GreenBucks

KFC Mushroom Soup. Do you like this? I do.

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To be a victim of phishing is not a pleasant experience for anyone involved with any online transaction.

To be a victim of online identity thefts is definitely not pleasant.

There have been stories of people, bloggers and non bloggers whose online earnings or savings accounts have been violated and their monies victims of theft.

So how should one protect his online accounts?

• When suspicious emails arrive and there are links to open, check first if the links are legit. Put your cursor over the link and see what is being seen in the browser. If these are not matched, then it is suspicious and might be fraud.

• Now, why would you open a mail that asks you to confirm about an item that you ordered when you know you didn’t order anything? That is suspicious too.

• Change your passwords every now and then, every two weeks if need be. Go for passwords not associated to you and use letters and numbers and characters in the password. Do NOT store these passwords in your computer.

• There are identity thieves that use keystroke-logging software to know the usernames and passwords through emails, freeware and yes, instant messaging.

• Be careful when downloading anything from unknown sources for these files may contain malicious software programs that might be accompanied by spyware.

• Do not respond to emails requesting for your personal information.

I remember this episode from Psych, one my favorite (very funny) detective tv series. They were in a speed dating club and had to sit with other people and get to know them by asking questions. Shawn noticed that one woman’s questions were different. She was asking about these things:

• hometown where the guy grew up
• mother’s maiden name
• favorite color

So naturally, Shawn’s interest perked up. They finally got this woman and her husband who was also working in the dating club for identity theft.

These are just some of the things one has to look out for in order to protect online accounts. I am very sure there are a lot more different ways these thieves have that will enable them to do their illegal activities.

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I did not write these things because I assume I know everything. I wrote these things as a reminder that I too, need to beef up what I need to do to protect myself from identity theft.

If financial institutions and government offices have been victimized, we can be too. I hope not me, of course.

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You get out of the church after the Sunday mass and you see a table laden with these goodies. What would you choose? The green mangoes? What about the sampaloc candies? Or the sweet sticky yema? Hmmm…the nuts probably. Or the suman.

Take your pick or these would soon be bought by hungry church-goers.

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This post has been time-stamped because I have to go to work tomorrow and probably won’t have time to bloghop or put in my link as early as I want to.

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When I was new to anything about the internet, I often wondered what the numbers meant in the emails I have been getting. Later on, when I was blogging, these numbers come with the comments to my posts that I receive.

One time I got a very annoying comment, well, not annoying really but rather rude. I was going to pass that one up but it was my homeschooling blog that the comment was given to so I was affected. My husband suggested that we look up the IP address of the person who sent that message just to know where it was sent.

We used the IP2Location to look for the IP address of this person who sent the annoying message.

We got what we were looking for but of course, we could not do anything about it but to block that IP Address.

So what can one expect to find when knowing about IP addresses?

IP2Location’s DB15-DB18 packages can show IDD code, weather station name, area code and other stuff. It also has a demo page here which can be accessed within the site.

It is good to know the locations of those who visit my blogs as it gives me satisfaction to know that my posts are being read. Even if it means spam comments are coming, I have a catcher to take care of these.

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