Signs you are Dealing with an Online Troublemaker
This is a short blog telling you about a few things that online troublemakers do, and how to spot them in a conversation.
Please remember that not everyone who posts online sounding upset is a “troll”. They may have just had a bad day, and something someone said set them off.
Also just because someone calls someone else a “troll” does not necessarily make them one. Many times people will call other people “trolls” just because they disagreed with them. That is not right nor honest.
- Personal attacks
Many times, online troublemakers (e.g., trolls) will post a quick message with a personal attack in it. They usually will have little to no discussion about the topic at hand, and they will just seem to want to call people names and taunt people. Basically they will give pointless talk with little to no technical arguments.
Conclusion: If an online poster (in a comments section or forum) keeps “trash talking” (abusing) users, they are probably just out to cause trouble and nothing more. It is best to ignore such posters. As they say, “don’t feed the trolls”.
- Out of Context
You may find online troublemakers posting unrelated information.
For example, a discussion is going on about Windows and a fella comes on and starts saying how bad Windows is and how MacOS X is a much better choice.
This person is a troll. Why? He is posting irrelevant information that has a good chance of causing people to become agitated. While there is a chance that he is honestly posting information, it would be unlikely given the circumstance.
Conclusion: Posters who post off topic for no apparent reason usually have an agenda that is not in your (or anyone else’s) best interest.
- Fake Sincerity
These people are harder to spot. They usually come in the form of wanting to know more about a subject, but when you engage them in conversation, it starts to become apparent they already made up their mind on the subject, and for some reason wanted to debate it with you.
I think people who do this are trying to trick you into believing just like they do, without you realizing it.
Conclusion: These posters are definitely wasting your time playing dumb. They were not even open to an honest, mature conversion to begin with. Do not ask me why people do that, but it is dishonest.
- They have the “know-it-all” attitude
These posters like to post to show off their knowledge (as well as feed their ego). They really do not care if you learn anything from what they said (assuming they are correct to begin with).
They just like hearing themselves talk and they like thinking that everyone around them assumes they are smart.
Conclusion: If you see a post online that seems to go on and on with a hint of bad attitude, you have a clue that this person will not take criticisms of their posts lightly, and may even argue with you even if you have shown proof to disprove what they said.
- The “you are wrong!” kind of people
These people usually will reply to someone saying “Your spreading FUD“, “your an idiot”, “your stupid”, “you have some mistakes of what you said…”, etc. You get the idea. They typically will give little to no technical arguments. They basically just say you’re wrong without explaining why you are wrong.
In my opinion, whenever someone says “your wrong” but they cannot explain why, they don’t have any argument and just disliked what you said. That’s silly.
Posted in General, Internet and Servers, Society
What is the Safest Free Email Service Available to the Public?
This is a good question I will try to answer. There really is no “safest, free” e-mail service out there. However, I will discuss the good, bad, and the ugly of using a “free” email service.
Please remember anytime you use a “free” online service, the service itself is not really free. Why? Well because they have your data. Today, data is like a product to sell. People can sell data they collect to people like advertisers and private companies who can make use of it (for good reasons……or bad reasons).
Unfortunately this data is usually personal information you provided through a “free” e-mail account, “free” instant messaging service, “free” video call (e.g., Skype), “free” web hosting account, “free” file storage (who puts their personal files [like photos] on a random, who-knows-who-really-owns-it server anyway?), “free” video hosting service (e.g., YouTube), etc. You get the idea.
These companies that provide free e-mail services are probably selling your data to other companies. This is one way they can make money to pay for hosting those “free” e-mail accounts to begin with. Also, this is why if you do anything personal on your “free” e-mail account, it isn’t really private.
The Good
- No technical knowledge of email needed to get started
- No worry about making backups (if using a reputable provider like Gmail)
- No worry about blocking spam (the provider should be doing this for you anyway)
- No worry about managing your own server to run your own e-mail server
- No worry about others not getting their e-mails to you (reliable providers should be constantly monitoring their servers for issues like Gmail or Yahoo would do)
The Bad
- No control over how much disk space you can have
- No control over who the service provider decides to block e-mails coming from / or going to
- No control over service outages (they probably will just silently fix the issues with little to no notifications about what happened)
- Sometimes you may not get the exact name you want for your e-mail address, since someone else may have previously taken the same name (for example: you want john.doe@example.com, but someone has already taken that name; you then may have to settle for john.doe193@example.com instead…not something that everyone may want)
The Ugly
- No control over your data (they have your e-mails, you do not!)
- No ownership of your e-mails (not only do you not control your e-mails, you technically do not own them either…they do) —- I know you may disagree with me, but let’s face facts, like I said before, they have the data, not you!
- Anyone at the company (or individual hosting free accounts) can snoop into your e-mails that you send or receive.
- Your “free” e-mail service with _all_ of your e-mails could be deactivated and erased with no prior notice for _any_ reason they deem acceptable.
- Your emails may also be stored permanently in backups the hosting service makes, which means when you delete an e-mail, it may not really be deleted!
You may want to consider carefully reading the “Terms of Service” agreement for “free” e-mail providers to see how they deal with their users’ privacy.
Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Security