It is difficult to put one's finger on the exact date of the birth of the Internet. It was created sometime during the early 1970's and in only slightly more than 3 decades, has grown from the connecting of those who originated it (And Al Gore wasn't one of them), into almost infinite numbers. The stats for December 2008 from "Internet World Stats" covering 233 nations and regions, showed 1,565,000,000 internet users. Or a little more than one of every five people in he world. That shows an huge increase in 13 years from 16,000,000 in 1995.
These statistics amount to 23.3 percent of the world's population who use the internet. And guess what? When you take 23.3 percent of the world population, you get a sprinkling of every kind of human there is. And some are not nice. Some are criminals, some are pedophiles, some are pornography addicts, many out to fleece anyone they can and will go to any measure available to them to do so. Some want to con you into sending them your hard earned money, all of it. Others want access to your finances in banks and other financial institutions, and will try every trick in the book to get that information from you. Still others want to steal your identity and be able to destroy you or force you into bankruptcy, for their own gain.
It is such a shame. I often wish, when I get one of those scam attempts or a phishing attempt, that my computer was equipped with a program that would fire a taser charge right into the sender's face.
Two of the most common occurrences are (1) the old "Nigerian" money offer. You have been chosen to receive 14.5 million USD from an aged dying widow who only wants to help you in some worthy project. (2) The phishing email where some financial institutions logos and/or stationary have been copied and used to look like a very legitimate letter from your bank. They will want you to click on a link in response, and if you do, they will be able to harvest your email address, and anything else that is shown. If they ask for your SS number, or bank account number, and you give it to them, you are in deep trouble.
My first receipt of a phishing nature was several years ago and I would have fell for it big time, had it not been from an institution which I had no account and never had. So I notified that institution and received their thanks. I have received several since, some of which I did have an account, but having been alerted by the first one, I never fell for one. I always look up the real institution's website and send them a copy of such letters, with a brief explanation. Your bank, credit union or even online institution such as PayPal will be quick to tell you they will never send such an email. If there is such a problem, they will only ask you to log into your account, with the information you already have.
Also beware of proxy ISP's. Some ISP's have their own proxy servers which use cookies to cache website URL's you visit. This enables faster loading of those pre-visited sites and, if your own ISP is reputable and has proper security features, there is no real harm for them to do that. And, there are also good and secure proxy ISP's that you may use, but take care that you know how secure they are before utilizing them. And don't try to pull something crooked by using the proxy IP address. There are means that some agencies have of determining your real address.
All children and teens should have computer supervision. That may sound old fashioned to you but take my word for it, it is better than having one stalked, raped or murdered. There are means of screening the sites available to them. There is little good to be found in most chat rooms or other interactive sites. Most of them are filled with vulgarity and stuff that young people have no business being involved in.
Certain things you need to keep down much unwanted traffic and dangerous emails or websites are an Anti Virus program, many computers come with a number of safety programs built in, check them out closely and see if they have an anti-virus protection, a good firewall or other such programs and be sure they are enabled to protect the machine. If not, check with Norton or some other reputable anti-virus programs organization. Read your computer's manual and determine which settings you prefer that will allow you to access those sites which you want, and eliminate those you don't want.
Also find out if there is already a program on your computer which will remove tracking cookies or other undesirable programs such as spy ware, ad ware, etc. If it doesn't, you may find a free downloadable program such as "Window's Defender", "Lavasoft Free" or any of the other reputable programs. Most of the free ones will do a reasonable job of finding and removing those undesirable programs, but usually do not stop them from being implanted on your hard drive, nor do they run scheduled scans. But for a reasonable fee you may purchase those that do have those features.
One final caution, beware and be careful when searching for free stuff. Those that offer free stuff, especially that of some value, have to have a means of recouping their money. Many will steal your email address (required in order to do business with them), and your other personal information, ie., mailing address, phone number and anything else they may ask you for. Others will sneak spyware or adware onto your hard drive unless you have a really good program to prevent it.
I once had my hard drive so loaded with adware programs, each time I went online, I was bombarded with pop-ups, sometimes it took me two or three minutes to delete them all. And if you visit some sites, they will put porn pop-ups onto your hard drive. So, unless you have proper protection against these adware programs, it would be much safer not to attempt to access those sites advertising free products.
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