The Internet Is Not What We Thought It Would Be I remember when the experts knew the internet was going to change our lives and told us so. They predicted all sorts of things which would make us very happy and a chance to get more information than we ever had. I don’t remember anyone saying books might become obsolete, along with schools. No one in those days pictured the internet as anything but rosy. Little did they realize it would also be fraught with crime and misinformation. Before the internet, there was nothing we could compare it with, the amount of information we had at our finger tips blew away what we could find out from the newspapers, radio and early television. The connections themselves have made our lives a lot riskier. If a system is connected to the internet or as they say online, it is vulnerable to all sorts of sabotage as witnessed by all the hacks that have occurred with banks, credit card companies and many other companies. *As I am writing this article today, I have just heard the Colonial Pipeline which supplies 45 percent of oil to from Texas to the East Coast of the United States had to be shut off because the computers controlling it have been hacked and the people who run it figured that was the safest thing to do until it can be brought up again without problems. We were told information and programs which were online would be safe because they would be protected. Little did we know at the time this protection would not only be inadequate in many cases, but even non-existent in others. For the first few years of the internet, most of us felt what we were looking at was a miracle of technology and while there were no social media sites as such, there were message boards when you could leave messages for others and reply to messages. Early signs of trouble started to appear with arguments breaking out on some of the boards. Some people felt they could say anything they wanted including insulting people because their identities were unknown. They all had handles which were used instead of their real identities. To make matters even worse children would get on and start arguments for fun having a great old time calling everyone names to get them angry. Suddenly that person who was picked on in school now was in a position to pick on others without getting hurt and some of them did just that. We were told computers and their software were going to cut down on paperwork we had to fill out because everything would be put into the computer once and be there every time you needed it. To this I have to pose a question. How many times have you had to fill out the same paperwork over and over for every doctor visit? It seems the amount of paperwork has increased because we still have it plus the information for the computer. Everywhere I go there is more paperwork than before the internet and computers. One of the problems is most everything you do on the internet requires you to register the first time you go on a particular site and them requires at least a pass word and ID each time after. Even this can become a problem. I have another question, how many times have you tried to sign into a site you have used for years and it won’t accept your password or ID anymore? It seems like the internet was really created to follow us and keep track of everything we ever posted. Many people have been hurt by the posts they put up. Some were posts from when they were a child, but that doesn’t seem to matter anymore. I know I have said many times to people I know be very careful what you say online. In the beginning the internet was a lot of fun, I won’t deny that. At that time most of us didn’t realize what it would turn into. It is probably one of the most efficient systems for spying on people. Every time you go on line it will try and track you. There are some ways around this, such as using what is known as a VPN, a Virtual Private Network that bounces your location off of many different satellites to confuse those trying to trace your location. The good ones have to be bought. When banks went online some people were a little nervous about online banking. They are the perfect place for a disaster to happen. There have been predictions for years stating someday people’s accounts will be wiped out because crooks will simply drain them transferring the funds overseas. So far it has been so good, but this could change. I know at least some banks have adapted secondary identification. When you sign in you still have to answer another question. So far it seems to be working but as computers get more powerful, we have to expect more problems. I hate to think what will happen when quantum computers begin to be used. Some experts claim a quantum computer will be able to break any protection from a classical computer, no matter how powerful. If we listen to scientists, they are saying protection from a quantum computer can never be broken. Where have we heard nonsense like this before? Oh yeah, man will never break the sound barrier in a plane, and even man will never fly. I have always said if something is made by man, it can be unmade by him no matter how clever the protection is. I for one would like to see a perfect internet where we have no worries using it and no one is building fake websites to fool us into thinking we are somewhere on line where we are not. I would love to see those phony emails from the IRS and other places stopped and those responsible arrested. I would also like to see those fraudulent phone calls tracked down and those people dealt with by the law. Unfortunately, we are now living in a society where the laws are making things easier for criminals not harder. It is absurd what is going on in some places. One criminal in New York was praising Governor Como because he has been let out without bail six times for six crimes in a short period of time. We need to be tougher on crime and create treaties with other countries where those criminals preying on computer users are arrested and put in jail. We have a right to be able to go on the internet without having to worry about losing our data, being tracked and being robbed. *Article are written about one month is advance of publishing.
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