To The Moon And Back

I’ve been rambling on and on almost all my posts about how I love the Internet. But really, it can’t be all about love right? So I moved away from my computer for a couple of hours and thought about the things that I don’t like about the World Wide Web. It’s hard because I’m so addicted to anything that has to do with online so if you want to add anything to this list, tell me!

1. Perverts. They are all over the Internet disguised in so many ways. They could be a so-called agent who needs your almost nude photos for their website. It could be the 32-year-old sweet man from the chatroom but was actually a 55 somethings who badly needed alcohol rehab. Worse, I’ve heard of sick men snagging photos of children from parenting blogs and replacing their bodies with naked pictures so they can sell them to equally sick clients.

2. Spam all year round. Whether it’s through email, blog comments, website contact forms, they will flood you with messages so you can visit their website for much needed hits and sale.

3. Lack of personal connection. As much as I love meeting new friends over the Internet, there’s just something weird about a room full of people who doesn’t even smile or nod at each other because they’re so busy looking at their machines. I’m talking about Internet cafes. Isn’t it supposed to be a place where people can hang out, meet new friends over coffee, etc?

4. Piracy. I don’t really hate this because I can’t say that I haven’t, in my whole life, enjoyed a nice warez or two. Still, software companies are losing money from piracy. I know this for a fact after working for several companies for eight years.

5. Related to above. Plagiarism. Everyone can steal your content, artwork, music, and photo and pass it off as theirs.

6. Identity Theft. Nothing worse than having someone steal your identity just because you used your credit card, etc. Remember the movie THE NET? Everything is so advanced I’m starting to feel that that the movie could happen in real life.

7. Scam artists. It’s so much easier to cheat on people in the virtual world. You don’t have a physical address where people can hunt you and ask for their money back. Whenever you do a transaction online, you are accepting that you can get scammed 50% of the time.

8. Virus, Browser Hijacks, Porn. Visit a not so legit site and voila! You’ll have porn banner ads whenever you load a new browser. Of course, you can always do your best to secure your machine by installing every anti virus, pop up blocker, spyware sweeper, etc. Still, the virus makers are getting smarter each day that as soon as you feel safe, you’ll find new virus names on your computer next month. Thank god for constant software updates!

9. Thanks to email lags or server problems, it’s so much easier to pretend that you didn’t receive an important email or message. Slackers and plain lazy people grab at this opportunity every chance they get. I’ve heard about this conversation many times: “boss - where are the new changes to the website, employee - oh, I didn’t get that email? Can you please re-send?” This will give the slacker another 24 to 48 hours to slack off before he work on the changes.

10. Stalkers. See #1 for related info. People can find you in Friendster, Multiply, MySpace, and Facebook. That’s a good thing. But not if it’s a psycho ex-girlfriend / boyfriend whose main purpose in life is to ruin you by hacking your emails and blogs, join the same community you’re in and spread lies about you, be-friend or steal your online friends, and many more. No, it never happened to me but I know two people who had.

So you see, Internet could be bad. But don’t let these things stop you from enjoying the Internet. Just be informed on what you can do to protect your identity, your kids and your machine from these threats.