Thank you to my team member who suggested this book.
Before the book
Still, remember the first phone I had where I could access the internet on. Before that, I had a laptop for school work as well as free time. I spend a lot of time on the internet playing online games like Howrse and Miniclip mini-games. I hadn’t thought about cyber security nor how much information is online. I feel like I hadn’t learned about it because it is fairly unfamiliar to older generations. I have always used a device with the internet and feel that I understood how it works. Almost everything in my life I can do online. Banking, health checks, checking my medication, and keeping up with the news as well as my family and friends. I’m lucky to live in a country that has taken big steps to have a strong connection all around the country. Still some places the net doesn’t work but they are so remote that few live there. Finding information has never been easier than and has morphed how we study. The constant overflow of information does impact my focusing and I sometimes get overstimulated. Sometimes I feel like so many live their lives online that the reality becomes muted.
Cyber security
Before it was bank robberies and cash, now it’s all about information. Information is the highest currency of our day. I have always had an F-secure on my laptop and never thought about it more than that. I feel like it has given me a false perspective about my security online. It seems that we are not taught enough about how to protect ourselves online in school or at home. We are constantly online and are constantly notified with emails and weird links to win expensive gifts like laptops and cars. Most of my friends know that they are just scams and a way to get your information or to plant a virus. We seem to trust firewalls too much to recognize how vulnerable we are online. For example, for me, I feel like my whole life is online and it seems scary how valuable I am. The books spiked my interest in how much of my information is online and how much I am tracked these days. I have apps where my friends know where I am and can see me in real-time. How easy would it be for a hacker to hack me and know what I am going and where I am at any second of the day. The book also included some Examples about how and what ways are the most usual way for hackers to intrude on your information. Number one is email. This made me think about having one email for everything. I am also really bad at remembering new long passwords and I just realized how easy I was to hack. I changed my passwords quickly after realizing that. It feels stupid that we have to sign up and log in to so many places and then there is the opportunity for easy log/signup with Google or Facebook account. This is a big security conflict. if it’s easy for us it’s easy for the hacker. Both Facebook and Google accounts are the most commonly used as well as hacked platforms online and I use them both.
Internet and socialmedia
For us being online and having a phone to access all our friends and work in our hands has changed our perspective of how to stay in contact and find information. I feel like we all are somewhat addicted to social media and our phones and the ring of notification. The information overload we experience in our day-to-day life seems normal for me now but thinking even 8 years back it would feel impossible. The whole world seems to move faster than it used to. Information can reach from one country to another in seconds. Sending a simple message is now possible in seconds. Technology has changed and lets us get information about what is going on when we want. When I was younger I was able to work hours and end on a project or read, now I can’t focus for a long space of time. Even listening to seminars or writing an essay seems hard. On the flip side, we can do more and bigger projects and reach more people with marketing. We can influence more and find more information for our essays. Even with this, I listened to a book about cyber security and how the internet works. I have always had F-secure on my laptop but no security for my phone which I use more for the daily small things. This seemed a bit weird to me since why would I want some random people to see where I am and what I do. After reading this book I changed my passwords and tried to delete all my pages that are connected to Gmail. I am more mindful about my security online.