Overview

More and more of our private information is on the internet these days.  This makes it more vulnerable to misuse and identity theft.

In this presentation, learn a few strategies to start protecting your privacy online.

Topics Included

• Creating strong passwords
• Enabling private browsing
• Installing browser extensions
• Using social media

Creating Strong Passwords

What makes a strong password?

• A minimum of 8 characters
• Use upper and lower case letters, numbers, and special characters
• Do no reuse the same password for other accounts.
• Make passwords are hard to guess
• Do not use your name, pet names, birth dates, anniversaries, or street names
• People can easily look up this information about you on social media

Storing Passwords

• Do not save passwords to your browser
• Refrain from keeping passwords on a Google Doc or Word
• Try a password manager (LastPass, Bitwarden, Dashlane)
• Write passwords down in a notebook or piece of paper and secure it.
• This is actually more secure than having them somewhere electronically on a laptop, tablet or phone.

Enable Private Browsing

What is private browsing mode?

• When enabled, private browsing mode prevents browsers from keeping a record of searches, websites visited, login details and cookies
• This is helpful when using a public device or whenever you would like to keep your web history private.

How to Enable Private Browsing

Google Chrome

1. Open the Chrome browser.
2. At the top right corner, click the menu icon.
3. Click on “New Incognito Window.”
4. Start browsing privately.

Firefox

1. Open the Firefox browser.
2. At the top right corner, click the menu icon.
3. In the menu, select “New Private Window.”
4. Start browsing privately.

Safari

1. In the Safari app on your Mac, choose Safari > Preferences, then click General.
2. Click the “Safari opens with” pop-up menu, then choose “A new private window.”

Browser Extensions

• Extensions add a specific feature to an existing software application. Extensions are browser specific. So if you’re using Firefox, you need to download the extensions for Firefox.
• While most extensions are junk, some actually help protect your privacy.
• UBlock Origin is a free ad blocker. It will also show who’s tracking you and will prevent websites from collecting user data on browsing habits.

Social Media

• Do not share too much information on social media
• Do not share your address, email address or phone number on your social profile.
• Be wary of sharing your location as well
• Check your privacy settings on social media
• Change your audience on Facebook to “Friends” instead “Public” so only your friends can see your posts and pictures
• Visit this link to change more Facebook settings to private: https://www.lifewire.com/steps-to-make-facebook-private-2654416

Sources

• https://ssd.eff.org/en/module/creating-strong-passwords
• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/strong-passwords-9-rules-to-help-you-make-and-remember-your-login-credentials/
• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/best-password-manager-to-use-for-2020/
• https://www.lifewire.com/steps-to-make-facebook-private-2654416

by Susie, Reference Specialist

Adapted with permission from the Denver Public Library

Knowledge is power, and the best way to understand what’s happening in our country is to dig in to resources that explain racial inequality in America by examining our history, institutions, experiences, and culture — as well as ways to unite for meaningful change. Most of these titles are available in multiple formats — book, eBook, audiobook, etc. — from our collection.

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Coates offers a framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men — bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion.

Citizen by Claudia Rankine

Rankine recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person’s ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named ‘post-race’ society.

The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein

In this groundbreaking history of the modern American metropolis, Richard Rothstein, a leading authority on housing policy, explodes the myth that America’s cities came to be racially divided through de facto segregation — that is, through individual prejudices, income differences, or the actions of private institutions like banks and real estate agencies. Rather, The Color of Law incontrovertibly makes it clear that it was de jure segregation — the laws and policy decisions passed by local, state, and federal governments — that actually promoted the discriminatory patterns that continue to this day.

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin

At once a powerful evocation of his early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice to both the individual and the body politic, James Baldwin galvanized the nation in the early days of the civil rights movement with his eloquent manifesto.

The Fire This Time by Jesmyn Ward

National Book Award-winner Jesmyn Ward takes James Baldwin’s 1963 examination of race in America, The Fire Next Time, as a jumping off point for this groundbreaking collection of essays and poems about race from the most important voices of her generation and our time.

The Half has Never Been Told by Edward Baptist

Americans tend to cast slavery as a pre-modern institution — the nation’s original sin, perhaps, but isolated in time and divorced from America’s later success. But to do so robs the millions who suffered in bondage of their full legacy. As historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told , the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States.

How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi

“The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it — and then dismantle it.” Kendi’s concept of antiracism re-energizes and reshapes the conversation about racial justice in America — but even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other.

Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson

The founder of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama recounts his experiences as a lawyer working to assist those desperately in need, reflecting on his pursuit of the ideal of compassion in American justice. The Warner Brothers film is also available from FDL and streaming for free on most digital platforms.

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

Despite the triumphant dismantling of the Jim Crow Laws, the system that once forced African Americans into a segregated second-class citizenship still haunts America, the US criminal justice system still unfairly targets black men and an entire segment of the population is deprived of their basic rights. Outside of prisons, a web of laws and regulations discriminates against these wrongly convicted ex-offenders in voting, housing, employment and education. Alexander here offers an urgent call for justice.

Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde

Presenting the essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider celebrates an influential voice in twentieth-century literature. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.

So You Want to Talk about Race by Ijeoma Oluo

Oluo offers a contemporary, accessible take on the racial landscape in America, addressing head-on such issues as privilege, police brutality, intersectionality, micro-aggressions, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “N” word. Perfectly positioned to bridge the gap between people of color and white Americans struggling with race complexities, Oluo answers the questions readers don’t dare ask, and explains the concepts that continue to elude everyday Americans.

Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi

The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-Black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history, using the lives of five major American intellectuals to offer a window into the contentious debates between assimilationists and segregationists and between racists and antiracists.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities in search of a better life.

When They Call You a Terrorist by Patrisse Khan-Cullors and Asha Bandele 

A memoir by the co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement explains the movement’s position of love, humanity, and justice, challenging perspectives that have negatively labeled the movement’s activists while calling for essential political changes.

White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo

In this groundbreaking and timely book, antiracist educator Robin DiAngelo deftly illuminates the phenomenon of white fragility. Referring to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially, white fragility is characterized by emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and by behaviors including argumentation and silence. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium and prevent any meaningful cross-racial dialogue. In this in-depth exploration, DiAngelo explores how white fragility develops, how it protects racial inequality, and what we can do to engage more constructively.