There are many good people, in this world. There are also many of evil hearts and intentions. It is often difficult for us to determine what truly lies in the hearts of others, and to tell the difference between the two. If we Seek God's Will through Christ, he will work all things out to our good!
This particular word of wisdom, is especially true for all who participate in online surveys! With that being said, it also applies to many other online situations. I will share a little personal experience, that i expect you will want to learn from. I won't name any particular parties, that are involved, to protect the innocent.
When I first began my latest involvement with online surveys, the privacy policies were usually given before involvement with the actual survey. I was asked to accept or reject the policies. If i was in agreement, i selected the option to accept. If i did not want to accept, i usually just closed the survey tab. After some time, i began receiving survey invitations that required giving access to my webcam(which includes access to the computers microphone). Having a long history in Computing technology, I had no interest in allowing access to my webcam, so i usually just closed the tab for those intrusive request. I think i may have chosen the option to reject the privacy policies, in just a few cases.
As time passed by, i began receiving survey invitations that did not share the privacy policy up front, and offered the options to accept or reject their policies. There was also a link to their privcay policies provided. I was lulled into a sense of security, because privacy policies were offered up front when access to my webcam was requested. For a while I followed the links to privacy policies, where they were not shared up front, to make sure there was not access to my webcam being requested. It appeared that whenever this sensitive information was being requested, they clearly let you know before accepting the privacy policy. This was all apparently part of a plan of deception.
To make a somewhat loger story short, once some of these survey sources have led you into a false sense of trust, they hid the authorizations to my webcam, deeper into longer privacy policies, where you had to follow the link to find them. At some point, someone used these deceptively gained access permissions to hack my system. My system began giving security breach warnings, as it began to display symptoms of malware and/or intruder activity. Chromebook is being pushed as a completely secure system. That is in no way true. There are multiple points of vulnerability, including the linking of your android phone. As my security team continues to trace down sources of these security breaches, I would urge you to become more aware of Chromebook security vulnerabilities. Do not be deceived into believing that it is completely secure, and cannot be breached! I have disabled my webcam, and it appears that the avenue of intrusion has been blocked. Time and investigation will tell if this has completely negated the hack of my system.
As for the word to the wise, it doesn't matter what device you use to access online surveys - don't be lured into a false sense of security! Always read the complete privacy policy, before agreeing to it!!! I have found that some things, you may not consent to, may be hidden deep into the paragraphs of detail.
