Category: isafety
-
Google Mesh Home WiFi Makes our Internet Access MUCH faster
This is a review of the “Google WiFi system, 3-Pack – Router replacement for whole home coverage” (NLS-1304-25) product which I posted to Amazon today. “Google Mesh WiFi” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer I have been wanting to purchase a mesh Wi-Fi system at home for many months, and finally pulled the trigger last month. Wow what…
-
Advice for Responding to and Protecting Against Phishing Email Attacks
This month we have seen an uptick in phishing attacks against our faculty and staff at school. Here is a copy of some suggestions for responding to and protecting against email phishing attacks which I shared this evening via email with our team. General guidelines for responding to email phishing attacks are: If you are…
-
Schools Blocking YouTube and Digital Citizenship
Content filtering in schools has always been contentious since students and teachers first gained access to the World Wide Web and the Internet in the 1990s. Today in 2019, however, many people might be surprised that “draconian content filtering policies” (at least in the opinion of this author) are still in place in some schools.…
-
Friends Don’t Let Friends Use the Edge Web Browser (or Bing for Search)
This past week at school, I accidentally clicked a bad link while setting up a fresh installation of Windows10. This dramatically highlighted how easy it is for someone today to accidentally install malware or adware on a computer, and why friends shouldn’t let friends use the Edge Web Browser or the Bing search engine by Microsoft.…
-
Beware of Phishing Cell Phone Calls: Don’t Share Personal Info with Strangers
Here’s an important cautionary tale for anyone with a cell phone: Beware of phishing calls. Don’t share personal information with strangers over the phone, if you can’t verify their identity and authority with absolute certainty. “Security Stock-11091” (CC BY 2.0) by Hivint Like many others, I’ve noticed a significant uptick in the past few months of spam phone…
-
Things I Learned Traveling to Egypt
The past few days I had an opportunity to travel to Cairo, Egypt, to present and participate in the 2017 EduForum Conference and also do a little sightseeing. Since sharing my second TEDx talk in November 2016, “Digital Citizenship in the Surveillance State,” I’ve continued to read and research about data privacy issues especially as…
-
Rights and Responsibilities in an Age of Surveillance
As surveillance becomes more ubiquitous and “normalized” in our society, I’m wondering if the parable of the boiling frog may apply and how these dynamics should fit into conversations at school with students, teachers and parents about digital citizenship. I’m not arguing we should abandon all the trappings of 21st century modernity and head up to…
-
Restrict Plex Shared Movie Library to Include Just G, PG, PG-13 Films
Do you know about Plex? My short definition of Plex is “a robust platform for digitally sharing movies you convert from DVD, download or purchase with others on a variety of screens.” The English WikiPedia article for Plex (software) explains it is composed of two parts: the “Plex Media Server” and “Plex Apps.” As home media software goes, it’s…