(Originally Posted in the spring of 2005)
While at the Developer Connections conference I talked with Dan Appleman as I’m a fan of his book written for (and partially by) teens: “Always Use Protection: A Teen’s Guide to Safe Computing”. It’s a great resource for those of us that have neighbors, friends, family and in-laws that are trying to setup networks in their homes and ask us for support.
This is a book about computer security and privacy, written especially for amateurs trying taking advantage of all the Internet has to offer. It goes beyond the "beware the dangers of chat room" warnings you're already aware of and tells you not only how to protect your computer form the latest invasions of viruses, worms, and Trojans, but also how to fight back and actually do something about them. It also shows how to set a wireless WEP key and MAC filtering as well as other not-so-intuitive ways to protect data.
Take a look or get your neighbors to read it—perhaps they won’t call at 9:30 at night to come over and get their new laptop to see the wireless net. Of course, you could tell them to simply log on to their neighbor’s wireless access point—I'm sure there are several visible unsecured networks out there…
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