While most sites on the web are safe
there are several things to keep in mind while surfing
the web.
Security of Information:
Please keep in mind that any information you send using
your Internet connection can potentially be intercepted
by unauthorized persons or organizations. There
are several things that you can do to help protect
yourself. The most important thing to keep in mind
is not to give out personal information such as credit
card numbers unless you are sure of who you are sending
it to.
Secure Web Sites: A normal web
page is sent without encoding the information on it.
There are certain web sites that use what is called a
"Secure Sockets Layer". This type of web site can
be identified by the address which will start with
"https://". Your browser will also
likely have a small picture of a closed padlock in the
lower right corner of the screen. These sites
encode the information and are reasonably safe to use
with credit card numbers and other personal
information.
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP):
This is a program that you can use to encode e-mail and
other information so that it is very difficult to
intercept. This program also allows you to "sign"
your documents with a digital signature so that others
can verify that you (and only you) sent the message and
that the message was not changed or tampered with
in transit. You can find PGP along with
information on using it at
http://web.mit.edu/network/pgp.html
Chat groups and IRC: Most
people on the Internet are who they say they are and the
Internet is generally a friendly place -- However
you should still avoid giving out personal information.
Do not give out home addresses, phone numbers, etc. in
these group settings.
