tips – Girls Can Do I.T.

Last week, a trend on twitter about a woman that had her phone robed and consequently lost money due to bank accounts being connected to it, made me rethink my security model. It made me realize how careless most users are with sensitive information. Everyone walks around with smartphones, carrying data that a few years ago would’ve been in a safe at home.

My mentor brought up encrypting our e-mails. At first, I was a bit skeptical about the need for this, after all, I was never a person to send sensitive information through e-mail. However, how weirded out would I feel having someone reading my private conversations?

It’s disturbing to think that anyone could intercept our internet packages and read our deepest secrets. I admit that I’m one of those people that truly uses e-mail, almost like any other push notification messenger. If there was someone tracking my average time to reply it would be less than 30 minutes almost always.

People tend to dismiss online security (as a lot of other online things) because they can’t really idealize the damage. But how would you feel if your neighbor intercepted all your mail and letters, read them, and you didn’t even know the motivation behind this? Feels bad, right?

That’s why it’s time to begin taking online security seriously. Encrypting your e-mails doesn’t need to be the hardest tech task of this week.

I was able to discover Mailvelope through my Outreachy Mentor. It’s the best match for me, works wonders with my gmail account and I understood all the functionalities in less than a week.

It’s Open-Source, secure, easy to deal with, can be integrated to your gmail, outlook and much more. Also, work as an extension on your browser. Having a girly moment here, but the visuals are super cute, I’m having a great time with this encrypter.

Let’s take digital security seriously and avoid situations like that. Having a phone robbed is a terrible experience, but waking up the next day to know that every penny that you saved got stolen is heartbreaking. Stay safe!

Copy? Over.

Lately, I’ve been even more immersed in FOSS communities and discovering great things. Every day is just constant learning! Making part of a diverse and international team opened my eyes to struggles that a local team wouldn’t face.

Communication is essential within any workplace, but how can we achieve this with international teams and in a freeway?

One of the solutions that I came to know recently is the Jitsi Meet. It’s a multi-platform Open-Source software to video and call conferences. The great difference is that there’s no need to register or download heavy executables. You can do it all directly from your browser. There’s the possibility to create a conference room with a permanent URL, this room may have a password, but it’s simply as sharing the link and password to the rest of the team and everyone can access it.

The cherry on the cake is how well it works on the mobile version. Anyone can be connected all the time, even through a smartphone. This software is full of nice details and good surprises, another feature is the vote function. Whenever voting is called people can simple ‘raise’ their virtual hands and by the end, the counting is made and results presented.

Asides from all of this, Jitsi works very well even with older machines and slow connection. The voice is clear and the video is alright. Nowadays another product like this would be Zoom, however, paid. In Zoom there’s a free trial of 30 minutes per session and then it’s disconnected.

But hey, why use some private solution when you can support a FOSS community and get excellent software that fits your team budget?

Copy? Over.

Girls Can Do I.T.

I.T. industrie and technology through the eyes of a Brazilian girl.

Tag: tips

Mailvelope – How To Keep Your E-mails Safe

Jitsi Meet: Open-Source Software to Your Team Meetings