Online Security and Privacy

When talking tech, security and privacy are very important points to discuss. Passwords, EULA, permissions, cookies; they’re terms we’ve all heard, but what do they mean to you? What do they mean to your faculty, students, physicians, and other patrons?

Many of us blindly accept the EULA (for apps and programs) or terms of service (for websites and services) and the permissions needed for apps. These agreements can be intrusive, a lot more intrusive than you may think. What can we do to ensure our security and privacy? What would we do if we couldn’t use Snapchat or Uber because we didn’t like the permissions needed to make those apps work? Password creation has more requirements than in years past; most sites now require combinations of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, special characters, and who knows what else to have a password deemed to be strong or secure.

Are these requirements really necessary to make your passwords strong? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes. We all know not to share our passwords or other sensitive information on social media such as Twitter, but for those of you who may be less privacy- or security-aware, we’ve listed several steps you can take to strengthen your passwords and keep your information secure.

1.  Actually read the terms of service or EULA and agree to them before clicking that little box and submitting.
2. Know what permissions apps require. If you don’t like the permissions, choose not to share all of your information or don’t download the app.
3. Look into do-not-track settings on your browser. You won’t get those amazing targeted ads that give you links to similar items that you recently viewed or bought, but that’s okay. For more information that’s specific to your device and browser, check out the All About Do Not Track website.
4. Have a different password for each site. Honestly, this one’s hard. I have logins for so many sites and apps and ones for work and home. How can anyone manage so much information
5. Answer: consider using a password manager. LastPass and 1Password are two of the more popular password managers but others exist. Password managers select random, long passwords for every site you create a login in for and synchronize them across your devices.
6. So these password managers are on to something. Your passwords need to be random and long; think of them as phrases instead of words. John Oliver and Edward Snowden gave a couple of amazing examples in the video linked below.
7. The answers to your security questions are just as important as your passwords, so you should use the same techniques for creating them. Guess what? You can lie; you don’t actually have to use your mom’s real maiden name or the street you grew up on. As long as you know what you listed as your answer, you’re good to go.
8. Use a two-factor authentication process. Two Factor Auth (2FA) provides information on who does and does not use two-factor authentication and how to enable this method on sites or services that do. As a bonus, they also provide ways to contact organizations that do not support two-factor authentication.
9. Last (on this list anyways), but not least, encrypt your information. Encrypt your computer’s hard disk, and encrypt calls and messages on your phone or tablet. In some cases, encryption is automatic; however, in others, you may be required to turn on encryption. The same is true for certain apps.

This list is by no means comprehensive. There are other ways that you can secure your information and there may be better ways to create strong passwords. Below are some videos on the topic of passwords and privacy that may shine more light on the topic and answer some questions that weren’t addressed in this post.

Edward Snowden on Passwords (Last Week Tonight with John Oliver) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzGzB-yYKcc

#PrivacyProject (Silent Circle) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcjtEKNP05c

Lorrie Faith Cranor: What’s wrong with your pa$$w0rd? (TED Talks) - http://www.ted.com/talks/lorrie_faith_cranor_what_s_wrong_with_your_pa_w0rd?language=en

Glenn Greenwald: Why privacy matters. (TED Talks) - http://www.ted.com/talks/glenn_greenwald_why_privacy_matters

Project Management with Trello

By Elena Azadbakht, MSI, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg.

Looking for a new way to manage projects or visualize your to-do list? Give Trello a try! Trello is a (mostly) free web-based project management tool based on the Kanban method popularized by David J. Anderson. It works across several operating systems, browsers, and devices. (There’s even a Trello smartphone app.)

Prior to this summer, I managed my to-do list using a document within Google Drive. While this text-based method was simple and straightforward, I wasn’t really able to visualize my various goals and tasks and the progress I was making towards accomplishing them. A colleague introduced me to Trello, and as it seemed to provide the features that were missing from my Google Drive system.

Disaster Apps for the Well-Prepared

What my Minnesotan eyes see during Florida's daily afternoon rainstorm

Considering that hurricane season is well under way in the southeast already and my hurricane go-bag is still only halfway packed (I’m from Minnesota originally and a blizzard kit doesn’t translate well to Florida), I thought I would interrupt our regularly scheduled tech tips to look at some interesting apps for disaster preparedness, for you or your library! 

Of course, if you want to use these apps in the midst of a natural disaster like a hurricane, you are going to need some way to keep your phone or tablet charged in the middle of a power outage, so feel free to take a moment and shop for external batteries and emergency generators before continuing.

Spice Up Your Instruction With Nearpod!

By Emily Brennan, MLIS, Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC Library)

Do you want an easy way to jazz up your instruction and make it more interactive? Then check out Nearpod! Nearpod is an online classroom tool for teachers to engage students with interactive lessons. You can create a very basic presentation from within Nearpod but I think it is best to import a PowerPoint then add interactive features throughout your presentation. Once you complete your presentation, students join the presentation by going to Nearpod (app or website) and entering a code. Students see the presentation (controlled by you) on their device and participate in the interactive features. You can share their answers with the class or keep them private.

The free version (Silver Account) allows up to 30 devices to join the session and includes 50MB of storage. If you get 5 friends to sign-up for Nearpod (via your invitation), you can freely upgrade to the Gold Account for 6 months. The Gold Account ($10/month) includes the additional features of assigning homework, receiving detailed reports, integrating multimedia, and 3GB of storage.

Essential Apps for the Medical Mobile Tech Novice

Photo by stockmedia.cc/CC BY 3.0

By Ariel Pomputius, MLIS, University of Florida    

Every month, on the second Wednesday of the month, the blog team would like to talk Tech. While I promise that we will try our hardest to cover as wide a range of technology as possible, I feel like you can’t start talking tech without talking about mobile tech.  And when you talk mobile tech, you’re probably talking apps.

Apps have been on my mind recently.  If you can think it, there’s almost certainly an app for that, particularly in the medical field (I’m looking at you oddly-specific-but-apparently-very-accurate baby due date calculator), and the new generation of future healthcare professionals turns to the phone in their pocket for the answer before they even think to turn to the nearest computer terminal.  In response to a recent survey at our organization in which our library patrons clamored for more mobile information resources, a coworker and I are developing a class on “Mobile Resources for Health” (yes, we suffer from a lack of creativity regarding class titles, feel free to offer suggestions in the comments) which thus far consists mainly of a large collection of interesting apps and advice on how to find more.

So here’s a few of the VERY basic apps that I’ve found in my research for that class. These are essential for everyone from first year medical students to senior reference librarians to have on their smartphones or tablets.  If these aren’t particularly new or interesting to you, please feel free to suggest alternatives (or champion the ones you do use!) in the comments section.