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cial activities secure, and so feel my use is safe
(Continued from page 1)
enough. I sure wouldn’t want to go back to banking
cern; they obviously must have a point of view differ- in person or by phone or having to mail paper
ent from mine on this. checks in for payments. The postal system seems
less secure than it used to, so mail theft of my paper
I didn’t think much about these differences in points statements now seems a greater risk than an online
of view until the start of the pandemic last year when breach.
I found some good friends who refused to use
Zoom. I had set up a personal Zoom account in I also have reservations about password managers.
2015 to use for some purpose related to UCHUG I have less distrust in them now but originally feared
but never used it much. That changed greatly in that if they were not secure and could be hacked, all
March 2020, when we were forced to hold our board your passwords would then be vulnerable. I devel-
meeting virtually on Zoom. Since then, with the help oped my own process for managing passwords and
of APCUG, we have been able to use their paid prefer it, but would recommend a password manag-
Zoom accounts to hold all our board and general er to others at this point
meetings. There are some members we have not Voice-operated assistants (or smart speakers) can
seen during this time, but we don’t know why. I am be very useful, but there are certainly privacy con-
aware of security concerns about Zoom but have cerns to consider in their use. While I have several
researched them, and now have used it so much Amazon Alexa devices, I don’t trust them fully. I re-
that I feel it can be trusted. alize I am trading some loss of privacy for their con-
Before the pandemic, I met for lunch periodically venience. It is the same with Amazon in general,
with a group of longtime friends that I worked with at and with Google. I love Google Maps but have con-
one time or another. After we could no longer meet cerns about all the location data I am providing
in person due to COVID, I set up Zoom virtual lunch when I use it. It is always a risk/reward evaluation
meetings so that we could stay in touch. Many in for each service; there are some Google services I
this group participated, but some would not; they don’t feel are worth the risk, and so don’t use them.
were concerned about the security issues and “just A smart or connected home can be a concern for
didn’t do Zoom.” This is unfortunate as I would like some. I have a lot of smart home devices that I feel
to see more of them. I periodically remind them that are fairly benign, like smart lights, thermostats, and
they could join our Zoom lunches, but I’m always cameras. While I agree it would be handy, I’m not
rebuffed. I’m starting to feel like I’m trying to talk trusting enough to consider a smart lock for my
them into using heroin. I don’t think they are para- home just yet. I was once very concerned about
noid, as there are other things that these friends do home Wi-Fi and kept it disabled when not using it
that I find too risky. directly. As I found reasons to use it more and hard-

There are a few popular things that I don’t trust at ened my home network with more secure equipment
this point. One is social networks. While I do have and practices, I became more trusting. Still, the ma-
an account on LinkedIn (for job search and career jority of my home computers and the ones I use for
purposes), I’ve never had a Facebook or Twitter ac- my most sensitive computing are on my wired net-
count. I don’t have any interest in them, and since I work.
do have security and privacy concerns about partici- Antivirus is something I’ve become less trusting of.
pating in these sites, I just don’t. There are no doubt After research and consideration, I’m now in agree-
some things I miss out on by avoiding social net- ment with those that believe that any external secu-
works. My church has a private social network that rity program opens holes in the operating system
would probably provide useful information, but my and thus increases risk. I’m now using the security
feelings about Facebook have kept me from investi- built into Windows 10, rather than an external antivi-
gating it further. Some people don’t trust online rus program (and saving money). I am much more
banking and bill payment. I once felt that way. While suspicious of security and “cleaning” programs now,
I do still have security concerns, the overwhelming as some exhibit malware-like behaviors.
convenience of these services has won me over. I
take every precaution I can to keep my online finan- (Continued on page 5)

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