Fundamentals On Using & Mastering Social Media
Since we store and share quite a bit of sensitive and personal information over the net (especially if you use social media platforms) it makes sense that we do this in as secured a manner as is possible.
If you pay attention you will notice that sometimes at your address bar it will say http while other times it will say https.
What that means is that some connections are more secured than the http (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) connection is.
Let me clarify that this is not an article on internet security – that is an entire topic on its own! So we are not going to talk about digital signature and authentication or discuss what Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is and how that adds security to an http connection or how it authenticates the transfer of data between your computer and the web servers you are accessing.
OK, if that sounds like Greek to you, don’t worry. Let’s just get with understanding why we need to use https instead of http.
To minimise the chances of someone else eavesdropping or accessing and interfering with your data as it travels between your computer and the web server (e.g. Gmail or Facebook or any sites that you are accessing) you want to make sure that you use a secured channel over an insecure network (especially when you are using public wifi).
The secured connection will encrypt your data and create a secured channel when you are transferring data. This ensures at least treasonable protection from eavesdroppers in cyber space and others who want to intercept and access your data during data transfer.
How do you tell if your connections are secured?
Look out for the padlock and the green word “https” at the browser address bar as is shown in the diagram below. You should be able to see this at most sites you visit.
It is not always possible to use https connection so if you are not comfortable just don’t access those sites and especially not while you are using public wifi system.
However when you are doing any sort of on-line payment or mCommerce, you will want to make sure that you are use https and secured connection!
Again when in doubt do not use sites that are not secured. This is especially true when you are using third party applications on Facebook because you have a lot of sensitive and personal information on Facebook. Use the internet but just use it wisely and do not expose yourself to more danger than you need to.
In the next post we will talk about how to enable https on Facebook and Gmail – the two most common applications you will use for daily internet access.
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[…] In the previous post we talked about what Https is and why you want to make sure you are using secure connection as far as it is possible for you. Click here if you want to know What Is HTTPS And Why Does It Concern You? […]