by Julia Catherine Lee

Created on: January 13, 2009

Living in an Internet Spiral

Today we seem to be living in a tricky spiral. We get sucked up into this Internet world, willingly or unwillingly. We find ourselves migrating more and more of our daily lives to the web each day. Today, our lives are increasingly an open book; we bank online, we shop online, we make travel plans online, we post pictures of ourselves, our friends and our families online. We blog, we laugh, we cry and we seek out someone at the other end to listen. We are "connected" to everyone who has Internet access 24/7, whether we consciously want to - or not. We implicitly trust the person at the other end, that he or she has no malicious intent and that they at least will treat us in the good and noble way we treat them. We would like to appeal to the good side of our peers at the other end of the World Wide Web that they would not hijack our information for their personal gains. That is the premise of most people who have migrated their live tothe web.

While we are connected in this World Wide Web, every second, web hackers try to get access to our PCs and steal our personal information. Every so often, we were prompted by our computer that it had successfully blocked an attempt to gain access. It freaks us out and we rush to Frys or Best Buy, to buy a nicely boxed web Internet security software...Norton, TrendMicro, Zone Alarm or McAfee just to name four of the hundreds out there, forking out $39.99 a pop. We hope this will finally give us a piece of mind. To our dismay, we find ourselves embarking on a never ending merry go round journey of spending more and more money protecting our information as newer and more sophisticated Internet viruses and worms flourish across the World Wide Web each day preying on us as soon as our digital guard is breached. To me, this just sounds like a bad musical chair between the hackers, the Anti-Virus software manufacturers and you and I. It is going to end badly one day with once again we, the consumers left holding the bag.

I am just an ordinary gal who is very alarmed by how readily everyone has embraced the Internet without giving it much thought. I appreciate the many good things that have come out of the Internet revolution that is moving us forward - whether we want it or not. No doubt, the power of the Internet is evident in the recent historic election that is putting the first African-American President in the White House. A mighty feat indeed. The Internet has also provided a voice for many ordinary folks whose lives are impacted by sweeping decisions made by a powerful few on the Hill. It has allowed them to have a say and hopefully initiate positive change. I am not arguing against using the Internet totally as it has greatly increased productivity for many of us. I am merely asking if it isn't time that we draw a line in the sand on how far and how encompassing we conduct our daily lives on the Internet so the bad does not overwhelm the good. Is it perhaps not time to step back, take a stand and think hard where we really want to go from here.

Be suspicious when everyone is complacent as the saying goes. I fear this is one of those monsters that will blow up in our face someday. Has anyone considered this possibility?

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