Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Personal Security, Online and In Person

I apologize for the delay in posting over here. As anyone who's following the other blog will know, I've been busy in Scotland, getting settled into my postgraduate program in Strategic Studies as well as life in general in Scotland. Unfortunately, security never sleeps, and there have been a number of items, varying in degree of tragedy and severity, that merit mention.

Beginning with the most absurd: David Axe reports at Wired.com that Taliban agents are posing online as "attractive women". While most of us aren't concerned with Taliban infiltration on a daily basis, this story is a good reminder that people online aren't always who they say they are. It's also to keep in mind that there's a spectrum: on the one end, you Taliban posing as beautiful women, or Nigerian princes who want to give you money. On the other end, you may have something fairly benign: a potential suitor being disingenuous about their weight or age, perhaps. One of the more outlandish claims I've ever heard about Craigslist is that most of the supposedly attractive women posting there are actually homosexual men trying to con straight men into sending inappropriate pictures of themselves. I can't speak to the accuracy of that claim, but regardless, it's a good reminder to be careful of the information you share online.

A friend sent me the second item for today, from the National Association of Realtors: 10 Things a Burglar Doesn't Want You to Know. It has some great tips for securing your home - and, not surprisingly, the advice can help with more than just burglars. The NAR also has a home security website and an RSS feed. One item that's not included in the list: get a dog.

I intend to express some thoughts about the recent events in Benghazi, Libya and Camp Bastion/Leatherneck, Afghanistan, but it's important to me that I do this properly, something I don't have time to do currently. I'll address one or both of these events in the next post.

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