transcript
Speaker 1:
Protecting your privacy is extremely important on any given platform. There is information out there that people can use to create a world of trouble for you. I’ll start with the first example. Sharing your Skype.
Skype information can lead to a world of problems. What people can pull from Skype is something called an IP address which will lead directly to your internet at your home, your router, your connection. If someone really had the wrong intentions and they got your Skype user name, they can lead it straight to your IP address at your home and do something called DDoSing, which is basically sending massive amounts of packets to flood your internet and make it unusable.
This is a problem for live streamers. We’re there, on the spot. We have to have this great internet connection, stable internet connection in order to produce our content. When that’s affected, pretty much everything is shut down. And this is just one way that people can get to you, right? And it’s about how you take the right precautions, the right measures to not only trust too many people. I get reached out to all the time from organizations and I’m very, very, very skeptical with what information I’m sharing, especially when it comes down to communicating with me directly, whether it be phone number or video call, all of that stuff. Set up separate emails to strictly have these separate conversations, especially when it comes down to business, because people will try to hack into your stuff. With enough popularity, there’s going to be malicious guys out there trying to do the wrong things with your stuff.
Also be very careful with what questions you answer in chat. People will try to slip in like simple security questions. Where’d you grow up, where’d you live, what’s your mother’s name? These little things, you have to be very careful with. Subconsciously you have to always think about it. Don’t give out too much information. Be careful what you share.
Of course we put a lot out there. It’s not impossible to learn things about people. It’s okay to share about yourself, but you have to be very cautious on what you’re sharing, when you’re sharing it, and how you’re giving out that information, and what bulks of information you’re giving out.
When it comes down to your information that you share, people are going to know your name. They’re probably going to figure out when you were born, but those are things you want to keep to yourself. Revealing stuff on your computer, try not to have too much stuff saved in your files. You never know if you accidentally display something from your cell phone or from your computer desktop. I’ve done that in the past, I’ve had that mistake where I revealed my address and I was harassed for like a week. One troll viewer took a screenshot and kept posting it. I had to make a banword out of it.
So, protecting your own privacy? Ban your own phone number in your chat. Ban certain case sensitive words that might lead to your street or something like that. Just protect yourself. You don’t want to fall victim to harassment or any of these negative things that can come with. Another example would be SWATing, where people think that it’s funny to send a prank police phone call, and have these guys show up to your door knocking thinking there’s something serious going on. These are serious situations that there are kids out there or just malicious people that think this stuff is funny. They’ll get a kick out of these situations and making your life harder.
Protect yourself. It’s extremely important. If you’re getting into this world of streaming and youtube content creating, anything, just daily. Make sure you’re okay. Make sure you’re not giving out too much information. Make sure your sources are credible. If you’re having a conversation with someone, do your background check. Search up their orgs. Whoever it is, whoever they are claiming to be, make sure it is real. It’s real. It’s right. It has to feel right.
I hope this helps you out as far as protecting yourself and what are some of the harms that can come from even sharing something like Skype. You have to be very, very cautious, so be careful guys.