The Dangers of Public Emails and Phone Numbers

 

The present world we live in is dominated by live feeds, social media updates, tagged locations, and online information forums.  It seems like second nature to constantly share information about oneself.  In fact, it might even seem strange not to engage in the constant sharing of personal (and sometimes unnecessary) updates and information.  Privacy is slowly beginning  to fade as we begin to favor transparency.  We live in a society that desperately wants to be available, noticed, and contacted. A growing number of the population does not give a second thought to posting their emails or phone numbers on public profiles and sites.  An example of this would be a college student posting their resume on an open job board.  Now, let’s stop and think about what information is on a resume; a full name, email address, phone number, home address, and a complete listing of all previous employers and education.  This is an extremely personal list of information that now can be accessed by anyone who just so happens to come across the job board.  This being said, what are the dangers and threats to consider when personal contact information such as email addresses and phone numbers are public?

One of the obvious consequences to posting personal contact information online would be an increased chance of receiving more spam in your email inbox.  You might also receive more calls from solicitors.  But, this is more of an annoyance than a danger.  So, the question is, “Where are the real dangers?”

 

 

When your email or phone number is shared publicly online, it becomes a portal for scammers and hackers.  Something as simple as your email address actually gives away a substantial amount of information regarding a person.  For example, numbers used in an email address could easily reference dates or years personal to the user.  Letters or words in emails could reference initials, family names, identifying facts, or locations that can be used to gather and link together other personal information about a person.  Posting phone numbers publicly online offers personal information such as location and name.  When all of these little piece of information are linked together, one becomes an easier target for scammers to use to their advantage.

Having an email or phone number that is public increases a risk of online abuse and threatening messages.  This decreases the well-being of the owner of the phone number and email address.  The owner of the phone number or email address can become a victim of manipulation.  It is easier to be tricked into giving out or verifying personal facts or information.

When one shares their email or phone number publicly with a certain company, one runs the risk of having personal information leaked.  Their privacy may become compromised as well as the information provided that was intended to remain confidential.

 

Overall, when you post personal contact information such as your email address or phone number, you are chipping away your privacy and safety.  There needs to be more awareness regarding privacy and public access to personal information on the internet.

 

 

 

September 6, 2017 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

Picture This

One of my favorite places to visit is Newport, RI.  Specifically, I love The Cliff Walk in the spring and summer.  The Cliff Walk is situated right near the beach in Newport.  It has walking paths that are good for taking a family stroll or for a mild hike. As you enter the beach, you are met with your typical beach crowds and have to fight for a parking spot. Once you finally escape for a sea of tanned beach goers, you climb up the steep sidewalk until you reach the sign “Cliff Walk.”  The Cliff Walk has some amazing views of the beach, water, and mansions.  As you walk on the Cliff Walk you always smell salt water and even feel a slight spray of the ocean as waves crash on the rocks below you.  Speaking of rocks, it is better to wear comfortable shoes when visiting the Cliff Walk because the walk isn’t always that easy!  The nice dirt and / or cement path can sometimes bring you up and down stairs and jumping from rock to rock!  As you walk, you stumble across extremely fancy restaurants and lawns or historic Newport Mansions.  I’ve gone to the Cliff Walk several times and every single time, I find something new to look at.

View of the beach from the Cliff Walk

Water views from the Cliff Walk

Stumbled across the Breakers

For this assignment I wanted my audience to try to imagine the Cliff Walk the way I picture it and experience it. I used my verbal narrative and my visuals with captions very differently. I tried to be really detailed about what you feel and see and smell from the moment you arrive. I am trying to recreate an experience just by using words, therefore you MUST be descriptive as possible.  When I added my images in and created captions, I found that my captions were very brief.  My captions simply tell my audience what they are looking at.  I used my visuals in a “this is what that looks like” way

I think the best message to send is when my images with captions and my verbal narrative are combined.  This is because someone might look at my images with their captions and not really be able to draw the image I created with my narrative.  Someone might read my narrative but not be able to understand the story because they simply did not experience my experience.  Therefore, I think when you combine my verbal narrative with the images and their captions it creates the optimal message because the images and captions serve as visual cues for what experience I’m trying to create.

When you combine the visuals and the narrative, you almost get a map-like effect of things you should see, feel, smell and experience and this is the message I was aiming to send to my audience.  I want to send the message of this is why I love the Cliff Walk and you should too!

February 14, 2017 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized 1 Comment

Snapshot

Caption: Throwback to New Hampshire and slightly warmer weather.

A snapshot refers to a photo that is casually taken and sometimes does not have a caption.  The purpose of this assignment is to find a snapshot and create a caption for it with a particular audience and purpose in mind. The picture I chose for this assignment is a random picture I took while at the Flume Gorge in New Hampshire.  I had taken the picture without really giving it much thought or organization.  I simply wanted to capture the beauty and nature I was experiencing. Today I revisited the image and was surprised that the picture had come out pretty nicely.  I decided to post the picture to Instagram.  My target audience when I posted to Instagram is anyone who follows me; friends, family members, and classmates.  When I post to Instagram, I also like to attract new audiences that might be interested in what I posted using hashtags.  Since my image involves nature, hiking, traveling, New Hampshire, and the season of Fall, I incorporated the appropriate hashtags.  When creating my caption, considering who follows me, I tried to appeal to a wide audience with different interests.  I wanted people to appreciate the beauty of the picture, and think about times where the weather was not bitter cold to the point where you cannot go outside. I wanted it to be fun and simple.  The caption I chose tells my audience where I am, and what it’s like where I am.  The visual tells the audience what I am looking at.  Overall. the combination of the words and image is the feeling I get when I look at the picture and I wanted to share this feeling with my audience.

How we design will determine the how the reader will respond.  Therefore, the more we know about how texts and images work together, the more of an understanding we will gain about design and more successfully deliver our desired message.  The textbook spoke about how sometimes you might have the words describing the object, but no visual, or how you might have the picture, but no words to give it context.  Therefore, sometimes the optimal message uses a combination of words and images.  The textbook also spoke about some aspects of the image we may not always consider such as symmetry, texture, movement, and color.

Something interesting the book spoke about is the idea of compare and contrast.  When looking at a visual and the writing that goes with it, we might compare and contrast the two ideas to understand the overall picture.  I thought this was interesting because it seems very natural to compare and contrast and I’d never considered that we might do this when comprehending images and captions.

Something I found interesting in the reading as well was the idea of narration.  Narration tells us what is happening.  Therefore, it is natural that word choice, tone, and overall language used would affect the narration of the overall composition of the story.  I had also never considered the point of view of the audience.  I only really thought about my point of view and how to get it across.  If I look at an image from my target audience’s point of view, I may be more successful conveying my story.

February 8, 2017 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

Visual Resume

This is my visual resume.  The topi image is a rough draft.  I drafted this assignment a couple of times before I was able to decide the story I wanted to tell.  The image at the top left is a mind map.  The mind map is basically a summary of the important aspects of my resume.  I focused on my past two work study positions in the University Advising Center, and at the Roger Williams Athletic Department.  In each one I focused on what the job entailed and what skills I earned while working there.  I also focused on my summer job as an office and financial assistant at a local bus company in my town.  I also specified the skills I earned there.  Considering my resume is in a state of transition, instead of focusing on an internship and a small job I had in high school, I focused on the first huge internship I landed in college.  I am starting in June and specified my job description.

I then took these ideas from the mind map and made a timeline of where I worked ad when.  I tried to show the time between each place I’ve worked at in reference to the 2014, 2015, and 2016 markers.  The table in the middle describes each place I’ve worked at, some of the skills I’ve gained from working there, and how long I worked there out of my 25 month long working life.

The bar graph describes the amount of time out of 25 months that I have practiced each skill.  For example, since I have had 2 separate jobs that have given me phone skills, I combined the amount of time I worked at both places to be the total amount of time that I have worked on each skill.  I thought this was interesting though not surprising that I have I am seemingly most skilled in email and phone etiquette.  The pie graph tells me  the percentage of my working life I have spent working at each place.

I had a lot of trouble with this assignment.  I had trouble because my entire resume is about to change considering a future interview at a new work study position, a new summer internship, and yet another summer being spent at my typical summer job.  I need to decide how to rework my resume.  This was a good starting point.  I was quite surprised that Tag was not a larger percentage as it feels as though I spend most of my life there.

I like the final product I created.  I think it tells a unique story about my employment history.  However, it does not convey everything about my resume such as my major, school, language skills, computer skills, or social media skills.  I think if I were to do this again I would make charts about my skills or an infographic about my skills.  However, starting this assignment with the mind map has helped me gather my thoughts immensely.  This assignment has made me feel more organized for when I edit my resume.

April 25, 2016 by krispoli849 Categories: Comm 165, Uncategorized Leave a comment

One Subject Infographic

Draft:

 

This is my one subject infographic.  My infographic represents how much of my homework I have and have not completed as of right now.   The top image is the draft from my sketchbook.  The reason as to why the image looks as if it is of the bottom half of the page is because it IS taken of the bottom half of the page.  Long story short, I had a lot of ideas on the same page and did not use them.  To keep my post somewhat organized, I decided to only post the image of the idea I was actually going to use.  That information could probably warrant its own one subject infographic.

As one can see, I deviated from my rough draft.  Originally I was going to use a laptop as my infographic.  I thought this would be clever, considering I complete about 95% of my homework using my laptop.  However I somehow stumbled across an image of a pencil with the word “homework” on it and thought this would make a nicer infographic that went well with my representation of the amount of homework I have completed tonight.  I paired this with a pie chart in order to represent the idea numerically.

The pencil is the qualitative graph while the pie chart is the quantitative.

I decided to represent this in the infographic by shading about 77% of the image with yellow.  The way I figured out how much of my homework was completed is simple. I had 9 assignments.  As of right now I have completed 7 of them.  Therefore I have completed 77.78 percent of my homework.  However, I rounded down because I still need to study as well.  The qualitative part of this assignment is the actual subjects and assignments I need to complete such as blog posts, working on an essay, and a lab experiment, while the quantitative is the numerical amount I have actually completed or need to complete.

I overthought this assignment.  I had so much trouble!  I had no clue what topic to choose or how to represent it.  I thought it was extremely more complicated than it actually was.  However, once I sat down and reread the instructions, I think I have come up with an infographic that accurately reflects the assignment.  The hardest part of the assignment was coming up with an idea.  There are so many options and ideas to choose from.  Ultimately, I decided to go with this specific topic because…it’s homework and I have a ton of it!  It was weighing on my mind, so, I used the assignment as a way to assure myself that I am almost done and can relax in a little bit.  Once I chose a concept, I had no issues creating the infographic.  If I had more time I would have used Photoshop to more precisely shade in the image.  I also would try to find a shade of yellow that nicely blends in with the color of the pencil.  I think I also would have specified what assignments I had to complete or had already completed in addition to specifying which classes the assignments were for.

 

 

April 18, 2016April 19, 2016 by krispoli849 Categories: Comm 165, Uncategorized 2 Comments

Simple Tables and Graphs

Draft:

Final:

This assignment required me to make two graphs and a table.  The image at the top left is my rough sketch.  To start this assignment, I first had to organize the classes and credits I had taken and the classes and credits I need to take. I am a Journalism major with a Core Concentration in Italian and a Global Communication Minor.  The bar graph at the top middle compares the amount of classes I have completed versus the amount of classes in each part of my curriculum that I still need to take.  As you can see, I still have quite a few Journalism classes left to take, but have very few classes to take in other areas.

The pie graph on the lower left represents the percentage of credits are dedicated to a specific area of study and the bar graph represents the same.  Not surprisingly, my major takes up the majority of credits.  Everything else is a basically even give or take a few percentages.  I found it interesting that the amount of credits dedicated to the Core curriculum and the three skills and other required course aspect of my education is allocated a similar amount of credits as my core and minor.  It is interesting to see a visual representation of where my credits are going.

The table at the bottom right explains all of this information explicitly.  It tells me how many classes and credits i have taken between the Core Curriculum, three skills and required course, Journalism major, Global Comm minor, Italian core concentration, and electives, in addition to explaining how many more courses and credits I need to take before I have completed my program.  It is interesting representing data that only goes until the end of the current semester.  This is because by the end of my fall semester of 2016, I will have a giant leap in the amount of credits (about 30 credits due to summer courses and taking an extra course in the fall).

I think the pie chart is a more accurate and interesting way of viewing this information.  I like the visual representation of where each credit ends up in terms of my education.

According to my tables, I am about 49 percent complete with my college education.  I created a visual representation of this by selecting an image of your typical “women’s bathroom” signal.  I filled in a little under half of it with the same (or similar) pink color of the background to represent my progress in my education.

One of the problems I encountered was deciding which information to present and how. I could have represented my GPA information in a graph, or the classes I am scheduled to take and when.  I could have represented trends in the amount of credits I take per semester.  Ultimately, I decided to present information about my credits and courses as I feel they correlate nicely together.

Initially, I did not understand the assignment.  This is because I was not sure how to represent my information in the table given to us.  However, due to the extension, I was able to think more elaborately about the assignment.  Once I decided what information to present and how, the assignment was easy.

April 13, 2016April 18, 2016 by krispoli849 Categories: Comm 165, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Personal Narrative

This is my personal narrative.  I chose to do my narrative about my connection to music.  While writing it, I wanted to educate about the power of music while also sharing my connection with music.

In the writing process I had two people reread and critique my story.  At first, it seemed like I was simply “telling” about music rather than making the subject personal.  This is something I resolved to fix.

I then gathered images.  The images I gathered are either images I took or images that are not copyrighted.  Additionally, the clip of the concert from a Jimmy Eat World show was taken by me.

Once I organized everything, I had to create a soundtrack. I wanted a soundtrack that was modern, melodic, but also did not distract from my story or images.  In order to create the music I used Logic Pro X.  I really enjoyed making the music.

My next order of business was to add my voice recording.  I had a lot of issues with the recording because I simply could not get my voice to be loud enough!

Ultimately I did not have very many issues with the project.  I enjoyed it for the most part and thought it was a great way to end Digital Communications.

December 10, 2015 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

Finish Bi/Bi Card

This is the finished recreated bi/bi card.  For this project, I used a combination of inDesign and Photoshop.

For this project, I stole a bi/bi card from a Glamour magazine. To be honest, I chose this one because I thought it would be the easiest to recreate.  I was very, very wrong.

While for the most part, recreating the bi/bi card was fun and effortless, there were several aspects that were frustratingly tedious and annoying, making the card extremely difficult to recreate.

I’d never really had experience with inDesign before.  The only experience I had with it was if I accidentally clicked on the inDesign icon instead of the Photoshop icon.

Something I had trouble with is the rectangles.  They were the cause of most of my frustration.  If I wanted to add a picture in, I needed to create a rectangle.  If the rectangle was too small, the picture would be automatically cropped.  I quickly figured out that if I make a larger rectangle, and then place the image into the spot, I can crop the excess part of the rectangle out.  I also used the rectangle tool to create all the lines on the side with “business reply mail”on it.  This was extremely irritating because inDesign would automatically adjust the placement of a rectangle if it was considered “too close” to another rectangle.  I ended up making a few rectangles and then copying and pasting them to where I wanted them.  This was extremely useful when creating the tiny lines at the bottom of the card.

I had trouble finding exact fonts for the writing on the cards.  Ultimately, I ended up using different versions of Calibri and Impact.  I used Photoshop to create the pink polka dotted background.

This entire project was a learning experience.  It was very interesting and intricate.  It tested my patience.  But, I enjoyed the challenge and am ultimately happy with the finished product.

 

December 8, 2015December 8, 2015 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

Bi/BI CArd

This is the Bi/bi card I plan to recreate throughout the current project. 

November 15, 2015November 15, 2015 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment

30 Second Commercial

This is my 30 second commercial for the non-profit organization “Do Something.”  I chose this organization to create a commercial about because the structure of it intrigued me.  “Do Something” is a community service organization aiming to encourage young adults to make a positive change in their community.  There are several different campaigns within the organization, therefore, there is something for everyone!  Also if a campaign a volunteer is interested does not exist through the organization yet, they can simply start it themselves.

The pictures used in my commercial are of the company’s logo, a few different campaigns through the organization, presence on social media, and celebrity endorsements.  I though these pictures were important to include because in order to gain interest from young people, it is important to be relevant on popular social media sites such as Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat.  It proves that the organization is modern and fun.  I included a Kim Kardashian endorsement because having popular celebrities advertise an organization is an excellent marketing tool, as people are more willing to make a change or participate in something if they see someone they admire endorsing it.

I created my own music using the music composing software, Logic Pro X.  I did not want the music to be overwhelming, or take too much attention from my voice over.  I opted to create a generic sounding electronic piece of music.

I have had past experience with iMovie.  Therefore, I had no issues when creating he commercial.  I enjoyed the project overall and am happy with the finished product.

November 12, 2015 by krispoli849 Categories: Uncategorized Leave a comment