Can We Protect Ourselves On the Internet?

Can We Protect Ourselves On the Internet?

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 tha...

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...ctor, 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.