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Many use the terms Internet and World Wide Web interchangeably, but they are two different concepts. The Internet’s birthday is 1969, and refers to the connection between devices. The World Wide Web refers to the space that holds the information.
Like many other technological advancements, the web has ushered in a new world of opportunity – opportunity that is not limited to the well-intentioned.
“There’s always a threat,” said Special Agent Marquis Navarro, Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 631. “Once you’ve been compromised, you don’t know who’s coming. If you can be blackmailed into something, you don’t know if it’s just a criminal after money, someone looking for base secrets, or a terrorist looking for base access. You don’t know who’s on the other end.
“You don’t want to be the conduit to hurt other people, keeping everything secure keeps everybody safe.”
Most service members coming in now do not know a world without the web. This puts the Air Force force structure in a position where some people regard the Web with as much familiarity as a car, and some who may still see it as a dangerous unknown.
Internauts to whom using the Internet is as much – or more – a part of their daily life as walking, can learn caution from those to whom it’s unfamiliar, just as the network novice can learn to defend themselves from those to whom it’s familiar.
“If you have social media,” said Navarro. “Keep it secure. Set your privacy settings to the highest possible that particular media outlet allows. That way if you do start to see funky things happening, you know you’ve been hacked.”
With the ever-increasing array of smartphones and wearable technology, network security is no longer something that only affects a personal computer. Most service members have an open door to their lives nestled right in their pocket.
“A big trend lately is sextortion,” Navarro said. “A [service member] finds a person of interest on a chat location and everything’s going great. The other individual decides to send a naked picture – and it’s usually a female talking to a male – the Airman reciprocates and sends back a picture of himself.”
“About a day or two later, the individual gets a message from the girl’s ‘dad’ stating his daughter is only 15 years old; ‘pay me money or I’ll go to the authorities’. So the unsuspecting Airman thinks he’s in trouble because any compromising position of someone under the age of 18 is considered child pornography. No Airman wants to lose his career over a mistake like that, so they end up paying. We’ve seen as much as $5,000. It’s more common than you’d think. Since May, we’ve had four incidents like this here.”
If service members decide to use apps to meet people, they should do so cautiously and intelligently. Verify the age first, and if caught in a trap, report it sooner rather than later, Navarro said. It looks much worse to try to hide suspected child pornography than it does to report it as soon as it comes to attention.
“We understand people don’t want to be associated with it,” Navarro said. “So they just pay them. What they don’t know is they’ll keep coming back. You know how they say don’t feed the animals? Same concept; if you keep paying the dirtbag, the dirtbag is going to keep coming back and the threat is still going to be there because they have all your stuff.”
Regardless of whether it be based in over-familiarity or lack of expertise, the risk remains the same in the online battlefield. Service members need to be aware of their digital footprint, perhaps now more than ever.
For more information on staying safe in the digital frontier, visit http://www.af.mil/News/ArticleDisplay/tabid/223/Article/581718/keeping-our-military-safe-on-social-media.aspx.
| Date Taken: | 08.23.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 08.25.2016 13:59 |
| Story ID: | 208184 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, AK, US |
| Web Views: | 27 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Rise of the internauts, by TSgt Kyle Johnson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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