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Tips for Consumer Protection Online

Aired December 05, 2002 - 10:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: This week, we've been talking about identity theft, and today protecting yourself online is going to be the topic now. This is especially important right now as more and more of us go online to do our holiday shopping.
Gerri Willis of "SmartMoney" magazine is back with us once again from Boston, and she's got top five tips for us this week on how to protect our identity while we're shopping online.

Good to see you again, Gerri. How are you doing today?

GERRI WILLIS, "SMARTMONEY": Great to see you, Leon.

These tips are going to keep you safe from the predators out there on the Internet, but rest assured you cannot eliminate all the information that's floating around about you out there. You can eliminate some of it.

HARRIS: How do you do that? You say the first tip this morning is to frustrate the hackers. How do you do that?

WILLIS: People out there who spend all of their time trying to break into computer networks. What you want to do is make sure that you don't help them along the way by making the same password for every Web site you visit. Make multiple pass words and IDs and also make sure that you don't use some really easy to remember phrase like "big Braves fan" or something like that as a password. That makes it so easy for them to figure out your passwords and then your secret information you want to hide from them.

HARRIS: Yes. Not just a hacker, one of your buddies could figure that out and do something to you too.

That brings up your second tip, which was to use strong passwords. Is that what you mean by that? Just coming up with something that's a bit unusual, something that no person could immediately think about or figure out about you?

WILLIS: This is even a step further. This is creating random sequences of numbers and letters that don't read as a word. And you can do that most easily by using one of these software packages like Passport Wallet for Macs and Passwords Plus for PCs. These are two software programs to not only help you put the password together, but it also stores them for you so you don't have to keep remembering them.

HARRIS: OK, that makes it easier. WILLIS: One other point here: A lot of people keep a list of their passwords in a notebook somewhere. Just one extra precaution. What you might want to do is substitute different letters like make all the A's Z's or something so that it's not something that one of your co-workers or somebody else could pick up and then use.

HARRIS: James Bond would be proud of you on that one, Gerri.

Next up, you say watch out for cookies. What do you mean by that?

WILLIS: Cookies are tiny electronic tags that automatically download to your computer when you visit certain Web sites. These cookies then report back to the Web site who you are, the pages you visit, providing just loads, reams, of information about you. Now, you can stop cookies by changing your browser to security tabs so that you don't get cookies.

There's just one problem with this. There are going to be lots of Web sites you can't visit if you don't accept cookies. So this is a step you take if you're really, really worried about security.

HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) We're running out of time this morning because of all the breaking news that we had here. Let's talk about, quickly if we can here, the last two, setting up a second e-mail account, and being careful with personal information. What do you mean by these two?

WILLIS: You want to confuse the enemy by having an e-mail address that isn't your main e-mail address. When you are shopping this Christmas, set up a free e-mail account on Microsoft Hotmail, and you can use that on the Web sites that you are going to to shop.

Number two, just make sure that you're not giving out reams of information about yourself on questionnaires and surveys online. That's an easy way to stop some of the information.

HARRIS: You've given us reams of information this morning yourself, Gerri. Thanks.

WILLIS: Thank you.

HARRIS: We'll talk to you later on.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired December 5, 2002 - 10:50   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: This week, we've been talking about identity theft, and today protecting yourself online is going to be the topic now. This is especially important right now as more and more of us go online to do our holiday shopping.
Gerri Willis of "SmartMoney" magazine is back with us once again from Boston, and she's got top five tips for us this week on how to protect our identity while we're shopping online.

Good to see you again, Gerri. How are you doing today?

GERRI WILLIS, "SMARTMONEY": Great to see you, Leon.

These tips are going to keep you safe from the predators out there on the Internet, but rest assured you cannot eliminate all the information that's floating around about you out there. You can eliminate some of it.

HARRIS: How do you do that? You say the first tip this morning is to frustrate the hackers. How do you do that?

WILLIS: People out there who spend all of their time trying to break into computer networks. What you want to do is make sure that you don't help them along the way by making the same password for every Web site you visit. Make multiple pass words and IDs and also make sure that you don't use some really easy to remember phrase like "big Braves fan" or something like that as a password. That makes it so easy for them to figure out your passwords and then your secret information you want to hide from them.

HARRIS: Yes. Not just a hacker, one of your buddies could figure that out and do something to you too.

That brings up your second tip, which was to use strong passwords. Is that what you mean by that? Just coming up with something that's a bit unusual, something that no person could immediately think about or figure out about you?

WILLIS: This is even a step further. This is creating random sequences of numbers and letters that don't read as a word. And you can do that most easily by using one of these software packages like Passport Wallet for Macs and Passwords Plus for PCs. These are two software programs to not only help you put the password together, but it also stores them for you so you don't have to keep remembering them.

HARRIS: OK, that makes it easier. WILLIS: One other point here: A lot of people keep a list of their passwords in a notebook somewhere. Just one extra precaution. What you might want to do is substitute different letters like make all the A's Z's or something so that it's not something that one of your co-workers or somebody else could pick up and then use.

HARRIS: James Bond would be proud of you on that one, Gerri.

Next up, you say watch out for cookies. What do you mean by that?

WILLIS: Cookies are tiny electronic tags that automatically download to your computer when you visit certain Web sites. These cookies then report back to the Web site who you are, the pages you visit, providing just loads, reams, of information about you. Now, you can stop cookies by changing your browser to security tabs so that you don't get cookies.

There's just one problem with this. There are going to be lots of Web sites you can't visit if you don't accept cookies. So this is a step you take if you're really, really worried about security.

HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) We're running out of time this morning because of all the breaking news that we had here. Let's talk about, quickly if we can here, the last two, setting up a second e-mail account, and being careful with personal information. What do you mean by these two?

WILLIS: You want to confuse the enemy by having an e-mail address that isn't your main e-mail address. When you are shopping this Christmas, set up a free e-mail account on Microsoft Hotmail, and you can use that on the Web sites that you are going to to shop.

Number two, just make sure that you're not giving out reams of information about yourself on questionnaires and surveys online. That's an easy way to stop some of the information.

HARRIS: You've given us reams of information this morning yourself, Gerri. Thanks.

WILLIS: Thank you.

HARRIS: We'll talk to you later on.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com