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Well if we're going to be talking about basic tips on Internet safety, I should probably make the introduction basic and skip directly to the tips.

1. Never give out your personal information in Chatrooms or forums. A first name is ok, but not anymore than that.

2. If someone you don't know sends you a message with an attachment, don't open the attachment.

3. If someone you DO know sends you a message with an attachment, but doesn't mention what it is - and you weren't expecting one- you shouldn't open it until you ask that person what it is.

4. Don't give out your im info in forums -especially not MSN. People can give your viruses and worms using those.

5. If you're going to put any kind of credit card information, check to see if the website has the Better Business Bureau symbol AND click on it to see if it's real. If the symbol is not clickable, go to bbb.org and look up the website's name.

6. If you can, use a debit gift card and not a real debit/credit card. You'll have less to lose.

7. If you're going to show pictures of your home, of yourself, or of a payment you've received (to show proof), make sure to edit the pictures so that they do not have any leading information. Examples: street names, city names, recognizable figures (unless you were sight-seeing), account numbers, etc...

8. Be careful when opening mail from money-related websites (ebay, amazon, paypal). Some of them are phishing mails that will attempt to get you to log onto a fake page that looks just like the real one. They then have information-stealing scripts to save your login information.
Ex. Paypa1. Notice the misspelling that is supposed to make you think it's the real site?

9. Always have an anti virus on. Having a firewall on can also be a good thing

10. Use your pop up blocker. If you want real security (and you have firefox), you can get the NoScript or Adblock Plus plugins.

11. Don't use file-sharing software. People sometimes put viruses and other annoying things in the files you download.

12. Turn off the internet when you're not using it.

13. Don't use the same password for everything. That doesn't mean each one should be different, I know that can be hard. However use a system.
Ex: Password for media sites: Bunnies13
Password for emails sites: Rabbits31
Password for money-related sites: thefluffynessgoeson313

Learn more about this author, Caren Franco.
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