A Beginner Course To Learn How To Protect Your Digital Life Online - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15014678
This course offers a free option but you have to complete it exactly in 8 weeks from the time you signed up for it. Anyway, I found this course useful in learning some aspects for your "average joe" to learn about cyber-security and how to protect themselves online from various potential threats from malware or security breaches of their networks or home networks. I believe people have an inherent right to security and privacy online. Here is the course:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/int ... r-security
#15014708
Politics_Observer wrote:This course offers a free option but you have to complete it exactly in 8 weeks from the time you signed up for it. Anyway, I found this course useful in learning some aspects for your "average joe" to learn about cyber-security and how to protect themselves online from various potential threats from malware or security breaches of their networks or home networks. I believe people have an inherent right to security and privacy online. Here is the course:

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/int ... r-security

I learned the hard way. But due to my common sense and near genius, I has been able to minimize any damage so far. Cross my fingers and praise the Lord.
HalleluYah
#15014716
@Hindsite

You'll be amazed at what people can do with a computer. I learned a great deal in my TCP/IP class. Networking & Security is one of my next classes where we will be learning how to take a layered approach to defend networks from cyber-attack. But we learned some pretty valuable stuff in TCP/IP class. It was a tough class but fun and very interesting. The class i took before that was Foundations in Cyber-security which went into the basics of cyber-security like CIA for example (Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability).

We learned a lot in that particular class such as using hashes like SHA1 and MD5 to assure the integrity of data transmitted over networks so that we know they hadn't been compromised, intrusion detection systems, intrusion prevention systems, deep packet inspection firewalls, stateful firewalls, packet filtering firewalls, application layer gateways, public and private key logins, asymmetric encryption, symmetric encryption. The different kinds of malware out there.

Like trojan horse malware can be secretly installed on a host to turn into a rogue DHCP server and the malware would starve out the legitimate DHCP server of the network of IP addresses to lease out to the other hosts in the network which forces them to go to the rogue DHCP server who then in turn leases out IP addresses and has it's own DNS server which could then in turn send hosts to phishing websites or websites infected with other malware or the rogue DHCP server can conduct man in the middle attacks on hosts in the networks. Those things can wreck serious havoc. I use the free version of Sophos anti-virus software on my Linux Ubuntu box. Sophos is a one of the leaders in anti-virus software. They publish a threatsarus for cyber-security professionals. You can take a look at it in their link here:



Another valuable thing we learned is how to look up a website's certificates to determine if it's a legitimate business or not and to see if that certificate came from a Certificate Authority. A website that has a certificate given to it by a Certificate Authority guarantees the identity of the website (the Certificate Authority who is issuing the certificate is guaranteeing the identity of that website and that it is a legitimate business and not a scam website). Plus, you learn how to check to be sure that it is using proper encryption to guarantee the security of any business transactions like the use of TLS (Transport Layer Security) encryption or SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption. TLS is more secure than SSL but SSL is also pretty secure encryption.

@Hindsite

Here is a news article where ransomware has been a big problem with counties in the state of Florida:

Mohit Kumar of Hacker News wrote:
In the last two weeks, Florida has paid more than $1.1 million in bitcoin to cybercriminals to recover encrypted files from two separate ransomware attacks—one against Riviera Beach and the other against Lake City.

Lake City, a city in northern Florida, agreed on Monday to pay hackers 42 Bitcoin (equivalent to $573,300 at the current value) to unlock phone and email systems following a ransomware attack that crippled its computer systems for two weeks.

The ransomware attack, dubbed "Triple Threat" since it combines three different methods of attack to target network systems, infected Lake City systems on June 10 after an employee in city hall opened a malicious email.

Though the IT staff disconnected computers within just 10 minutes of the cyber attack starting, it was too late. The attack locked down the city workers' email accounts and servers.

Since the police and fire departments operate on a different server, they were the only ones not impacted by the attack. While other Lake City networks are currently disabled, Public Safety services remain unaffected by this attack.

The unknown hackers contacted the city's insurer and negotiated ransom payment of 42 bitcoins, currently $573,300. Lake City officials voted on Monday to pay the ransom to regain access to their important files.


That pisses me off that these attackers were able to do this. That's pretty sick isn't it what these attackers have done to Florida's taxpayers.

https://thehackernews.com/2019/06/flori ... ttack.html
#15015166
It surprises me how much people have the integrity to post about themselves on social media websites such as VK, Werkenntwen, or the yankee facebook.

It is self enslaving (volunteering to be a slave) for people to do because anyone can see one's profile. Managers at jobs that can terminate workers; oppressive relatives who are potentially religious, socially controlling, or excessively dramatic; spies such as capitalist state agents or stalkers; human traffickers; and street criminals such as gangsters can all see one's social media profile, and potentially use it against them. People always knowing everything about you, one's emotions being expressed at high levels, and having to worry or watch out what to post or not to post is self enslaving. And for people to do this on a regular basis for years, or even decades, shows self enslavement.

Anyone who wants to be free from social slavery, will never desire to do social media. Social media also promotes capitalist culture, valuing people according to the amount of "friends," "likes," "subscribers," "followers," or "how cool their exploitative, name brand clothing looks."
#15015309
@SSDR

SSDR wrote:It surprises me how much people have the integrity to post about themselves on social media websites such as VK, Werkenntwen, or the yankee facebook.

It is self enslaving (volunteering to be a slave) for people to do because anyone can see one's profile. Managers at jobs that can terminate workers; oppressive relatives who are potentially religious, socially controlling, or excessively dramatic; spies such as capitalist state agents or stalkers; human traffickers; and street criminals such as gangsters can all see one's social media profile, and potentially use it against them. People always knowing everything about you, one's emotions being expressed at high levels, and having to worry or watch out what to post or not to post is self enslaving. And for people to do this on a regular basis for years, or even decades, shows self enslavement.

Anyone who wants to be free from social slavery, will never desire to do social media. Social media also promotes capitalist culture, valuing people according to the amount of "friends," "likes," "subscribers," "followers," or "how cool their exploitative, name brand clothing looks."


Honestly, I am skilled enough that even if employers or anybody wanted to track me down via IP address, they would have a very difficult time doing so. They would have to be able to prove it was me who wrote the post. Your IP address and your MAC address is what ties it to you and your computer. And there are ways to spoof your MAC address too in addition to making hard for people to trace you via IP address. Anybody with skills can strike like a partisan quickly and efficiently and then melt away into the darkness and forests of cyber-space while others cannot track them down or find them. But that's the key though, you have to have the skills and education. Most cyber-criminals for example, are able to get away with their crimes because they are difficult to trace or track down given they have the skills to cover their tracks.

Cyber-criminals have even attacked police stations and county governments here in the US and gotten away with it because they are skilled enough. It's those that don't have the skills or are not intelligent about what they post on Facebook for example who identify themselves for who they really are and make their IP address trackable that get fired. But I know how to cover my tracks if I want to with no problems. Even with this website when you sign up with an email that requires a phone number you can put that phone number in a cryptographic hash to where nobody, not even law enforcement can crack the crypto-graphic hash. It also depends on the country of the email address and it's laws governing privacy too and how cooperative their justice system is willing to be.

This is also why cyber-security has become a more important issue too.
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