Protecting your online self becomes more important everyday; below are some basic tips to help you ensure your information and accounts stay safe.

1) Preventing Spammers From getting Your address

Spammers get addresses in a number of ways, some more nefarious than others.  By following a few simple rules you can help limit your email address’s exposure.  First be careful of where you give out your address.  Spammers often use fake offers or online forms to lure people into providing an address. When in doubt of a site’s or offer’s authenticity air on the side of caution and don’t give your email address. The same go’s for in person offers, if it seems at all suspicious try to avoid giving too much information.

Secondly, don’t expose your address openly on the web.  If you have a website consider a email form as opposed to providing you email address in text on the site.  If you have to provide your address on the site consider changing a the formatting a little (for example ‘test @ test.com’ or ‘test at test.com’).  While not full proof those extra spaces can throw off some of the less advanced bots that search the web for exposed email addresses.

2) What To Do If You Get Spam

The most important thing to remember is to NEVER reply to a spam or suspicious message.   Any reply will confirm to the spammer that your email address is active and being checked.   Often that spammer will just turn around and sell your address!  This same rule goes for any links in email, including the ‘unsubscribe’ link.  If you didn’t ask for the mail don’t ever click on anything or open any attachments.

It is also important to never give personal information over email.  Do not ever send account numbers or password in a response to an unsolicited email.   Even if the requested information seems innocent, beware. That information might be used at a later date to gain further access to you or your accounts.  When in doubt call the person, or company asking for the information to confirm their identity, and, of course, never use a link or number in the email to initiate this contact.

These are just a couple basic steps to begin to protect yourself.  I’ll be posting more detailed guides in the future.  Remember, when in doubt, trust your instincts and don’t reply or give out any information!

Congress is currently considering two new bills the PROTECT-IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). This bills, heavily lobbied for by the movie and music industries, are intended to make it easier to stop the online piracy of music, movies, book, and games. This is certainly a reasonable goal, piracy is bad for business and a problem that an ISP like us has to deal with on nearly a weekly basis.

But, the approach taken by  PROTECT-IP Act and  Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) attempts to solve the problem of piracy by putting in a system for censoring the Internet. This is extremely problematic from the outset, an “IP rightsholder” simply has to claim a site is infringement on their property which will require ISPs to block the site and credit card processers to suspend doing business with the company that runs it. That’s it, no court involvement, no due processes. It’s up to the accused to prove their innocence after their site is blocked.

But, in my opinion, far worse is  the mere creation of the infrastructure to censors the Internet in the U.S. (this is the same sort of technology already in use in China and Iran). Sure, it’s intended to stop piracy today, but it can be used to block any site for any reason. Once it’s there the temptation to use it will be impossible to resist. Power corrupts, and this is great power.

But, don’t take my word for it, read up:

There’s an open letter to Congress from the likes of Google, Microsoft, Ebay, Facebook, and Twitter.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation gives examples of popular sites that would be at risk from SOPA.

Tech site Ars Technica is not a fan.

Tumblr doesn’t like it so much they are spending their money to make it easy to call your representative.

So, please read up and, if you think this is a dangerous path, please call your representative and tell them what you think.

Who is your site targeting? Are you aiming at a particular economic segment? Are you looking for people who share similar interests or backgrounds? If so, are you doing what you can to attract those people once they are on your site?

I’m not talking about getting the right people to your site through social media and advertising. That’s been written to death, and it still feels like nobody knows what they’re doing.

What I’m talking about is if your site ready for the right person once they get there. Does the site look and feel reflect you (or your company) and your desired clientele? Has your content been massaged to appeal to the particular individual or consumer you want to meet?

Take a minute and think about it. Look at and read your site again, but do so as the client you are trying to attract. Is it working? If you can’t tell, find the client you are looking for and have them critique it. If it’s not doing it’s job, rewrite, redesign, or restructure. It could be something as simple as changing an image or two so you’re not so “this”, but more “that”. Maybe you have to inject some personality in to your site that appeals to your target (and separates you from the crowd).

If you know your target, kudos (and “everybody” doesn’t count). And if you’ve created your site for that target, and have attracted them, kudos upon your kudos. (This doesn’t mean you’re allowed to ignore your site however, because your desired client is most likely a moving target.) Now go share your knowledge, because in all likelihood, you are someone’s target as well.