Digital Citizen: Phase 2

Phase 1 was about improving your own security and privacy. For Phase 2, we’re paying it forward: help someone else do the same.

Most of the reasoning behind this campaign to celebrate my upcoming 500th podcast was laid out in the first post here for Phase 1. If you haven’t read that, please start there.

Helping Others Helps Us All

Helping others defend their data and devices is, of course, a worthy cause with intrinsic value. Many of us would be motivated by that alone. But increasing the security of your friends and family also increases your own security. If they’re hacked, you and others in their social circle may be targeted next. It’s very common for malware and scams to spread using a victim’s contacts and accounts.

And it goes beyond your immediate social circle. Compromised devices can be recruited into botnets, spread malware and spam, and even be used to attack critical infrastructure.

Your data overlaps my data. Your devices communicate with my devices. We’re all in this together. Every person who improves their security and privacy makes the rest of us a little safer, too. And if enough people do these simple things, we make the entire community a much harder target.

Pay It Forward: The Ripple Effect

In Phase 1, we focused on ourselves. It’s like the airlines tell you: put your oxygen mask on before helping others. So we focused on securing ourselves first – not because we’re the only one who matters, but because we can’t effectively help others until we do.

In Phase 2, we’re going to pay it forward – help someone else do what you’ve done for yourself. But I’m going to ask you to try to take it one step further: don’t just do it for them; teach them how to do it themselves. Then, perhaps, they can help someone else. It’s the ripple effect. (For those of a certain age, you might think of this as the Fabergé Shampoo Effect.) The person you help isn’t just the beneficiary – they’re potentially the next helper in the chain.

Suggested Ways to Help Others

I already have a list of ideas for helping others called Dragon Coupons, and they’re still an excellent resource. However, I’ve decided to create a new, modified list of ideas for Phase 2 of this campaign. I wanted to focus on actions that were simple and cheap, and that would potentially benefit not just the individual but their social circle and community, as well.

I’ve put together a list of several ways you could help someone be more secure or private. It’s a variation on the coupons. Download the full list by clicking the big button/link below, right-click the link and select ‘save as’ a PDF file. (Note that I may make updates to this file, so check back periodically.)

Please Let Me Know

Just like in Phase 1, I’m collecting feedback on these actions. I want to hear how easy or hard it was, how long it took, what hiccups you hit, what motivated you to choose a particular task, how your beneficiary felt about it, and whether they went on to become the next helper in the chain. I’ve kept the feedback form short – it should take no more than 5 minutes to fill in the required fields. Please fill out the feedback form even if everything went smoothly. Your feedback will help me figure out which activities work best so I can improve this campaign and help more people participate.

Phase 3?

I have a lot of ideas on how to expand this concept further. I’ve been collaborating with several experts on this and I hope to reveal a bigger plan around the 500th episode. Stay tuned…