Holiday & end-of-year safe computing steps

Don't rush when bringing up new toys. Research privacy/security related features and settings, develop a plan, and follow it. Double check everything *before* allowing any type of device to have access to your network and/or the Internet. Snoop network traffic to assure the device is communicating as expected.

Avoid creating online accounts and tying your devices/software to those accounts. At least until you've thoroughly researched and thought through the consequences. One mistake here may affect you for the entire time you own and use that device/software.

Endeavour to break the associations you've built up, especially while shopping online and/or setting up new toys. Change your public IP Address, change [throw away] email addresses, etc.

Purge the local histories you've built up... browser, temp files, MRU lists, etc.

Be careful about sharing network connections and other things with those you get together with.

Make some time to check important online accounts and log files. When admins are away it is time for the mischievous to play.

If it is past time for a periodic change of passwords and security questions, make time for that.

Download and locally archive what you want from cloud accounts including any email accounts. Endeavour to purge those online accounts of unnecessary records, files etc.

Made full backups recently? If necessary, make time for this... especially *before* making substantial changes to the devices you use.

Help others to do such things.

Have fun, in other ways too