Internet, Good Versus Evil I was reading a post on Facebook the other day and it was supposed to be autoreactive. The writer posted a photo of an ancient structure and began to give us his expert opinion on what the structure was, where it was located and some other facts. Unfortunately, he had gotten almost everything wrong and another reader took him to task. This reminded me of how many times I have seen things like this in the past. Sometimes someone will read something and then post it without checking to see if it is factual. Other times people will write things themselves and have many of the facts wrong. On top of all this is the other side of the coin which is people just waiting for someone to put up a post like this so they can tear that person down in public. The internet has given people a certain amount of anonymity so some feel emboldened. Maybe they were picked on in school or work, or maybe they were the bully and now they feel even more freedom to insult people and try and not only make them look like idiots, but also to get others to join in on the cyber bullying. I think these people are much worse than those with the erroneous information. In a way though we should not excuse bad information. The internet has been both a boon and a bust as I have said before. One of the most awful stories I heard, was about a student who was constantly bullied in school and also on the internet. It got so bad the family moved, but one of the bullies got the new address and posted it on social media. So many children have been so badly bullied they have committed suicide at a very tender age. It is beyond horrible. As was proven the other day when the internet went down for many businesses and people all around the world because of a defective Windows update, the internet is not impossible to take down. There doesn’t seem to be much protection against this type of thing. I am sure this was noticed by those who have evil intentions for one reason or another. Days later things were still not back to normal in many areas. Even the airports had their planes stopped. I don’t remember ever seeing anything this bad before. There are things about the internet I do not understand. One is why the dark web is allowed to function. Supposedly this is where the criminals go for many illegal actions. Everyone on the internet should be exposed to the light of day. If one site is found to have a criminal purpose it should be shut down and those running it brought to justice. There should be treaties between all countries on this point and just because a criminal is operating in another country from the one he is committing crimes in, that should not matter, the punishment should be the same. Another thing I have a problem with is the fact not every company farming our data is protecting it sufficiently and when that data is stolen, many times nothing is done to hold them responsible. Why should a company even bother to go to the trouble of protecting our data if they know even if it is stolen, they will get off scott free? Why is the government not amending the law to force them to protect that data in at least a reasonable way or face criminal charges? I think the answer is obvious, the government cares more about business than us. Many of these businesses have powerful lobbies and support different parties and politicians. There should also be punishment for those that lost our data through carelessness. Years ago, a laptop was taken out of the Veteran’s Administration by an employee. It had personal information on about 2 million veterans. I am sure taking this info out was not allowed. Anyway, the person who took it then left the laptop on the subway endangering all these vets. Nothing I know about was ever done to the employee. I don’t want to give the impression the internet is all bad, it certainly has its good points. One of them is it allows us to keep in contact with people we might have lost contact with. I still am in contact with people I worked with many years ago. For those who were in the military we might have lost contact with some great people over the years if it wasn’t for the internet. The internet is great for buying things. Amazon has proved the people wrong who thought nobody would buy things online without seeing them first. It may not necessarily always have the lowest prices, but it seems you can get almost anything there. I compare prices on higher priced items. Recently I found an item Amazon was selling for 74 dollars on Best Buy for 54 dollars and both had free shipping and fast delivery. If one searches, they can find anything sold by someplace. Doctor visits online for small medical problems have become a thing. If one just needs a prescription for cough syrup or something like that it beats wasting time at the doctor’s office. If one is too sick to attend a religious service, they can now do it at home watching it online and sometimes on television. YouTube has revolutionized repairs. What makes me say that? There is a simple reason, if one doesn’t know how to fix something, they most likely can find a YouTube video explaining it. You can find on complex repairs or even much more simple problems like how to set a watch. I admit sometimes it might be hard to understand the speech because of an accent, but if you can put up with that you might just get the answer to your problem. What I sometimes find the hardest thing about sites on the internet is sometimes if is very hard to fix a problem with some site hosting a service you use. One of the first things I sometimes find is no telephone number is listed for a contact, only a chatbot or possibly an email address if you are lucky. On top of that if there is a telephone number it more than likely is to a foreign country where English is not the first language. I just hate having to ask the person over and over what they said. On the other hand, many times the chatbot lists a series of areas you might need help and then asks you to choose the correct one and you realize you have a different problem and there is no choice to speak with an agent. I have come to the conclusion the internet is more good than bad, but we have to be very careful.
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