Happy Thanksgiving and have a safe Black Friday. I don't want to hear on the news about how people are shooting each other for the latest toy. It happens every year....
Much safer to shop online on Cyber Monday....or is it?
You will not get beat up or shot at online. But the thing that shoppers must be aware of is what sights they give their credit number to. Sites like Amazon, Ebay, Best Buy, etc are big names so they have paid for their servers to be secure. They have their reputation to protect after all. But that's a different story. The easiest thing fro anyone shopping online is they should look at the website address before they give their credit card online to anyone, whether it is a big name company's site or not. Just get into the habit of looking at the web address to keep yourself safe. The website address that asks for a customer's credit card information should always begin with HTTPS. If it begins with only HTTP, the site is not secure and should not be trusted with your credit card information. The HTTPS is more secure because the session that you have with the website is encrypted, or scrambled, so it is not as likely that prying eyes will see your private information.
So if you are shopping online during the holidays, do not forget to look at the web address when you are looking at the sale price of things. If you go to an unsecured site, then it may be that the price of your shopping list contents is irrelevant if someone gets a hold of your credit card information by shopping on unsecured sites.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Thursday, November 17, 2011
SOPA: Internet Censorship the wrong way
Although, I am pro censorship, it is within reason. The SOPA bill is not within reason.
It is more important to go after people who engage in such acts as child pornography than those who pirate software and movies. (no matter what one might think of doing that to begin with. To each their own).
Google can remove sites from being picked up by its search engine. It is rare, but this is one of the things that the lawmakers want is to have Google remove sites deemed to have copyrighted information there. But they will not stop there. They want DNS services to block access to the sites. Why isn't this much energy being given to bigger issues? I'll tell you why.
It's all about the benjamins, baby! Take a look here to see who is for the SOPA bill and internet censorship and which politicians get their pockets full from donors.
While much of the entertainment industry is for the SOPA bill, much of the tech world is not.
Under the SOPA act, I wonder how many videos will be illegal? Many bands put covers on Youtube, and many people love making videos as a hobby. It is not out of disrespect for the artists. In fact, many artists like seeing their fans' creativity as much as their own as seen on a 20/20 episode in September.
By allowing the SOPA bill to pass, many people will be affected. Much creativity will be lost and companies like Google or Yahoo will be sued just for having an illegal site in their search engine. By having them spend all their money fighting lawsuits from the US government, they will not be able to spend their money on creating jobs or having the best businesses. As a result, the government will further hurt its own people that will deepen the wound already created by the economic crisis of the past few years.
It is more important to go after people who engage in such acts as child pornography than those who pirate software and movies. (no matter what one might think of doing that to begin with. To each their own).
Google can remove sites from being picked up by its search engine. It is rare, but this is one of the things that the lawmakers want is to have Google remove sites deemed to have copyrighted information there. But they will not stop there. They want DNS services to block access to the sites. Why isn't this much energy being given to bigger issues? I'll tell you why.
It's all about the benjamins, baby! Take a look here to see who is for the SOPA bill and internet censorship and which politicians get their pockets full from donors.
While much of the entertainment industry is for the SOPA bill, much of the tech world is not.
Under the SOPA act, I wonder how many videos will be illegal? Many bands put covers on Youtube, and many people love making videos as a hobby. It is not out of disrespect for the artists. In fact, many artists like seeing their fans' creativity as much as their own as seen on a 20/20 episode in September.
By allowing the SOPA bill to pass, many people will be affected. Much creativity will be lost and companies like Google or Yahoo will be sued just for having an illegal site in their search engine. By having them spend all their money fighting lawsuits from the US government, they will not be able to spend their money on creating jobs or having the best businesses. As a result, the government will further hurt its own people that will deepen the wound already created by the economic crisis of the past few years.
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