Lock your Wi-Fi!

Today I bring you a public service announcement. If you use Wi-Fi, lock it up!

"Um...what do you mean, lock it up?

I'm glad you asked! If your wireless router is "locked up," that means it's using WEP, WPA, or WPA-2 encryption. In other words, it means you need to enter a password in order to access the internet through your wireless router.

When you check for an available wireless network, you should see a lock symbol, as you see on the network in my home as well as on all of my neighbors' (except for the last, which isn't a valid network):



"But why should I care if my neighbor wants to use my internet?"

Great question! For the answer, check out this story:

A New York man learned the hard way that leaving your wireless router open to the general public can have some very negative consequences, and that the authorities tend to act first and ask questions second.

You might think it's no big deal to share your wireless network with your neighbors. But that altruism can bite you in the butt when a less scrupulous neighbor, or a random stranger connects to the wireless network and uses it for illegal activity. As far as the authorities are concerned, that illegal activity originates from your wireless router, so you are the primary suspect.

So, what happened? Well, this guy left his home Wi-Fi network unprotected, and a slimy neighbor piggy-backed on his "free" wireless network to access thousands of child pornography images.

So if you or your neighbor wants to freeload off the other, go for it. But keep a lock on your router and know that if you give someone access to your network, you'll be the suspect for any of their illicit activity.

Google, Facebook, and your personal information

Whenever I get a phone call from a number I don't recognize, I Google it before answering. I simply enter "000-000-0000." I can always at least find out which geographic location is home to the area code, which often tells me who's calling. Sometimes I even get the name of the organization the call is coming from or, if I'm really lucky, the name of the person calling.

I ran a search on an unknown number that came in today and actually got the name of the caller, who turned out to be a coworker who was calling me from his cell phone. I'd never seen a Facebook post give me the caller's identity before.


The only search result in all of Google that actually told me this guy's identity is a crass Facebook post from a guy who lost his cell phone and just needs his buddies' phone numbers. My coworker had entered his number in the comments and likely never thought anything of it.

I told him about it and he immediately deleted his number from the comments, but of course that doesn't change the fact that Google has his phone number cached and still returns that page as its top result, regardless of the fact that his number is no longer listed there. It also doesn't help the 17 other people whose phone numbers are still listed on that page.

What makes this even stranger - or more unsettling, depending on your perspective - is how long this post had been sitting out there. I blacked out my colleague's name and number in the image above, but you can clearly see the date and time: "May 27, 2007 at 10:12am." This guy left his buddy his phone number almost 4 years ago on Facebook and it's still out there and is the number 1 Google search for his phone number.

Your Facebook privacy settings should protect what's on your own page, but they don't impact what you post on others' pages or group walls. Ultimately, you have to consider anything you post online to be public information forever, regardless of your settings. Google is returning results from social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, using your discussions with friends to populate its search results.

A search of my phone number won't lead you to Facebook, but it will tell you that I used to lead a church small group. The church-related pages, which I didn't know existed, give the meeting location of that small group, which happens to be my home address. It also tells you my wife's name. Another page in the search results tells you that I used to umpire for the city of St. Paul. I don't lead that church group or umpire any longer, but my information is still out there.

I don't worry about my web presence. I figure if someone really wants to find out where I live, they'll figure it out one way or another. But a lot of people are concerned about this. Do you worry about your personal information being online?

And is it weird that I Google phone numbers I don't recognize?

What the internet has done for me lately

Last week I noted that we had a $600 travel voucher from a friend that expired yesterday. I asked for suggestions from all of you for where we should go and here's what I got:

(If it's in italics and underlined, we've been there together; if it's just underlined, we've each been there separately; if it's in bold, I've been there but Jamie hasn't.)

Savannah, GA (4x)
New York, NY (3x)
Washington, DC (3x)
Hilton Head, SC (2x)
Charleston, SC (2x)
Orlando, FL (2x)
California (2x)
Florida (2x)
Charlotte, NC
Roswell, NM
Yakima, WA
St. Louis, MO
Cheyenne, WY
Hot Springs, AR
Napa, CA
Chattanooga, TN
Whidbey Island, WA
Boston, MA
Maui, HI
Rhinelander, WI
New Orleans, LA
Bar Harbor, ME
Grand Canyon, AZ
Newport, RI
Grand Cayman
Wyoming
Aspen, CO

This is a great list and it was great to see which destinations were most popular. We even got an invitation to stay with some friends of my brother's in Savannah!

We ended up surprising ourselves and going with a destination that wasn't on anyone's list (unless you include the generic "California"): San Diego.

We've each been there but not together. Flights and hotels are reasonable and it's warm, which was a KEY factor.

My mom offered to watch our kids for us so we booked the trip for April and then got a hotel room through Priceline.

A few minutes after I booked the trip I realized we had tickets to The Civil Wars in Minneapolis on the first day of the trip. They're in town the day before as well so we could still see them but I needed to sell the tickets I'd purchased already.

I posted an ad on Craigslist at 7:52 PM last night. At 8:28 the tickets were sold. It took all of 36 minutes on a Sunday night to sell my tickets.

To recap, in the last 4 days the internet has delivered:

• An email with a travel voucher
• 27 ideas for where to use that travel voucher
• A hotel
• A buyer for our unusable concert tickets
• New concert tickets on a day we could go
• Daily updates from Wide White

(Okay, so the last one was lame.)

What has the internet done for you lately?

Thank you Rae!

Rae Vogeler is running for U.S. Senate in Wisconsin. She's also a Green Party candidate.

I probably agree with Democrats more often than I do the Green Party. A few weeks ago I even wrote a post called "Wisconsin Green Party virtually nonexistent."

So I found it odd when I started getting hits on my blog from Vogeler's website. I went to her site to investigate.

Turns out her home page has a section called "The Buzz on Rae." I don't know if this thing is powered by a Google search that looks for any page linking to Vogeler's site or what. I wouldn't think her campaign would intentionally put my post up there. Regardless, my post is currently the 7th story on the buzz on Rae.

Either there isn't much of a buzz or there's something about "they [the Green Party] haven't put up a real statewide candidate" that Vogeler's campaign likes.

Either way, thanks for the few extra hits! I'll take whatever I can get....

UPDATE: I've also had a few hits from people searching for some guy named "Winston Sephus." Turns out that Winston Sephus Jr. is running for treasurer with the Green Party and I referenced him in that post. Hey, if I had a name like "Winston Sephus," I'd run for office too. I mean, that's a sweet name!