session. These technics are plenty old, like wow. Still the most common way to get problems.

Not my computer.. If you aren't on your own computer its not trustworthy to put in information. Why? Search up keylogger. Or simple your friends computer could already be malicous. When you can boot from an linux live cd/usb. Its your own os, nothing gets stored there.

Invaliding unused accounts. When you don't use a service anymore, delete your account or remove all infos you put in the first place. If it gets hacked later on they can't get into your other accounts. Just spam it with symbols, not much science there.

Sorry for this being lenghty. If you find grammar mistake, sell them on ebay. I'm japanese

I think putting my face online, and my age online is fine. As long as you don't just throw your address out there or anything like that. I also think that you should be careful on what your kids do online too. That can be really dangerous if a seven year old is on Facebook. Or some random 10 year old is on Twitter passing out their parents credit card number. I don't just think you passing out your information is bad, but you being careful of what your kids do as well.

Just don't go to suspicious websites and make sure you have an anti virus software.. pretty simple.

Passwords? You mean those really insecure verification keys that are really hard to remember. Use pass sentences instead. They are so much easier to remember, and they are much more secure.

I feel like this should be a blog.

No one on planet Earth(or PlanetMinecraft) knows any of my passwords,I don't trust anyone.

Never underestimate to detective skills of 4chan. Once someone figured out who I was from my profile picture. We are clan buddies, though, so he kept cool and quiet about it.

Never accept files from ANYONE unless it is a trusted source. Doesn't matter if it is a friend/owner/stranger.

Great piece of work! Tons and tons of information in it.

Thanks for writing all this Jetra. I'm sure it will help a lot of people!

Just get that you can't win a free iPhone and you should be good! :3

Wow. A lot of writing and info but very useful :3

Nice summary for internet newbies.

That is one long pile of text.

Tip 145: don't do online dating if you are under the age of 14.

Hats to you, but I thought everybody knew this... Age and birthday can't do anything. I'm a 15 year old who is born on October 17th. Come at me

i thought this was common knowledge. i mean, when i was like 5-7 or so (thats when i started using a computer for the first time) i was taught this all the time. so much it became kind of a cliché joke thing.

If someone want to be safe while surfing in internet I advice to use TOR Browser. Its nice tool!

I can simplify this article into two words:
Be Paranoid
it's always worked for me.

TL;DR, everyone on the interwebs are old men, and cannot be trusted.

That's what I got from it, anyways.

One easy and fun way to find out a lot about a person is to look at his or her YouTube comments.Find out which type if videos he or she likes and look for their comments under the video? No, it's not nearly that difficult. By default, all YouTube comments are shared to a user's Google+ page, giving any stalker interested individual a treasure trove to skim through of the videos or channels that user likes or hates, as well as his or her opinions and experiences with the subject of the video. This can give the stalker interested individual a shockingly clear picture of who this user is, even if he or she hasn't provided any personal information to Google+.You have a wealth of information at your fingertips, but other people can have a wealth of information about you if you're not careful.