On Sat, 12 Mar 2005 17:46:45 -0500, Mike Coslo wrote:

Just because some government agency says something does not make it
true.

Now is the time that paranoia is encouraged, on an institutional and
especially a personal level.

Sure. And when you're out for a drive or walk, go ahead and go
anywhere in town. Ignore the obvious signs of criminal activity and
go right into that rough looking bar to purchase a soft drink.

But you don't do that, do you? You avoid the rough areas of town, or
else make some other kind of adjustment to the dangers. Also, by
avoiding those areas, the people who live there are unlikely to take
notice of you.

Especially pernicious is the encouragement of paranoia, coupled with
the "somehow this is your fault" syndrome.

The internet is indeed real life, but it doesn't provide the same
signals to us as do the streets of a large city. Even now as you read
this, a potential burglar is probably scanning your computer for open
ports. That's the equivalent of someone coming over to your house and
testing out all the doors and windows.

And that's one of the big differences between the Internet and your
daily life. People *can* and *do* reach out and touch you with malice
aforethought, and they do it frequently and from all over the world.

And yet, the real problem isn't posting on netnews. It is companies
such as one in the US, that *willingly* gave out personal information of
thousands and more customers to bogus companies that are doing the
ultimate "phishing".

No, the real problem is ignorance and complaciency. When you deliver
your personal information into the hands of networked servers, you are
reaching a vastly larger audience than was ever before possible.
Thanks to places like groups.google.com, if you slip up even once and
give too much information out, your information is forever maintined
in a searchable data base, and it is there for enemy and criminal alike
to use, even in a future which you cannot yet anticipate.

The net isn't your usual "real life" activity, and if you treat it that
way, you will ultimately pay the price.

The Internet is dangerous enough for the uninformed that people have
seriously proposed a licensing scheme - much like a driver's license -
in order to keep the untrained user from crashing his vehicle on the
information highway.

I think it's probably a good idea which will never be adopted. I'd
like to see people be forced to use training wheels (subscribe to AOL
or similar) until such time as they passed a written, multiple choice
exam on the workings of the Internet. It is the ignorant who
propagate email worms by continuing to open attachments, it is the
ignorant who fall for phishing scams, and it is the ignorant who still
insist that the internet is an okay place to unthinkingly publish
personal information.

If it makes you feel like you have hair on your chest to do so, be my
guest. To me, it proves that you have hair on your knuckles.