Guide: Protecting Yourself Online

Security Guide​

I'll be trying to cover the basics of Internet security in this forum guide along with some tips to keep your Minecraft account safe. Below are the Table of Contents which you can use to easily find what you are looking for.

Table of Contents:

• Migrating your Minecraft account
• Securing your Gmail
• Protecting your IP on Skype
• Password Strength
• Hiding your Address
• Using a Virtual Private Network
• Conclusion

If you have any questions, concerns, or criticism please post below.

 

Migrating your Minecraft account​

Migrating your Minecraft account into a Mojang account allows you to log in with a email rather then your display name. Doing so can keep people from attempting to log into your account so easily.

Other benefits from the Mojang website itself:

• More features, including Twitch.tv integration and changing your email address
• All of your Mojang games in one place
• Use your Minecraft username in other Mojang games
• More account security, such as security questions

How to migrate your account:

1. Navigate to https://account.mojang.com/migrate
2. Login with your Minecraft credentials
3. (I've already done this, what happens here?!)
4. (I've already done this, what happens here?!)
5. Done

Now your account is your migrated to your email, yay! Continue below to see how to secure your email.

 

Securing your Gmail​

I'll be featuring Google's mail service in this section (gmail). I suggest that everyone opens an email account here since they currently provide the most security benefits.

Once your have an account you can start securing it.
To start off, navigate to your account settings and in the security tab you can setup all the functions.

2-step verification: Texts a code to your phone whenever you try to log on from an unexpected device.
Recovery email: Ensure that you have a secure email setup here. A thief could use this as a way into your other email account.

2-step verification will literally protect you from any type of intruder into your account - unless they steal your phone.

 

Protecting your IP on Skype​

Starting with the simple way to stop random people from getting your IP Address:
Go to: Skype > Tools > Options > Advanced > Connection > Enable "Allow direct connections to your contacts only."​

~~~~~~

If you are a little bit more advanced you can put your Skype behind a proxy:
Grab a proxy from http://hidemyass.com/proxy-list/, search for https or socks5 proxies with high anonymity, speed, and connection time in your country.

Search with those filters and grab an proxy IP and port and input it into Skype. Make sure you choose the right proxy type on Skype too.

Once you input the proxy, just hit Save and you're done.

Note: Make sure you get a new proxy every week or so.

~~~~~~

Or the super simple way to hide your IP off Skype:
Use Teamspeak. Your connection is sent to the server then to the players in the voice call, they never see your IP.

 

Password Strength​

Some say complex hard to remember passwords are the way to go and others say that long easy to remember passwords are the way to go. Honestly, I go with the in between route, easy to remember but not that easy to crack with a dictionary.

If you want to test your password strength I recommend this website. It'll tell you if your password is bad, decent, good, or great.

I also recommend having three different levels of passwords. One password should be for your random insecure signups across the Internet, the other should be a tad more secure for things you care a little more about like your Minecraft account and such, and the last password should be for your emails. If someone gets into your email you're done for, but if someone gets into your Minecraft account you'll still be able to recover it via email.

 

Hiding your Address​

A common thing for people to do these days is gather your information which is referred to as DoXing. The main piece of information that they look for is your home address so they can send you undesired things.

Hiding your address online is simple if no one has found it yet.
Below are a collection of sites that you can easily remove your address from:

• http://www.whitepages.com/
• http://www.anywho.com/whitepages
• http://www.yellowpages.com/whitepages

You can easily request removal of your address on the sites above. No verification is needed.

I also suggest Googling your address and trying to remove your address from any site that publishes your address along with your family's last name. Nearly all sites allow you to remove your address in a timely manner. You may have to put some effort into doing so.

 

Using a Virtual Private Network (VPN)​

When you use a VPN all of your computer's network traffic is routed to another location then presented to any applications requiring an outbound or inbound connection. This means that you can use a fully different IP address to connect to web applications. This is one of the best ways to secure your IP address online.

There are many free and premium VPN services. Doing a simple Google search for "vpn service" will lead you to many options. However, if you are looking for a free VPN I recommend VPNGate.

If you need help getting started with VPNGate I suggest reading their "How to Connect" guide here. It will walk you through setting up a VPN protocol and connecting to one of the VPN servers.

I highly recommend picking a VPN server closest to your geographical location. The further away the server is the higher ping you will have when using it. If you cannot find a VPN server close to you, pick one closest to the applications you are using.

 

Conclusion​

Your Internet safety all depends on how much time and effort you want to put into it. Remember never to download or run suspicious files even from friends. Your friends could be tricking you or they could be infected themselves and the hacker could be sending you the link. Also, remember to never add anyone on Skype or give out your email address to anyone you don't trust. However, you should be secure enough where if people have this information it'll be no big deal.

Hope you learned something from my guide, feel free to leave suggestions and constructive criticism below.

 

Reserved

 

The website is also open source and well trusted - 3rd on Google's global search. If you don't trust it then don't use it.