If you’re running across some blacked-out sites today, it’s part of a protest against proposed U.S. legislation.

This CBS News article seemed to have the most balanced approach to the controversy:

• SOPA, PIPA: What you need to know

Which internet sites are “blacked out” and which are not:

• Internet Blackout: 7000 Sites Join Wikipedia
• From Reuters: Internet blackout against SOPA fails to enlist big sites

What’s Your Opinion?

Could these proposed bills affect our ministry websites or online ministry?  Thanks for helping us understand the debate.

Filed under: social networking, trends and statistics, websites, Your ministry Tagged: cbs news, internet, internet blackout, ministry, security, social media, world news

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I like using a particular password, but after I was almost snared by a phishing attempt, I needed to change a lot of my accounts because they shared the same password.  This was a secure password and easy to remember, however, it’s not really a good idea to use the same password for multiple accounts, so I decided this was a good opportunity to create unique passwords.

I stored the new passwords in a spreadsheet (see What You Need to Know about Passwords), but then I was constantly needing to look up the new passwords.  I had made such a variety, I couldn’t remember which password went with which account!

I finally found the solution from a suggestion I found on the internet.  I’m now using my “favorite” password (let’s call it strongfavorite) and then add a unique identifier, depending on the account.  For instance, my password for Facebook could be strongfavoriteface or strongfavoriteFB.  Now all I have to do is remember my favorite password and my identifiers: like hoot for HootSuite or TD for Twee...

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I like using a particular password, but after I was almost snared by a phishing attempt, I needed to change a lot of my accounts because they shared the same password.  This was a secure password and easy to remember, however, it’s not really a good idea to use the same password for multiple accounts, so I decided this was a good opportunity to create unique passwords.

I stored the new passwords in a spreadsheet (see What You Need to Know about Passwords), but then I was constantly needing to look up the new passwords.  I had made such a variety, I couldn’t remember which password went with which account!

I finally found the solution from a suggestion I found on the internet.  I’m now using my “favorite” password (let’s call it strongfavorite) and then add a unique identifier, depending on the account.  For instance, my password for Facebook could be strongfavoriteface or strongfavoriteFB.  Now all I have to do is remember my favorite password and my identifiers: like hoot for HootSuite or TD for Twee...

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I’ve been learning a lot about spam on blogs these past few weeks. . . because I’ve been receiving a lot. (Ah, nothing like experience for learning a bit about how to avoid spam and how to clean it out of posts and comments!)

Here’s my take-away for today:  by using typos in comments, spammers can determine which blogs have a low filtering threshold or which automatically approve comments (so I just turned off the auto-approve, which means I’ll read and approve a comment before it appears on this site).

Spammers have an effective modus operandi.   They’ll send an automated and innocent-sounding comment with distinctive typos.  Then the spammers do Google searches for their typo comments.  (I just did a Google search for one of the comments I used in “Spiffy Spam”  and found 718,000 hits!)  The websites that approved the comments are then targeted with another round of spam, but these comments are malicious.

Even though I knew the comments were spam (and deleted them),  by posting all those comment...

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I saw several of these on Facebook today:

IT IS OFFICIAL. IT WAS EVEN ON THE NEWS. FACEBOOK WILL START CHARGING DUE TO THE NEW PROFILE CHANGES. IF YOU COPY THIS ON YOUR WALL YOUR ICON WILL TURN BLUE AND FACEBOOK WILL BE FREE FOR YOU. PLEASE PASS THIS MESSAGE ON, IF NOT YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DELETED IF YOU DO NOT PAY

The caps heighten your unnecessary sense of doom; however, some of these hoaxes will give you some real, not imagined, problems!  Either in Facebook or in eMails you receive, be wary of warnings that quote an authority, or like this one, say it’s “official news”.  Some of these are just pranks.  Others are more malicious.

What Should You Do?

Think about it.  Wouldn’t a large corporation notify you, well in advance, of switching from a free account to a monthly charge?  Also, if Facebook really were going to start charging, why would they offer an opt-out plan (as in the above message)?

Check online for the truth, searching for some news sources.  I found a current post from Mashable (a goo...

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