Common Mistakes People Make when Researching Online
In this post, I will talk about common mistakes people make when using the Internet for research. The “research” could be anything from what phone to buy to fact-checking information you heard on the news.
Please note everything I say are my own opinions.
Only using social media as a source of information.
Social media (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Yahoo Answers, Disqus) are very popular places to get information from others. You will find the users on social media have wildly varying opinions. Unfortunately, most of these answers are given with little to no facts to back them up (a few do though).
In addition, social media tends to attract trolls who try to sow discord. Usually they gather like-minded minions who all-at-once gang up on someone they decide not to like that day. This wastes a researcher’s time, since he has to filter out irrelevant posts.
Summary: Occasionally you will find a good user on social media with quality information that is not just an opinion, but from my experience most social media answers are quickly written and are of poor quality.
“Everyone says the same thing, so it must be true!”
This one is a very common mistake. I even fell into this “everyone else says it” trap when I was younger.
This is when you do research and find a lot of people giving the same exact (or close) answer, and you believe what they are saying to be true just because everyone agrees. The problem? Everyone saying the same thing does not equal a true answer.
Sometimes (really a lot of times) the majority is not correct. How do you know that 2 or 3 people didn’t give misinformation online a while back, and everyone else jumped on the “band wagon” automatically believing what they were told and repeating the same to others?
You must conduct a lot of research – and may even experiment for yourself – to verify other people’s information (I do this a lot when solving IT problems). Some information will be accurate and others will be junk.
Some answers are obviously wrong. Like if a dozen or so people all claimed at once that they could jump 20 feet into the air with no assistance, you could safely assume they are lying (or are very delusional).
Another example is the “Linux is more secure than Windows” crowd on the Internet. You will find tons of websites that give this kind of misinformation (e.g. Windows gets viruses, while Linux doesn’t) with virtually no facts to back anything up.
Something similar happened on an Internet forum I was on several years ago. A ton of people (15+ posters) made claims that were very outlandish and unrealistic. Finally, one guy posted saying they were all lying and said if they were really doing what they claimed, they would have seriously hurt themselves. Listen…everyone except a couple of people stopped posting. The guy obviously was correct. They all were lying to boost their egos or whatever the reason.
Summary: The majority is not always correct, and may even be deceived themselves from rumors they heard or unfounded opinions presented as “facts”. Worse they may even be lying due to an agenda they have. This does nothing to help the researcher who is needing honest, accurate answers to his questions.
Blindly trusting information obtained on Wikipedia without verifying.
I’ve observed many people quoting Wikipedia like itโs the Bible and can give no wrong answers. I must disagree.
I have read things (e.g. health & politics) on Wikipedia that were at the very least biased and at worst propaganda. This is due to literally anyone being able to edit most articles on Wikipedia.
I had one Wikipedia article that made a bold claim, but when I clicked the link going to the supposed source of this information, the link didn’t even exist. Someone just made up stuff and gave a phony link to make it look good to people who didn’t bother to verify.
Even if the article’s author is telling the truth, a self-appointed “fact-checker” on Wikipedia may erase their edit due to a severe bias.
This happened to a friend of mine a while back. He corrected some misinformation on Wikipedia about the Bible, and someone literally admitted to him that he did not care about the misinformation and reverted my friend’s edit. Completely dishonest.
Summary: I find Wikipedia useful when it comes to topics such as PC/Console/Server technology or basic information about someone popular (e.g. their age & net worth). Anything else (e.g. politics, science, history, the Bible, etc.) tends to attract people with a major bias to intentionally give misinformation to others.
“Professionals (e.g. doctors, politicians, scientists) can be trusted to give accurate information on the Internet.”
Unfortunately, people who should “know the facts” don’t always know the facts. Sometimes they guess while claiming they “know for sure”, they may assume information they received is correct (without verifying), or they just plain make up information to support their agenda.
Of course, I am not saying all professionals do this, but it is a very common occurrence (e.g. fake news via the mainstream media).
This means if you automatically believe information without verifying “because my doctor said so” or “my nice newscaster in a suit & tie said so”, you may find that the information was not as accurate as you thought and this may lead to trouble for you.
Also, watch out for professionals who predict the price of stocks & cryptocurrency. In my experience, many people who give trading advice are just guessing themselves while passing off their opinions as verified facts (e.g. “the price of a particular stock @ $22.00 per share will rise to $25.00″…later on it doesn’t come close and may even drop).
I am not saying they have bad intentions when giving advise, but if you are not careful, this can bite you badly in the wallet.
Summary: Always verify information you receive, even if it comes from a “trusted” source. That source may be giving accurate data, but you should still do your due diligence and verify.
Posted in General, Internet and Servers
Several ‘no log’ VPN Providers Caught Keeping Logs
I have written before about being cautious concerning any VPN providers who claim they are not keeping logs.
Just this morning, I was sent an email concerning several VPN providers who had their data dumped onto the Internet, proving they had been keeping logs while claiming they do not keep logs.
- https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/17/ufo_vpn_database/
- https://betanews.com/2020/07/15/ufo-vpn-data-leak/
- https://www.techradar.com/news/these-no-log-vpns-actually-collect-plenty-of-logs-and-the-data-has-been-exposed
This is more proof that you should never trust a “no logging” VPN service to not keep logs.
Now am I saying that using a paid VPN is useless? No, but you need to be careful which VPN service you are using. In my experience, very few are legitimate, and even the legitimate ones are probably logging enough data to eventually identify you.
VPN services are in it for the money and most will say anything (e.g. “no logs”) to make a quick buck. Not to mention they could be selling your user data on the side – a double-whammy.
Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Security, Software, VPN
Happy 4th of July (2020)
๐๐ป๐ช๐ ๐ฏ๐ธ๐ป ๐ธ๐พ๐ป ๐๐ช๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ธ๐ท ๐ช๐ท๐ญ ๐ฒ๐ฝ๐ผ ๐๐ฎ๐ช๐ญ๐ฎ๐ป๐ผ๐ฑ๐ฒ๐น!
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord” – Psalm 33:12a (NASB)
“and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” – 2 Chronicles 7:14 (NASB)
Posted in Holiday
5 eBay Scams to Watch Out for as a Seller
Here are 5 eBay scams to watch out for if you are an eBay seller.
Please note that eBay sellers have almost no protection against dishonest buyers. Worse, several people in the eBay forums seem to fuss at the sellers for “not doing something right”, instead of being helpful and coming up with solutions to help remedy the problem.
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1) Bait-and-Switch Return
This is when a buyer purchases your item, you ship it, and he receives it with no issue. A few days later, he will start a return claiming “something is wrong” with the item, and ship it back to you.
However once you get the item back, you will discover that he placed either something else entirely in the box, or he shipped you his broken version of the item you sold (e.g. the serial number displayed on the returned item is not the serial for the item you sold).
Either way, you lost both the money and item. He gets away scot-free to do it again to another seller.
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2) Damaged Return
This one is similar to the “bait-and-switch” return. The difference is the buyer does in fact send you back the same item you sold, but he has damaged the item, while claiming that you sold it in bad condition.
I am not talking about damage due to shipping. I am talking about – more or less – complete destruction of the item. In other words, you lost your money and you no longer have an item to sell due to his carelessness or whatever caused the problem. Buyers who commit this kind of fraud are thieves & liars.
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3) Hoax Return
This is when a buyer claims something is wrong with the item you sold him. However once you receive the item back, it works perfectly and is definitely able to be resold. Nothing the buyer claimed was wrong with the item is true.
I suspect buyers who lie to get a return have either found a better deal and wanted some of their money back, or they were not happy – for whatever reason – with their purchase, and wanted to lie to make certain they would get a return. Either way you are dealing with a liar and you should block his eBay account. Remember every return costs you time & money.
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4) Cancelled Order after Shipment
This is when someone buys your item, you ship it off, and an hour or two later he suddenly cancels the order. The idea is you will not be able to stop the shipment in time, he gets your item and his money back. This scam usually is applied to high-priced items (e.g. gaming video cards, 4K televisions).
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5) Charge-back
This is when someone buys an item from you (usually high-priced), gets the item, then a few days later initiates a charge back. This is done either through PayPal or their credit company.
You lose your item and money. This is major fraud and the buyer not only should be kicked off eBay, but he should also be prosecuted. Otherwise he will just do it again to someone else.
Posted in General, Shopping