in real life, most basilisks are verbal, and won't kill you but instead drive you insane Lovecraft-style.
This reminds me of something Yvain said:
Sometimes I think about how much I take for granted my basic human mental safety mechanisms. One of my philosophy professors told a story about a student in her class who, upon studying radical Cartesian skepticism, went crazy doubting everything and had to be taken away to a hospital for a while for his own protection. I'm sure I've encountered philosophy stranger than that, and some of it I don't have an answer for, but I don't go insane for the simple reason that when I encounter a philosophical problem I can't solve I just shrug and say "Mmmm, that's interesting" and go back to my normal human life. And it's only been recently that I've realized some people can't do this - that I see people studying philosophy that's no longer even interesting to me, like determinism or reductionism[,] and having existential crises over it.
Yes, very relevant. Just know that there's MUCH more potent stuff out there, even maliciously designed. Not really a lot of it thou, and the vast majority of stuff damaging enough to avoid it is in already known dangers like cults. Still, there is some really nasty stuff out there that can get around even extremely good defences.
Hacking and Cracking, Internet security, Cypherpunk. I find these topics fascinating as well as completely over my head.
Yet, there are still some things that can be said to a layman, especially by the ever-poignant Randall Munroe:
Password Strength
Passwords Reuse
I'm guilty on both charges (reusing poorly formulated passwords, not stealing them).
These arguments may be just be the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem that needs optimizing: Social Engineering, or mainly how it can be used against our interests (to quip Person 2, "It doesn't matter how much security you put on the box. Humans are not secure."). I get the feeling that I'm not managing my risks on the Internet as well as I should.
So the questions I ask are: In what ways do our cognitive biases come into play when we surf the Internet and interact with others? Of which of these biases can actively we protect against, and how? I've enforced HTTPS when available, as well as kept my Internet use iconoclastic rather than typical, but I doubt that's a comprehensive list.
I don't know how usefully I can contribute, but I hope that many on Less Wrong can.