#internetsafetyweekly

Internet PSA #2, Scams!

Whether it be via email, social media, or tumblr asks you should be suspect of offers of money, or requests to donate to causes.

Unfortunately people who would like to exploit you are out there! And this isn't something new either! Scams over the internet have been going around ever since the public first had access back in the 90's.

How can you protect yourself? Well, for example, if you get a ask on tumblr, (or dm on other media platforms) requesting to donate to an urgent cause, perhaps someone claiming they need help buying their insulin, do some investigating into their account.

Look out for inconsistencies with their name/family member names.

Look at date stamps on posts. Does it look like they posted 50+ things in one day? Are reblogs/reposts coming from seemingly random points in time?

Is there a lack of other posts? or do they perhaps reuse the same post over and over?

Look into the site they use for donations, does the location match with where they say they are? (eg: "I'm close to g@za" but the donation site says texas.)

And same goes for offers of money

Do. Some. Digging!

And remember, NEVER give someone your debit/credit card numbers, and never give someone the password to your paypal/cashapp/chime/etc.

And definitely don't donate to someone without verifying first that they're not posing as someone else/a made up person.

As much as many of us would like to have faith that people are genuine, do look out for people with not-so-honest intentions.

That's it for today! See you next time and remember,

For our first psa, I will start with the topic of location.

So what's the big deal with sharing your location? A lot actually.

So many of us have at least a friend or two that shares everything including where they are and where they're going. which seems harmless, right? Wrong!

To you, the close -or decently close- friend, it doesn't mean much. I mean what are you going to do with your friend's location? But what about the internet? That's where things can get not so safe.

Say, you post a picture of a route on a map you're going to take. You zoom it out and cross out the city names. seems good to you! but that location dot on screen is enough. Your city, and the part of it you live in can be found -and easily too!

Why's it important to keep your location secret? Because cyber stalking exists and is very hard to predict. And you don't want a cyber stalker to become an irl stalker.

What information tips people off? Well a lot of simple, little things so I would suggest you avoid posting:

Maps screenshots.

Street signs.

License plates.

Names of local businesses.

Landmarks.

Your town/city name if it's a small area.

Location data from photo geotagging.

and more.

You can protect yourself by refraining from posting personal information online, and to remove such data from images, preferably with an app for photo editing. I suggest ibis paint x if you're on a phone. Also make sure that you turn off geotagging.

That about wraps up our first ever PSA! Feel free to reblog and share.

See you next time, and remember:

This Account is a project born of me watching someone doxx themselves without realizing it, and that made me realize that internet safety doesn't seem to be as well known or followed as it should be.

As a professional lurker, I am well versed in the ways of staying anonymous, and have lots of advice I can give on the subject.