Borderline business

Consider the present internet, an ocean of pages filled with animated sound and vision. Less than ten years old and still exploding. Much has happened in a very short time, and noone has much experience. Now 100 million websites and a billion pc's are out there. When everybody get their own website, every company and institution too, we'll reach 10 billion sites (mid nineties only offered 50000 sites). And 10 times as many new computers will eventually arrive. And similarly many pc newbies born.

For a considerable time there'll be a significant segment of people starting at the bottom, guessing and stumbling again and again. People knowing little or some, but not enough. This borderline is also prime target for phishing mails, spam and scams of the global net. Anonymous scum feeding off the frontier, invisible leaches to inexperience, beginners bad luck, mistakes, typos. But as long as the net is expanding, the borders will be under attack.

Longtime users already know all about virus or phishing, but may I remind that botnets are now common. We all probably know at least one already infected, or in the dangerzone. In my own case, last year I noticed a friend of mine had an very old pc. Still working but an obsolete, insufficient and outdated model. Antiques can be charming, and recycling is normally a good idea. But not when it comes to computer security. Here, latest is safest...

One day I grew worried, reading microsoft now ceased all windows 98 support. High time to upgrade, and we went straight from 98 to XP. Plus antivirus and antispyware. Plus Firefox and Siteadvisor, both blocking dubious sites. Safe again, and potential exploits avoided...

Morale: After securing yourself, take a look around and help the weakest link. Raising the bottom helps us all. 4 out of 5 mails are now spam. Who's the bot in your neighborhood..?