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Posts Tagged ‘twitter’

Using Technology to Effectively and SECURELY Donate

As the effects of natural disasters bring us together to help those in need, Geek Squad wanted to take a moment to share some lessons on how social media and mobile devices can play a role in that assistance.

Products from shoes to bathroom scales have built-in tweeting, and at least one innovator has created an app that tweets everything that he watches around the house via TiVo. It may make your head spin to think that the same microblogging service helped serve as the groundwork for revolution in the Middle East as well as a key tool for finding loved ones after the tsunami in Japan. Obviously, not all tweets are created equal. It should come as no surprise, then, that scammers are always waiting to exploit the next big tragedy via these networks.

Here are a few tips to help you stay safe while assisting others:
- If you are being solicited by a stranger for donations, consider who they may be and what their credentials are. You can never be too careful with your financial information.
- Use reliable and reputable sites to research any charities to which you are considering contributing.
- If you have trouble finding a relief effort that you can verify as legitimate, turn to major organizations such as the American Red Cross. (Best Buy recently donated $100,000 to this group for storm relief efforts)
- If you do not want to donate via credit card, consider a text message donation. (More on this below)
- If you live near an area affected by a natural disaster, such as the recent wave of tornadoes in the south, search Facebook for groups that are organizing volunteer efforts.

Most tweets and Facebook posts soliciting donations no longer redirect you to a website where you enter a lot of personal information, or even to a PayPal link to donate directly through that method. Many of these solicitations now take the form of “Send ‘KEYWORD’ to 12345 to donate $5 to the relief efforts.” The phone number is a “short code,” which is a shortened phone number specifically designed for receiving text messages. This donation method sounds so easy… so how does it work?

Text message donations have been around for several years, but only recently came into the mainstream after the Haiti earthquake. The way these work is simple. First, you send a specific word to a specific phone number. Then, the donation will appear on your cell phone statement. This is an easy way to donate from the road if you can’t get in front of a computer, and most major charities and disaster relief funds have this capability. As always, make sure you check the legitimacy of the campaign before donating! We’ve included two resources below to help you get started.

RESOURCES:
http://www.bbb.org/us/charity/ – The Better Business Bureau’s U.S. charity division, a repository of information about legitimate and illegitimate charity efforts .
http://blog.charitynavigator.org/2011/04/us-tornado-disaster-relief.html – A list of some charities and what they are doing to help with the storm relief efforts.

Home Alone Preview Clip: Bookshelf Climb

To help mark the occasion, Geek Squad Agents will reenact the movie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/list/HomeAlone_GS/homealone-geeksquad

From now until December 15th at 1pm, the date of the reenactment, the Geek Squad blog will host Home Alone clips to build the excitment for the project!

Home Alone Preview Clip: Glued and Feathered

To help mark the occasion, Geek Squad Agents will reenact the movie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/list/HomeAlone_GS/homealone-geeksquad

From now until December 15th at 1pm, the date of the reenactment, the Geek Squad blog will host Home Alone clips to build the excitment for the project!

GS reenacts Home Alone via Twitter

 
The iconic movie, which featured the gadget-smart Kevin McCallister, took the country by storm in 1990 and sparked the excitement and curiosity of some future Geek Squad Agents.

To celebrate, on December 15th at 1pm EST Geek Squad Agents will “act” out the movie via Twitter by posing as some of the key characters within the film and tweeting the iconic dialogue. To follow all of the characters in one simple click, make sure to follow this twitter list: http://twitter.com/#!/HomeAlone_GS/homealone-geeksquad

Or, if you’d rather follow the “old fashioned” way, you can follow each main character individually: @HomeAlone_GS, @KevinM_GS, @KevinsMom_GS, @BanditHarry_GS, @BanditMarv_GS, @Buzz_GS, @KevinsDad_GS, @OldManMarley_GS, @Tarantula_GS, @UncleFrank_GS, @CousinMeg_GS, @CousinLinnie_GS, @CousinHeathr_GS, @NeighborBoy_GS

Don’t miss out on this once and lifetime opportunity — it’s not always you see Agents flexing their acting skills. The tweeting will start soon so keep a look out for Kevin, Buzz and the Wet Bandits.

Here’s a quick clip of the movie, to get you in the spirit. We’ll be adding more clips as the reenactment gets closer- so make sure to keep your eye out to relive more of Kevin’s antics!

HOME ALONE © 1990 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. All rights reserved.

Socially Safe

Social networking websites are one of the fastest growing website genres on the internet. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc. Connect, chat, and let people know what you are doing with just a click of the mouse or punch of the cell phone button. This is “the thing” to do nowadays, the way we keep in touch. With this easy of communication comes the possibility of exploitation. Today we are going to talk about the possible safety hazards of letting your guard down when socially networking via the internet.

There are a couple of set-in-stone ground rules that everyone needs to know about social networking websites. Let me share with you the same information I tell most of my clients:

• Social networking websites themselves are generally safe; The content people put on them, however, may not be. It is the human element you need to worry about.

• Always remember that any content you post on the internet will be there forever, for anyone to read, store, and republish

Now that we are armed with those rules, let us run through a few possible scenarios. For instance, you hop onto a popular networking site to update your status and you see you have a message from your friend. We are talking about someone you know but does not frequently message you. You open the message and there is a link to what is described as a ‘cool video’ or some super-duper product that you should “check out.” The link doesn’t work, or for whatever reason it doesn’t seem to work. Or perhaps it is such as stupid thing you are wondering why your friend was even wasting your time. “No biggie” you may think. A week later, however, you find that you are getting popup ads left and right and your computer is slowing down.

What happened? Well your friend probably had a virus or spyware infection that spreads itself via sending messages to everyone who his is ‘friend,’ telling them to click on the link. When the link is clicked the spyware is installed. (Please remember that antivirus and antispyware programs are not always 100% effective) The spyware has been watching what you are typing, trying to steal credit card numbers, or otherwise is up to no good. Bam, you’ve been socially hacked.

Another scenario popping up lately involves micro-blogging websites. One of the most popular is Twitter. (Micro-blogging is posting status updates or information in only one to two sentences). There are several excellent micro-blogger humans out there reporting everything from celebrity updates, news hot off the press, and even your latest television show character developments.

However, there are also those micro-blogging accounts where it seems that some “person” is following the status updates of 5,000 people yet only 10 or 20 people are following them. This seems odd…who has the time to follow 5,000 people yet is not popular enough to warrant anybody ‘following’ what they are doing? Yet this random person just ‘followed’ or ‘added’ you to the list of people they listen in on? Weird! So what in the world is going on?

Well, it is completely feasible that this person is waiting for you, and the 5,000 other people, to post something that could be personally identifying. Maybe you don’t post revealing information all at once. Perhaps without realizing it you do it over the course of months. Like pieces of a puzzle to be assembled into a greater picture at a later time. Maybe you uploaded a photo revealing your address or house number in the background of your family picnic? Did you post something with your name on it, or tied to your name like the picture of the new car you bought? Did you just update your status about the burger joint on the corner of Main St and how you are eating there?

Believe it or not just with that simple information above a person can cause you a big headache. For example: With that house number, nearby the burger joint address, the make/model of your car or license plate number in a picture (and personal information tied to this plate number), or anything else you posted, someone could do something as simple as fill out a credit card application in your name. With the free credit card application they stole out of your mailbox. Or perhaps they could use this information to impersonate you in other ways. Ick, who the heck needs that sort of trouble!

That whole scenario seems like a lot of trouble for someone to go through, but it really is not that hard. There are freely available programs on the internet that can scour social networking websites for certain keywords multiple times per hour. When they hit upon this keyword, the program marks that post for future review by human eyes. That person who was following you now has all the information they need from your three months of blogging posts to paint an excellent picture of you. They could possibly step into your shoes if they wanted to.

So what can you do to protect yourself? Remember the set-in-stone rules I mentioned above. What appears to be, may not be true. Ask your friend you do not speak to often if they really sent you a funny video about a cat climbing the Christmas Tree before you open the message and follow the link.

Do not post anything on the internet you wouldn’t want someone to see no matter how innocuous it seems to be. Personally identifying information such as license plate numbers, house numbers or other addresses, specific names, how you went to Johnny’s High school and still live in the same town…things like that. Remember that this information is stored somewhere, likely in multiple places, for almost all eternity. Information can be used like pieces in a puzzle to paint a bigger picture of you.

Do not accept “friend requests” from people you do not know. Do not allow people to “follow” you if you do not know who they are. If you are unsure as to the authenticity of the person on the other end, ask them a piece or two of personal information that only the true person would know. Watch your children and make sure when they are on these social sites that they adhere to your rules and guidelines.

Trust your gut feeling. When a scenario seems odd it could mean someone is up to no good. In addition, remember when you cannot see the person on the other end of the internet connection you have no proof they are who they say they are.

I truly hope this information helps steer you towards trouble-free social waters. The internet is certainly an awesome way to connect and stay in touch at the speed of light. We need not be afraid of the web, but we do need to respect the power it can have over us if used incorrectly.

Now I think I will go post on Twitter that I have finished writing this blog…

Before you click on that link…

Language was shortened long ago for ease of Instant Messaging. So when text messaging became popular, people were already armed with ‘c u l8r’, ‘IDK’, and ‘BRT’ (or “see you later”, “I don’t know”, and “be right there” for proponents of the Queen’s English). This computer lingo comes in handy now that social networking sites, like Twitter, are designed for short and succinct updates.

But what if you wanted to Twitter a link to my epic blog about using secure passwords? As you may know, Twitter updates are capped at 140 characters. The full address of my post is:

http://www.geeksquad.com/intelligence/blog/use-halibut-to-protect-your-identity/#more-474.

Not only is that hard to type, but it weighs in at 89 characters. This only leaves you 51 characters for the remainder of your tweet. When it comes to Twitter updates, space is at a premium. 

Enter the URL shortening services. After TinyURL.com was launched in 2002, there have been numerous other sites with a similar spin, such as snipurl.com, is.gd, and bit.ly. By using their services, the large unwieldy URL above is rendered as http://tinyurl.com/yjclqts . Much easier on the thumbs, and it gives you more space to write glowing praise about the link in question.

The problem is, as with anything on the Internet, you find people with malicious intent looking to use URL shorteners to their advantage. Firewalls, anti-virus software, anti-spyware software, and phishing scanners are great, but if you click a link that goes directly to a malicious site, often there isn’t anything security software can do about it. You may think you’re following a friend’s link to a story about the release of Windows 7, and end up at a site with adult content or a site with the intent to infect your computer with a virus.

Some of the shortening services have instituted a preview system; for example, if you were to enter http://preview.tinyurl.com/yjclqts, the tinyurl site will tell you what the link points to. But for those sites that don’t have a preview system, or if you don’t want to retype all of them, there are a few ways to make sure you don’t end up someplace you’d rather not be.

There are add-ons, which are programs you can download for Firefox and Internet Explorer, which check the shortening site and report back to you the expanded URL, and then giving you the option of clicking on it or not. Longurl.org is a website that you can go to where you can copy and paste the shortened URL, and it will report back the full link.

 So while sometimes your friends may just be trying to hit you with the most viral Internet prank of all time, other times you may find something far worse than Rick Astley on the other end of that link.

If you’re looking for some of these add-ons, go to http://snipurl.com/sikhj for Firefox or http://bit.ly/3RD3sP for Internet Explorer.

Geek Squad’s here to Twelp You!

There’s been a lot of very positive talk recently about Best Buy’s @Twelpforce since its launch three months ago, but it’s not the only way to reach out for Geek Squad assistance.

Geek Squad is available 24 hours a day via phone at 1-800 GEEK SQUAD (1-800-433-5778).  Our Mission Control Agents can help you schedule on-site appointments with our field Agents, or direct you to our other remote service options.

If you have broadband Internet access and can connect to the Internet, we can assist you with your remote support needs via our Virtual Agents at the GeekSquad.com.

If you’re looking to talk to a live Agent in person, you can use our store locator to find the nearest Geek Squad Precinct, often located in your neighborhood Best Buy.

Of course, if you have Twitter, you can always reach us through @GeekSquad or @Twelpforce .

@Twelpforce Answering Questions via Twitter

Starting this week, you may notice some new commercials from Best Buy talking about the new channel.

Tech Isn’t Just For the Young

When I hear stories like a 104 year old Twitter user (Ivy Bean), I wonder if it’s our own reservations that keep us older folks from diving into the latest and greatest tech. Children are less likely to allow the intimidation of new technology get in the way of using it.

Geeks? Ghostbusters!

The release of a Blu-ray 25th anniversary edition of the film last week is like welcoming an old friend back in shiny, new HD duds. As soon as the movie starts up again, I’m instantly transported to the first time I saw this classic as a kid in the theaters, and it is wonderful!