4 About safety on the Net
Here are some basic things to remember about safety matters concerning
the Internet.
As you probably know, in some big cities there are so-called 'good
areas' and 'bad areas'. When you are walking on the streets of the good areas,
it's quite safe and harmless. But in a big city there can also be areas that
taxi drivers prefer to avoid and where the police make visits on a regular
basis. On the Internet the situation is much the same: there are 'good areas'
and 'bad areas'. Most of the sites hosted on the Net and web servers listening
to requests from web browsers are okay and are 'good'; but there also are sites
and servers whose main purpose is to carry out illegal activities and are
therefore 'bad'. The Internet is frequently abused by people for all sorts of
purposes and there seems no immediate prospect of an improvement in this area.
Naturally, these people, along with their sites and servers should be avoided
as much as possible.
The first thing to do is to be sure that on your computer there are:
· The latest
updates concerning the operating system and software installed
· Virus control
software installed and updated
· Firewall
software correctly installed and configured
This basic software helps to prevent a server making contact with your
computer and using it for its own, often malicious, purposes.
Unfortunately, these basic measures are useful but don't provide 100%
security against unwelcome visitors to your computer as the situation is much
more complex than might be imagined. When surfing the Net, you might find (on
purpose or accidentally) a site that waits for an unwary person to visit so
that it might then attempt to make use of that person's activities. In this
kind of situation the first important thing is not to surf with a user name
which has all the rights concerning your own computer. If the 'bad server' that
hosts a decoy site gets in contact with your computer, it will also have all
the rights to perform any kind of installation on your computer, something to
be avoided at all costs. So learn to create a user name to be used only for
surfing the Net and which has the minimum capacity to do harm to your
own computer.
Thirdly, don't give answers to personal questions, notably those
concerning your credit card details. For example, an on-screen form might
appear claiming to be performing ''some security checking on your behalf'' and
asking for your credit card information. How can you make sure that you aren't
swindled in this way? Simple: don't give them the information. Though everyone
has the opportunity to ask you about such things, there's no law that says that
you must give them a reply. You wouldn't answer such questions on the street,
so don't answer them on the Net either.
One other thing to remember. It is becoming increasingly common to ask
personal questions in an email message. It's obvious why this happens: if
you've taken the security measures outlined above, the only other way to reach
you is by email and other kinds of message tools. For example, it's quite
possible that one day you'll get an email which appears to have come from your
bank, asking for your account numbers and so on. The message may well carry the
logo of your bank; there's also the right name of your own contact person and
beneath it there's also the name of the director of your bank. So everything is
above board, isn't it?
No, it isn't! Can you tell why an email message such as this should be
treated as being fraudulent?
Firstly, the medium: no respectable bank would ever ask questions like
that using email. If the bank wanted your personal information, how could they
be sure that it's really you who opens and reads the email? How could they be
sure that nobody would read the message you sent back to them?
Secondly, the personal contact: When you open a credit account in a
bank, for example, you must do it yourself personally. The officer is making
sure (although you're probably unaware of it) that you are the person you say
you are, that you're not drunk, and that you seem to be generally responsible
for your actions when you're opening accounts and signing contracts, etc. Also,
when the user names and initial passwords are given to you, they are given
directly to you personally. How could these kinds of things be accomplished in
a secured way via an email message?
Quite simply, a respectable bank won't ask these things by the use of
email messages.
If you want to read more about safety issues, there's a good site at the
following URL:
www.learnthenet.com/english/section/protect.html
When you open the page you'll see something as shown in Figure 4-1
below:
| 
