How to Protect Your Privacy with Hotspot Shield VPN

Hello, New England! Do you know who could be watching your every move outside and online? Being aware and staying safe everywhere is at the heart of today's show. This is the day you learn how to protect yourself. This is New England.

They're our neighbors, leaders, and friends on a mission to serve our community. They speak to the issues that matter in your home, and they share traditions, landscapes, and beauty from the land we all take pride in.

This is New England.

This is our home. This is New England.

Cyber crimes including stalking, bullying, exploitation, and harassment are unfortunately more and more common. The act is a felony and oftentimes can provoke an assault. Take a look at this nationally award-winning public service announcement created by students from Plymouth South High School as part of the Greatest Save peer-to-peer crime prevention program. This teen's video called "Notice the Signs" shows just how quick it can happen to you. Boy, that's some scary stuff. Joining me now is personal security and identity theft expert with Hotspot Shield, Robert Siciliano. Robert, that video gave you chills, right?

Instantly, yeah, because that's something that happens, you know, every single day. I did a study with McAfee and Intel Security, and we learned that 1 out of 12 kids who meets a stranger online eventually meets them in a public place.

My goodness. And we want to keep— protect our families, keep everyone safe. So you're here to help us. Thank you so much for being here. But first, let's talk about a little bit more how serious this crime is, even not just for kids but for adults as well.

You know, there are a lot of people out there that are surfing the web and they're online and so forth, but there are others that are paying unwanted attention to us. And when they're paying that unwanted attention and it becomes obsessive, then it becomes stalking.

Mm. And give me— you said you have many examples because people call you all the time for help— of just something personal that you've seen as far as one of your clients. No big names, but just tell us what's going on.

So when this happens to someone, when they're stalked, someone's paying unwanted attention to them, it upsets their lives in ways that most of us don't understand. They are unable to eat, to sleep. They feel like the puppet, and the stalker is the puppeteer. And it significantly impacts every aspect of their lives.

Alright, you have some tips for us. We want to dive right in now, and the first one involves just your laptop, right?

Well, you know, one of the most important things you can do, of course, is, you know, making sure that you have antivirus, anti-spyware, anti-phishing, and a firewall. And also cover up your laptop's camera.

So show us how to do this.

Right, so laptops, you know, most of us have one right here. You see the webcam right there. You grab a piece of black tape, something like this, and simply just cover up the camera, right? In this way, if there is malware, malicious software, a virus that allows a criminal to remotely control this computer, they won't be able to access your webcam, they won't be able to see or access what's going on in the room.

So you're telling me, and I've seen this on crime shows, but this is real, that somebody can just tap into your laptop without you knowing and watch you and you don't even know it?

If your PC is not properly protected, then definitely yes.

Oh my goodness, okay. So we learn about your laptop, you also have a website too that you're looking at But give us another tip talking about maybe your location.

So with your mobile device, right, we are posting photos, we're alerting the world to where we are, where we aren't, right? And those photos, they will have latitude and longitude of our GPS location. So what I tell people is if you don't want people to know where you're at, don't be so public with your social information.

Totally agree.

Yeah, and also turn off GPS in regards to your photos. That way When you post a photo, people aren't going to know where you actually are.

So for people who are technologically challenged like me, how do you turn off that GPS location?

So go into your apps, go into your privacy settings. You can also search how to turn off GPS or how to remove GPS from photos via Google, and you'll find out how to do it. There's all kinds of tutorials.

And then they always usually say, do you mind allowing us to use your location? I say no every time.

I say no every time. Okay, and finally, you have another tip for Yeah, so, you know, there are various software tools that you can use to mask your identity, to mask your location. I use what's called Hotspot Shield. It is a virtual private network. It masks your traffic and encrypts all of your information, especially on free open public Wi-Fi. When you're on free Wi-Fi, people, hackers, can see everything that you do. They can see all of your information. They can see your login information, your bank information, credit cards. So what a VPN does is it locks down your personal information, it encrypts your data so that nobody can see what you're doing. They can't snoop on you.

Mm-hmm. And so tell us more about that. You said you go to what website again?

So it's hotspotshield.com, right? And it's a small software program that you download into your mobile phone, on your laptop, even your desktop if you wanted to. And when you install it, it encrypts all of your communications so that even if you're on free, open, public, unsecured Wi-Fi, they can't see the website you're visiting, they can't access your usernames and passwords. Essentially, they can't stalk you in that regard.

And you know, people are so free with their information. I understand you're on Facebook, you're on social media, you want to share. For me, I just came back from vacation. I always post my pictures after I— so you won't know where I've been until after I've returned home because I don't want to let you know that I'm not home. But then also, I don't want to share these pictures about, you know, my baby, or, you know, I have a little 6-month-old at home. You don't want to come and check him out. No, I'll save that information for later. Give folks some What are some social media tips on how to be savvy?

Online reputation management, of course, is one big thing. Making sure that what you say is appropriate and so forth. You're not liking or appreciating comments that are racist or homophobic. That's important. But the other thing is making sure that you're not revealing to the world where you are and where you aren't in real time. It's just not a good idea because it gives the bad guy— you're giving them intelligence that they can use against you. 50 years ago, our concern in the Cold War was the mole on the inside of the corporation. Now we are the mole. We're giving away all that data. We're giving away all the information so the bad guy, the stalker, can effectively do their job.

Well, okay, I'm looking at your cell phone right here, and I have a 10-year-old, soon to be 11-year-old child. Everybody, all of her friends have these cell phones, and she has these little apps that are going on, and a lot of times they're free. And I keep thinking to myself, why are they giving her free access to the game? Are they getting something in return?

Yes. When it's free, you are the product.

Ooh.

And it's important that people realize that. That when you're giving, when you're getting something for free, you're actually giving away your name, your address, your phone number, right? Your gender, what you like, what you don't like. If you are pregnant, you're gonna see that you're gonna be doing searches on pregnancy, and before you know it, you're gonna see ads for pregnancy and for products and services, you're gonna get mailings for all that stuff. Everything's changed online, and now it's advertisers are contacting you based on your search algorithms, and you wanna mask that data. You wanna protect yourself from the advertising stalkers.

Yes.

Right? And you do that by either a VPN or clearing out your cache. There's a number of ways to go about that. And going forward, keep in mind that You're always going to be being paid unwanted attention. So mind your P's and Q's like mom said, right? Lock down your information, update your devices, install antivirus, right? And make sure that you are password protecting all your devices in case they're lost or stolen.

Well, I love what you said. We're basically out of time, but how can folks connect with you if they have more questions?

So you can go to robertsiciliano.com, you can go to hotspotyell.com, and in the end, just make sure that you that you are consciously aware that you have control. Don't give that control away.

Robert, thank you. You've opened my eyes, and I'll be taking the phone away from my daughter. Thanks so much. Until next time here on This Is New England.