Next Tuesday will be 10 February 2015.
It’s also Safer Internet Day.
We like that name – in many ways, it’s more sensible to aim to be safer online than it is to try to work out exactly what you need to be safe.
After all, internet safety isn’t absolute, not least because internet threats keep changing.
One moment, Facebook was the new privacy challenge on the block; then it was Twitter…then WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat, and so on.
In other words, being safe online is a journey, not a destination.
So, for this year’s Safer Internet Day, we thought we’d try to avoid being prescriptive, where we give you a laundry list of tips and tell you which security options you should turn on.
We’re going to take a descriptive approach instead.
For example, consider Location Services.
That’s the feature on your phone that works out where you are, to varying degrees of precision, and then tells someone, or everyone, or no-one.
Is that good? Bad? Indifferent?
The thing is, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all rule for whether, when or how to use Location Services.
Sometimes you might genuinely need people to know where you are, and at other times you might seriously wish to stay off everyone’s radar.
Get #SophosSafe
In short, the difficult part of staying safe online is making the right choice about how much to share, every time such a choice presents itself.
So we’re hosting a Twitter Chat on Safer Internet Day to tackle this very problem.
Why not join us?
Hashtag: #SophosSafe
Date: Tuesday, 10 February 2015
Time:
• Noon PST (e.g. San Francisco, Vancouver)
• 3pm EST (e.g. Toronto, Boston)
• 8pm GMT (e.g. London, Edinburgh)
• 9pm CET (e.g. Frankfurt, Budapest)
What is a Twitter chat?
A Twitter chat is a Twitter event that allows you to get one-on-one advice from experts, and feedback from the community.
You just tweet your question and include a specific hashtag.
Any answers will include the same hashtag, so searching for (or following) that hashtag is all you need to do to be part of the event.
Do I need to sign up?
Not at all. The whole idea of a Twitter chat is you can join in as and when you feel like it:
- Take a note of the time period – #SophosSafe is 3pm to 4pm EST on Tuesday, 10 Feb 2015.
- During the event, simply search for #SophosSafe at any time to see the latest questions and answers.
- To ask or answer a question yourself, simply Tweet it with the text #SophosSafe in there somewhere.
That’s it.
You might also like to follow one or more of the co-hosts on Twitter:
Do I need a Twitter account?
No.
You only need a Twitter account if you want to post a question or comment to the Twitter chat; you can follow the proceedings without logging in at all.
Do I need any special software?
No. A web browser is fine.
Use the Twitter search URL https://twitter.com/#SophosSafe to follow proceedings.
Use Twitter’s [Tweet] button to ask your question or have your say.
Is there software to make it easier than that?
Yes.
With software such as Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, you can automatically “follow” a hashtag, so new comments in the Twitter chat will show up automatically in a special window or column.
Can I take part while I am at work?
Of course you can!
(But the question of whether you may is a matter for your employer, so please make sure your boss doesn’t mind. Better yet, see if you can get them to join in, too. When it comes to computer security, many hands really do make light work.)
Can I invite my colleagues, friends and family along too?
Please do!
Guy
Did it have to be soooo late Tuesday evening? How about an earlier one for the Brits?
Mark Stockley
Hey, feel free to tweet anyone on that list any time and start one spontaneously!
Paul Ducklin
Ahhh, good ol’ timezones. You can please some of the people some of the time, etc. For example, we’d love to have readers joining in from places like, say, Singapore and Sydney, but for them it’s 4am and 7am respectively!
We went round and round the clock (remember, we have to fit in our own participants, too, who are spread around the world) and nearly went for 2pm EST, which is 7pm in the UK. But if we’d done that, some people would be saying, “Couldn’t you wait until I’d finished my tea and settled down in front of the TV with the iPad/Android tablet on my knee.”
So 3pm East Coast Time was where we ended up, admittedly making it an evening outing in the UK and Western Europe.
Remember: you don’t have to sign up, or log in, and lock yourself onto the event for a full hour, as you would with a webcast – you can just follow along out of the corner of your eye if you like.
Maybe you could get a letter from your Mum to stay up late next Tuesday :-)