Social Media and You.

Hello and Welcome back to Pop Pop Spot

I pray God has blessed you this past week.

I wanted to bring up the topic of social media. I have to admit, it is due to an issue with a major social media platform. You can tell by my avatar I prefer to keep my identity, hidden I guess is the best way to describe it. The major social media platform I had or have the issue with does not like this practice. I guess you can call me shy, however I have been around long enough to have seen the birth of all the social media websites. Yes, I know I am telling my age, and I have always since the beginning stood on the principle that you never want to put too much out there on the internet. Once you do, it is out there for all time. I have always limited my exposure and what information I send across the electronic grid. I am not an actor, nor do I or did I ever want to be. You lose so much of your self when you put your self in front of the world. We must always be careful of this. You can look at all of those who have, and most of the time their lives are in shambles. It may seem like it is a fantastic life, but look closer, and you will find all kinds of dark, scary lives that have been lived. I have done my diligence to teach my children this as well. I have to admit, I regret buying them cell phones so young. It is a failure on my part. I have always been fascinated with computers. For me, it was the PCs, I never really used a cell phone for more than calls when the industry began to make them smaller and more affordable for everyone. I embraced technology completely. I started with a pager, then found that a cell phone and the plans were much more affordable than that pager. It took off from there. Like I said, I mostly used my cell phones for calling then texting. I never really cared for texting, however eventually I embraced that too. It was much easier, and again it cost less to send a text than to call. Then text became unlimited inside the cell phone plans. I again embraced it. My wife then got a cell phone and then the entire family. I can not remember who texted the most back then. It was a toss up between my wife and my daughter. To really tell my age, I can remember when you could browse the internet and the cell phone was monochrome. It was a technology boom. I can not say for sure, however I believe it caused employment to go up. People would get a job just to have a cell phone. I can remember MySpace. Man, I am old. No wonder that major social media platform does not want me to have an account on their website! Lol! So I believe I know what I have said is true. You need to be careful what you put out on the internet.

The more information that someone can find on you, the easier it is for them to hack you. There are so many ways that you can be hacked, it is terrifying. I can not go over them all in this one post, be I do want to bring up two.

The first and sometimes most devastating is called SIM swapping. I may have mentioned this last year, but it warrants another mention and for you to look into it. SIM swapping is where a person impersonates you and claims that they have changed phones or your old phone has been damaged, and you bought another, and you need to set it up with a new SIM card. This sometimes requires a person working on the inside of one of the major telecommunications providers, however that is not the case for every situation. This threat actor or hacker is very proficient at social engineering. They can basically talk anyone into anything. They are in other words very convincing. They get your cell number off the net or buy it and other information about you from someone. Remember the social security administration leak? It would not be hard to find these days. I hope you went to see if your information was out there in the blog post I wrote about that hack. Mine was. I feel they " whom ever got hacked " should be held liable for that. Enough on that for now. Back to SIM swapping. They call your carrier and claim to be you and to get a brand-new sim card for a cell phone other than yours, and they have you! They then proceed to gain access to either your Gmail or Apple account, and then they have access to all of your apps. They can get all of your apps because it is in your history, and most people do not lock down their Gmail or Apple accounts like they should. In this worst case scenario. They now have access to all your personal data, banking apps, 401k etc. I was surprised while researching this how many wealthy people have had this happen to them. They lost millions upon billions of Bitcoin and other types of cryptocurrencies. Some were able to get some of it back, while others have lost their life's savings. This is no joke. I know what you are thinking. It will never happen to me, or I am not rich enough to be a target. I have seen even poor people being done this way. The smaller fish in the hacking game watch videos and other content and learn from it. They have very little, so they take the risk. Get rich quick appeals to many. That is why it is your responsibility to do your due diligence to keep it from happening to you. How glad you asked.

First contact your carrier and set up a pin code and all options they offer and make sure it is nowhere to be found on the internet. Then lock down your phone with every type of security it has to offer. Biometrics, pins, physical authenticate keys and a very good authenticate apps. I have all 2fa apps that are available to download and the security codes that it generates after setting up 2fa. Print those codes and keep them on multiple devices and in multiple places. You see the harder it is for them and the more road blocks you put in their way the more discouragement and frustration you put them through they may say it isn't worth the effort. This may be frustrating for you as well, which may be a good thing, the more hoops you make your self jump through the less time you are opening your self up to being a target.

Second, do not put personal and sensitive information anywhere on the internet or let anyone else do it, either. Keep your personal life personal.

Third, use a messenger app that has end-to-end encryption. I recommend Signal. You can only text from Signal to Signal nowadays. It has video chat and in app calling. It can be downloaded on any cell phone now as well. If you have to text someone in another app, and it does not have end-to-end encryption, keep it short, sweet and to the point with no sensitive data.

There is a new hacking ploy out there now that I just learned about. It is called brushing, I believe. Someone send you a package you did not order, and they are trying to get you to scan a QR code, and if you do. Your phone is hacked. You can find more information on YouTube about it.

Now onto social media. I try to keep my images and all personal data off the internet completely. I need social media however to grow this blog. I left most of the biggest platforms several years back and started using gab. GAB is simple all you do is open a browser set up an account and save it to your cell phone that is it. You can customize with your details if you like, however you are defeating the purpose. It is safer. Less likely to get you hacked. If a social media website wants all your details, there is a reason for it, and it is not good.

Consider gab. https://gab.com I have an account however they are not sponsoring in any way.

I hope I have gotten my points across effectively and stressed the importance of online privacy for all. If you have gotten some use out of this post, please share across your social media platforms and help spread the information about the dangers of unchecked social media, and it's use.

Until next time, may God bless and keep you and yours.

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