Tag: privacy

Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals

It is rare that I ever say this about a non-fiction book, but I couldn’t put this book down. Cyber Smart: Five Habits to Protect Your Family, Money, and Identity from Cyber Criminals by Bart R. McDonough is the most thorough guide on protecting yourself from cyber criminals.

It is a captivating book with numerous true anecdotes about the victims of cyber crime, which are included with every chapter and the most interesting parts of the book.

For example, there is the story of the woman who met a man on an online dating site and “loaned” him $72,000. When she tried to meet the man in person, he never showed up.

Another victim was a woman who received a phone call from her local hospital saying that her baby would have to be taken from her and turned over to child protective services because they detected meth in the baby. The woman said that, first, she didn’t have a baby, and second, she never used drugs in her life. Apparently, someone stole this woman’s medical ID so that the bad woman’s birth of her baby would be covered by the innocent woman’s insurance.

For some of the victims, you wonder how they could fall for a scam but others you feel sorry for, especially the grandparent scam victims.

If you think you know all the email scams, like email phishing, do you know what spear phishing is? How about whaling, clone phishing, SMS phishing, or pretexting?

At the end of every chapter, the author provides advice on how to protect yourself from the particular digital threat, whether you have a Windows or Mac computer, whether you have an Android or an iPhone, whether you use T-Mobile, Verizon, Sprint, or AT&T, and so on.

With the ubiquitous hacks, scams, privacy compromises, and identity thefts taking place, everyone should read Cyber Smart. I highly recommend it.

Why You Should Buy Fake Dirty Underwear

by Fred Fuld III

It is summer time when you do some traveling and are concerned about where to hide your money and valuables to keep them safe from burglars, whether at home or in a hotel. Many articles describe where you should and shouldn’t store treasures. Places of where you should not keep you valuables include your top dresser drawers, drawers in your nightstands, backs of closets, cookie jars, under your mattress, in the toilet tank, etc. Some experts recommend leaving burglars a ‘tip’; in other words a small amount of easily found cash so the burglars find it and leave without spending any more time looking.

Here is one anti-burglar tip suggestion I have that you may not be aware of. Gather up any old coins laying around that aren’t worth much or even not worth anything above face vale, but just look old. Put them in a box, put a label on it that says ‘coin collection’ and keep it in the top drawer of your chest of drawers. Keep your real coin collection in your safe deposit box, or if you must keep it at home, keep it in a place that is not obvious.

Let me tell you NEVER where to hide stuff. Never, ever store valuables at the bottom of a waste basket. The burglars may never look there, but you can be sure that at some point in the future, either you or a family member will accidentally throw out your valuables with the trash. [I am writing from personal experience. Fortunately, I was able to retrieve what was emptied before it was picked up by the trash collector.]

So what does all this have to do with dirty underwear? There is an interesting item called The Brief Safe and looks like dirty underwear with a place in it to conceal money, passports, credit cards, jewelry, memory cards, documents, and other valuables. The hidden compartment closes with Velcro. It even comes with its own stains to provide a major deterrence. I’ve given one away as a gift, and it was a hit.Have a happy, safe and secure vacation!