Although the Internet is a wonderful place to shop, explore and interact with other people we should always keep our guard up to protect our privacy. Privacy on the Internet is very important to anyone who uses the Internet and even for someone who has never been on line before. Most people do not realize how important Internet is in everyday life. Within most of our lifetimes the Internet has grown from an obscure military project to the greatest revolution since the Industrial Revolution.
Computers have gone from machines that took up large rooms to be involved in almost every aspect of our daily lives, from the coffeepot the brews our coffee in the morning, to the car that we drive to work, to the sophisticated computer that we have our desk, computers are everywhere. When we think of someone that steals our personal information off the Internet one of the first things to come to mind is a hacker. Hackers can be dangerous, persistent, and stealthy criminals. We are all vulnerable to hackers, the matter how vigilant we are.
There are some things a we can do to protect ourselves. First we must realize how hackers attacked us. Hackers will target specific Internet connections such as a T1 connection. A T1 connection is a digital connection that uses a cable instead of the phone lines to connect to the Internet (Bates). The advantages of a T1 connection are that it is much faster than a standard modem connection. The advantage of the T1 connection to a hacker is the connection is continuous (Ulrich). The longer someone is connected to the Internet the longer a hacker can attacked that connection.
Once a hacker is able to hack into a connection he is able to access all the information on the hard drive. The danger in this is that many people keep personal information on their computers such as credit card numbers, tax returns, social security numbers and his private e-mail (Federal Trade Commission). I feel a bigger threat from hackers is that some hackers attacked retail companies through the companies computers. Hackers use the same methods to attack a company as they would, to attack a private individual.
Once they have access to a company’s computer they are able to steal credit card numbers and personal information that a company keeps on record (Federal Trade Commission). Hackers can take over our ISP numbers. An ISP number is the number that an Internet service provider assigns us every time we log onto their server. The technique for taking over and ISP number is complicated but anyone that can download a program from one of more than 30,000 hacker web sites can obtain an ISP number, user name and password (Noack). Once a hacker has an ISP number he is able to surf the web anonymously.
Being anonymous on the web allows the hacker to commit criminal acts, such as hacker in other sites or launching viruses, without being detected (Noack). Hackers are not the only ones who illegally take our personal information while we are on the web. Large respectable companies sometimes indulge in this practice. RealNetworks a software company that distributes a music player for our computers has recently been caught stealing personal information about our music listening habits. The popular RealPlayer software that they distribute sends information back to the company, when we long onto the Internet, without our knowledge (Smith).
A company’s even sell e-mail addresses to other companies, this is how we get some of our unsolicited e-mail known as spam (Federal Trade Commission). Congress is trying to keep up with the growing technology but with the pace of technology this is a difficult chore. Congress has passed a couple of important laws to help protect us. Probably the most important one is the Childrens’ Internet Protection Act of 1999(106TH Congress). This law is designed to protect our children from the predators on the Internet. In makes it much more difficult to solicit information from children.
Another important law the 106th Congress passed is Consumer Internet Privacy Protection Act of 1999. This law protects consumers from companies that sell or give away our e-mail address with our permission. Even though the Congress is trying to respond to our needs they just can’t keep up with the technology. I feel the biggest problem with conventional law-enforcement in enforcing privacy laws on the Internet, is that most Internet criminals know how to keep ahead law-enforcement. Conventional law-enforcement officers are not trained in Internet security or Internet policing.
Also law-enforcement is under funded for such training. I think with some common sense and consumer awareness we can do a reasonable job of protecting ourselves. It is easy to fill safe in our homes and offices, but we must always be vigilant when it comes to security. Some basic precautions are keep private information off of our computers. We should never open e-mail from the user that we do not know and we should never download files from e-mail address is that we do not know. We can check with our Internet service provider about software that is designed to stop spam.
Giving out our e-mail address to someone we are not sure of can be dangerous. Which should be suspicious of people who ask for user name or password and we should never give them out. To help protect ourselves from web sites that illegally obtained private information about we should refer to their privacy statement. Any reparable web site will have a privacy statement. Our credit card and social security numbers are very valuable to us and hackers. We should take special care in giving this information out, by making sure we know the site and the site is using encryption secure our transactions (Federal Trade Commission).
When our family members are on-line we must be sure they follow the same rules as we do. Children are the targets of many predators on the Internet (Clinton). They are targets because they are naive and can be easily confused. I feel if a child is old enough to be on the web, they should be responsible enough to follow rules. Obviously, these precautions do not go far enough. If a hacker wants to, and is persistent enough, they can get into just about any computer. Also, if you do not know that a site is invading your computer, there is not much you can do about it.
Privacy groups to be a good source of information about sites that invade our privacy. (Internet Privacy Coalition) to increase the deterrent for companies and hackers that invade our computers which should report all violations to the proper authorities. I think if we keep pressure on in Internet companies, that violate our privacy this will reduce their activity. This is where government should get involved. They need to spend more money training law-enforcement on how to prevent and pursue Internet crimes.
The can also encourage private sector, software companies to develop software to protect us as well as private businesses. I think recruiting hackers for software development and security development is a good ideal. In makes sense to me if someone were able to hack into a computer they should be able to prevent someone from hacking into the computer. Companies that are getting into the e-business need to spend more time and money preventing hacker from penetrating their sights. According to an Internet article written by Frank Jones, CEO, Codex Data Systems, Inc.
That a survey conducted in 1999 reported that more than a $100,000,000, was lost to computer security breaches. I would think this could be reason enough to concentrate on securing their businesses but I think companies like to keep this quiet because of may reflect badly on the company to stockholders. The more we know about the dangers of the Internet the easier it will be to protect us from the threats against our privacy. It should be and can be a safe, fun place to explore. The dangers are many but they should not keep us away from enjoying the vast resources that the Internet offers.