Cultural Misfits	Visited: 2152 Not rated Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Bob Osgoodby October 05, 2003

I was talking with someone I know who is a real wiz withcomputers. He was telling me that if someone is persistent enough, they can basically break into any computer. Our service provider was recently attacked and the hackers placed programs in the system, which were disruptive.

Their priorities were to first get the server back up and running. In order to do this, they had to find and remove the disruptive files the hacker had placed on the system. Their next step was to identify how the access was gained, and close that doorway. Finally they will make a concerted effort to identify the hacker. If, and when they do identify this person, they intend to prosecute them criminally, and sue them civilly for the damages they caused.

Surprisingly many of the Hackers are kids still in High School taking computer science classes. As an exercise, not approved by their teachers, they create viruses or hack into their friends computers just for fun, and prove that they can do it. Every once in awhile however, it backfires and they create something that doesn't work the way they intended. This can quickly spread and have world-wide implications.

Other Hackers know exactly what they are doing and have a malevolent purpose. These people are sick. Their intention is to hurt others, which they do. These people should be prosecuted
to the full extent of the law.

Hacking is something that must be stopped. eCommerce is growing
everyday, and the actions of these cultural misfits can cost millions in both money and lost time.

Spammers who send unsolicited ads to thousands by the hour are also a major problem. While admittedly I have a high profile email address, and probably receive more than my share of spam, this can be similarly disruptive to the operation of a business. There is no reason why I should have to sort through several hundred ads to find my email. This is disruption of service and the spammers should be held liable.

Now there are two kinds of spam. At the risk of offending someone, the first is perceived spam. Someone" either signs up for something, or requests information, and having a mental lapse, forgot they did. They then complain bitterly when they receive it, or worse yet file a complaint with the senders ISP, or with Spam Cop.

Others may subscribe to a newsletter or ezine under one email ddress, which is forwarded to their main one, and forgot they did it that way. For security purposes, they have to be using the mail address they subscribed under to be removed, and don't. They find it easier to simply fire off an expletive filled missive to anyone they can identify. A courteous note will yield far better results.

Be aware that there are some people, who hate spam with such a passion, they actually get software that parses a message and automatically sends a complaint to every email address and domain it finds.

Someone had published an article I had written, and since it included my domain name, a complaint was fired off to my ISP. That is simply not fair. I didn't send the email, it wasn't sent from my account, but I received a warning. The person who did that apparently doesn't care who they hurt in pursuit of their "holy grail".

While spam is a major problem and is disruptive, it is at the worst simply an annoyance. A hack attack or a malevolent virus is another story. Everyone should at a minimum have virus protectionsoftware.

You are especially at risk to a hack attack if you have either a DSL or Cable connection, as you are always connected when your computer is on. Someone could break into your computer and spam to their hearts content using your account, and you will be blamed. We have our computers networked together, and it requires a password to access the files. While that will protect us from the majority of attacks, a determined effort could gain access.

The best protection the average person can use is a "firewall" which prevents people from accessing their computer. Search engines will quickly reveal where they can be obtained. Now if we could only get the hackers to concentrate on the spammers, maybe this entire problem would go away.