Manage Your Virtual Presence

The many means of communicating using the cable, wireless and phone systems are magnificent. The dream of the convergence of these many streams into a great river of information in such a brief period of time is surely one of the greatest ongoing achievements of the human race. E-mail, blogs, websites, cell phones, social networks, text messages, twitter: the list of the means to communicate in a virtual way are many. That being said, it's the responsibility each user of the river to protect themselves from those who would do harm to the river and the users of the river. To this end, I recommend that you should consider doing the following:

1. Actively manage your online presence. Establish and grab control of your own profiles on the various social networking websites before somebody does it for you. Even if you insert only minimal information, at least it's you doing it. And check it ever so often. If I were a crook bent on finding a new identity, the first place I'd look would be on a social network site.
2. Maintain strong firewall and other security software on your various machines, keep them upgraded/patched and monitor their performance. So what if your performance is slightly degraded; its still better than what you had just a few years ago.
3. Use strong passwords and encrypt your most sensitive information.
4. Google yourself and see what comes up. If you see something fishy, check it out.
5. Monitor your credit reports. There are three major providers of this service. You're entitled to one free report per year from each. So get one every four months.
6. Remember that anything you put out there is potentially out there forever. Those old college pictures that were fun and appropriate when you were 19 can come back and haunt you when you're interviewing for that dream gig when you're 28.
7. If you buy stuff online, use a one time credit card number. You can get them from all of the major credit card companies. Don't save credit card information at sellers websites. Sure it reduces the convenience of the 'one click' experience. Show a little patience and enter the credit card info each time. You might even save some money doing this as the extra time gives you an opportunity to reconsider that impulse purchase.
8. Don't download stuff or click on links unless you a absolutely sure they are from a trusted source. If you are not sure, don't do it.

However the most important thing that many experts advocate is to think before you click.

I'm sure there are many other things one can do to safely enjoy the information river. And I'll add them as they occur to me or are brought to my attention.