Before getting into the technical stuff, I would first like to introduce the Internet. The Internet is just a huge network of devices that are somehow connected. These devices include web servers, file servers, Personal computers, and many others. We will keep our focus on PCs in this text. All of These are connected through cables or satellites.
Now, we know that when things are connected, data sharing is possible. That’s the solo job on the Internet. Data is being transferred from one place to another all the time. Now, we come to the dark side of data transfer. The problem is that there is so much data that every bit of data can not be checked what this is and where it is going. Who is accessing this? Whether he is the right person to have this data or not. Unfortunately, we don’t have any effective method to check this. I believe someday, we will have some way to control this and restrict malicious people from accessing data they are not supposed to access.
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I am now listing all the possible negative consequences of the Internet, and then I will try to explain them and share potential solutions.
1. Hacking
2. Cybercrimes.
3. Loss of privacy.
4. Data Corruption.
5. Adult material (not suitable for children).
6. Forbidden Knowledge.
7. Plagiarism.
8. Time wastage.
9. Health Hazards.
Hacking:
Many of us—in fact, I think every one of us—are aware of this term and know what it means. It is unauthorized access to anything. Today, in the entire world, hacking has victimized many ordinary people, companies, and even computer firms. This is something that can be done at any level. As there is a saying, “If you can make it, then you can break it.”
Today, billions of people have accounts on many free email sites, social networking sites, and others, and tons of them have lost their accounts with some important personal data inside. Those who have experienced this know how scary it is, and those who have not, believe me, it can be your worst nightmare.
Now, coming to the technical side. There are several types of hacking. We will only concentrate on internet hacking, which involves ordinary people. What has an ordinary person on the Internet? Two things: Email accounts and social networking site profiles. His privacy becomes vulnerable because he has most of his data in these two places; if he, unfortunately, has some acquaintance who is not a good person and possesses sound knowledge of Ithe Internet, then that person might face the consequences somewhere in the future.
Hackers use several ways to access the victim’s data. “social engineering” is the easiest and most effective way on the Internet. Hackers develop a relationship with the victims and then exploit it. One way is to send the email with a link to another website. When you open the link, it asks the user to enter the username and password, and when they do so, it goes to the hacker and gives the user an error message. The irony of the situation is that the victim would never get to know what has just happened to him. This is called “Phishing”. Only people with good knowledge of programming can do this.
One can avoid such a trick if he is a little careful, does not open emails from unknown people, and does not enter any passwords when asked if he has come to that website from an indirect link.
Another way is to install software that keeps a log of whatever activity is being done on a computer, including all the data entered and which website that data is entered. This can also happen if you are using a university, school, workplace, or public computer.
So, always keep that thing in your mind where:e you are sitting and what information you are trying to access. Avoid using your accounts from public computers as much as possible because you never know who is watching you.
Instant messengers can also be used to get the work done. Hackers can send you a link that may cause the loss of your email account.
Do not follow irrelevant-looking links, even if someone really close to you has sent them, because you do not know who is using that account. Hackers use people’s accounts to access their friends.
Your secret questions can also sometimes lead to your destruction. Many people do not recognize the importance of the secret question and just write things that are really obvious to their friends and family.
Therefore, never use something predictable as your security question because if some friend, colleague, or acquaintance gets to guess it correctly, he is in your account. And this goes for passwords as well. Try to make passwords complex and difficult to imagine. Many people use their birth dates, cell phone numbers, and some obvious words like “password” as their password. This makes hackers a workpiece of the cake. So, for your own sake, don’t do that.
Cyber crimes:
Cybercrime is a vast term that includes many things. It means all those crimes done using computers and the Internet. It is often time to refer to credit card fraud, threatening someone, denial of service attacks, and spreading g malicious codes.
Some people use your information and credit card to shop online (e-shopping). Most of the time, you are unaware of that and only find out when you get your monthly credit card bill or something similar. It was very common some years ago, but that does not mean that it has been eliminated. It happens today as well, but it has become quite rare.
You can easily avoid such things by taking care of some things. Most of the time, Hackers gather your information from your dustbin or garbage. I am serious about this. Many people do not realize the importance of the receipts or documents you get from the bank and throw them in their dustbins without destroying them. These documents have many sensitive things on them; if anyone gets them, he gets one step closer to hacking your credit card. So, please don’t throw away such things without destroying them, and do not share such sensitive information even with your closest friends.
Then comes threatening someone. As you may have realized by now, if you get some personal information about someone, you can blackmail them. There is hardly any cure for this because in the internet world, it is rarely possible to trace the person who broke into your system. So, you can only prevent someone from getting into your personal life, but once someone has fooled you, then there is little hope.
Then comes the spreading of malicious code. Malicious code is program code that is intentionally written to do bad things. There are unlimited such codes on the Internet today, and you can become their victim at any time while browsing It. They may be potentially harmful and trigger non-desirable actions.
To prevent such things, keep updating your operating system, install an anti-virus program, and keep updating it, too. Moreover, do not surf irrelevant websites, and if you get a message from your firewall, anti-virus program, or web browser, do not ignore it. Read it carefully, and if it says things like malware risk or this site may affect your computer, do NOT open those websites. The same goes for email attachments.
Loss of privacy:
Privacy is the main concern of people today. So many social networking websites that exploit your privacy, and you can’t do much about that. I don’t want to take any names, but websites still keep your information even after you delete your account. Another thing that surprised me was that a leading social networking site had an agreement with a search engine, and they took it to such an extent that if somebody searches for someone else on even that search engine, he would get results of the other person’s social networking site’s profile. It is made public, and the irony of the situation is that this is being done without your permission.
The solution is to read the agreement you must agree to before creating an account or profile online. If there is something that you think would not be suitable for you, don’t go for it. And if you really need to make an account, at least keep that in mind and take care of it in the future.
Adult material:
I don’t think that any internet user is unaware of the fact that how much on Ithe internet we are surrounded by porn sites. One-click can take you anywhere. This might not be a big deal for university students, but it concerns parents with small children. They are worried about them all the time regarding this matter.
Many people restrict their kids’ use of the Internet, which definitely hinders their education process. Today, the Internet is the greatest medium of information, and if one does not use it, he is left behind.
So, many solutions to this problem would let kids grow educationally and not lead them to adult material. One simple solution is to keep an eye on kids whenever they are using the Internet, and if you don’t have enough time or, for some reason, you can not do that, there are plenty of software that restrict access to such websites. If you want to have some, try the keyword “Parental control software” on some search engines. It will give you some useful results. Then, with a little study, you can implement that software.
Another way is to install a “Key logger” on the computer. It keeps a log of the websites visited. You can check that to see which websites were surfed. This can also be known if your kid is not smart enough to delete the history of the web browser.
Forbidden Knowledge:
The Internet provides information about everything, but knowledge of everything is not good. One can easily find virus codes and then give them software forms. Similarly, there are many books that explain how to make bombs, secretly kill people, annoy neighbors, grow marijuana or weed, etc.
Kids can read such interesting stuff and start implementing them. Unfortunately, there is no shortcut to monitoring them in this case. You have to keep an eye on them.
Plagiarism and material for free:
One of the major concerns regarding the Internet is plagiarism. Many people’s work is being stolen or copied and used in one way or another. Many people share their unique ideas on blogs or other interactive sites to get feedback from others, and before they know it, their ideas are stolen and sometimes even implemented. Unfortunately, there is seldom any justice provided. Therefore, be careful before posting anything on the Internet. Please don’t share your research or unique ideas unless you have copyrights.
Another drawback of the Internet is that almost everything here is free. That’s cool for users but very painful for the producers of that material. We know that today, we can find and download almost every book, movie, song, album, and software for free on the Internet. This causes loss to the people who are selling these things. And it is hard to ban anything that is provided for free on the Internet. So, be ethical and try to abstain from such activities.
Time wastage and health hazards:
The Internet is an entire world in itself. There are a lot of activities one can do here, and one life is not enough to explore them. Moreover, it is so interesting that it consumes time like a jet consumes petrol. I mean, people who use the Internet most of the time get addicted to it, and it becomes like oxygen to them. So, don’t let the Internet be dangerous to you. Define some limits and try to stay within them.
