Internet age= Doom age?

Internet is one of the most important and the most frequently used tool in the IT age. Every day, millions of people log in to the internet, whether to check mail, whether to do research work, or whether to transfer money over the internet, or do online shopping, or simply complete an online assignment, like me. Life seems to be somehow stagnant without internet, like a boat stuck in the middle of the sea with a broken compass and tattered sails. But the sea has traps, and numerous dangers, and this can drown our boat. Internet has been abused in many ways, starting from seemingly minor plagiarism to dangerous problems like DNS spoilage.

Plagiarism is one of the most common problems of Internet. With the ‘Googlary’ students now simply cut and paste from other websites, without acknowledging the source, or using the material in the source in a different way. Imagine a world where you could not publish your papers over the internet, just because someone else might steal it and publish in his/her own name. Plagiarism comes from the
Latin word ‘plagiarius’ meaning to kidnap, or abduct. Are we putting up information on the internet for it to be stolen?

Another common problem is internet security. Many people may not know, but even when we switch on our computer and plug in the LAN cable, we are exposing ourselves to millions of hungry hacker, and innumerable viruses. Viruses have been so far being rebutted by anti-virus software. Even if the virus becomes ‘resistant’ we still have newer ‘antibiotics’. But, viruses are not the only threat now. We have a whole insect kingdom of ‘worms’, and ‘bugs’, not forgetting spyware, adware, and even anti-anti-viruses(those which look innocent to the antivirus, but are actually malicious programs) and each function differently. Once they make it through, we need to get prepared to throw the computer down the bin. Is this the cost of simply plugging in internet for checking mail? And of course, not to forget the huge amounts of spam we receive everyday in our mailboxes. Generated by algorithms, these are grammatically correct English with rubbish content, which are not really harmful, but irritating.

The internet has been used as the hacker’s fishing net to fish those who are not so IT savvy. A rising problem has been DNS spoilage. When we type in the address in the browser address bar, it sends the text to DNS for acquiring the IP address of the website, and then we reach the website. People have made it to hack in to the DNS and change the IP address. This has been used to change the IP address of bank websites to rob huge amounts of money from the credit card holder, without the person suspecting.

And not forgetting the sharp rise in pornography in the internet. Pornography is so readily available, that it takes only a click to change Safe Search settings to give thousands of porn pictures, just by clicking on the search button. Video uploading sites like Youtube and Metacafe take only a login or a false click on the disclaimer message to continue to reveal a whole bunch of pornographic videos.

A 24 hour DNS attack analysis.

I believe that Internet is one of man's greatest creations, and it should not be spoiled in this way, as Lim Yee Hung says, that the internet is a double edged sword. But we can make the bad edge blunt and the good edge sharp. Efforts have been made by governments in censorship of media, protection of DNS, protection of the user, remotely, but surely. Light comes with darkness, and similarly comes boon with bane, but we should always extract the goodness. Maybe some impurities will prevent the gold from being 24 K gold, but still, its gold glitters if its polished regularly. Similarly, we need to be responsible for our own actions on the internet, as says our dear old Mrs Chor.

Internet was built as a boon. Internet has gaps, but still effort has been made to cover these gaps. Otherwise, I probably will not be sitting here on my computer making this blog post, because I will probably prefer to fail my Blog III rather than lose another computer. Anyway, the Internet is our creation, and it is our own responsibility to preserve all its goodness, and not allow one rotten apple in the basket make the others rot too.