by Bilal Mahmood

Created on: September 04, 2010

RELIABILITY AND PRIVACY

As with all computerized systems it must be realized that the network’s facilities may not always work reliably. Using e-mail or making use of the net in many other ways in not without the normal range of frustration experienced by computer users – and a few more to boot! Common frustrations include the slow connection experienced by many when the network is busy – no matter how fast your particular local connection may be, if the site you’re attempting to contact is very busy indeed, then you will get a relatively slow response. Indeed this response may occasionally be so frustratingly slow that it’s best to give up and try again later. If you are connected via LAN then your local proxy server or mail server may go down. A software upgrade at the author’s school actually completely trashed our mail server and it took us a day to get it back again – some upgrade! Also, you can have problems with the organization and management of the internet itself, which can cause simultaneous problems for millions. An unusual but classic example occurred in July 1997 when a company, which maintains the domain-name-database (the equivalent to an electronic telephone directory), released a copy which contained errors. Always remember the saying – ‘to err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer!’

Another avenue of concern has arisen due to the advent of cookies. These are small pieces of information which are stored on your hard drive, ostensibly to help to create customized web pages just for you! What a nice idea this is! For example, when you log onto your ISP and use the web, some sites might wish to set cookie. This information could be used the next time you log on to make different information appear than would be the case if someone else’s cookies were present. You could imagine a scenario that could present you with certain adverts at log on rather than other: if you have surfed the net recently and expressed an interest in searching the automobile sites, then you might get a few car adverts thrown at you! A more sinister interpretation could be that some of your surfing habits might be stored within the cookies contained on your hard drive! Indeed, if you have not looked already, you might be amazed to see what information is already cached on your hard drive in directories like ‘history’ ‘temporary internet directory’, and various cache directories splattered all over the place. The knowledgeable parent can therefore easily see where their less knowledgeable children might have been surfing recently!

The threat of a virus infection from a cookie is also a possibility because you are allowing any site to place information on you hard disk without your permission. Most ISPs and websites are above board, but you only need to visit one that isn’t – and you may have your hard disk trashed for the privilege of visiting their site! It is for this reason that both Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have warnings, which can be enabled when a site you are visiting wishes to set a cookie. The only down side to this is that you’re constantly responding with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ as you are surfing the net, and this gets annoying to say the least. Cookies can be deleted very easily as they are all meant to be stored in the window’s cookies directory.

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