Online Safety Intro
As most of you know being on-line is not always where you’re safe. There are people who will try to take your identity, credit card number, e-mail anything else. Those people (if caught) get charged for Identity Theft, Fraud Theft, or some other thing they’ve done that they're not supposed to. So that is why I’m here to tell you ways to be protected from the Internet.
Top 5 Things You Should Never Give Away • Credit Card Number • Phone Number • E-Mail Address • IP Address • Images of you
Credit Card Number/Licenses Plate Number: Why? Simple, people could use your number to gain entrance to your money. There for they could use your credit card number they’ve acquired and use it on items they want to buy. Pretty soon you’ll start losing money because someone out there is using your credit card number, and you didn’t want to buy these things.
As for the licenses plate number, people could sue you for a car related thing (that is bad) you’ve never done. But there is a catch, you MUST have a license plate on your car because the Cops will stop you if don’t. Why? Because the police will need that number if you, yourself have done something bad. It’s their job to bring justice to the roads. They block Licenses Plates in the show Cops if your ever wondering how it looks like to look at a protected car.
Phone Number: Why? People then could call you instantly and never stop. People could call you can bug you and that can get pretty annoying sometimes. Admit it, you don’t want someone stranger talking to you about candy in 5:00 AM do you? Only give out your phone number to the people you want to speak to or if they need to speak to you they’ll probably e-mail you why they want your phone number and you can call them.
E-Mail Address: It’s easy to understand why this wouldn’t be given out to anyone. With your e-mail address at someone’s hand they could e-mail you junk mail, viruses, Trojans, or something you may find annoying. Doing that if someone were to send you a virus you could actually think it’d be your long lost friend, cause you only give your E-mail to people you know. Then click the attachment. OH NO! It’s actually a virus! Only give out your e-mail to the people you trust.
IP Address: Yes, it’s true. If people know your IP Address you can get hacked. Yes, there are sites where you can download hacking programs. In my opinion, the Government should ban those kinds of sites. Once people get a hold of your IP Address they can easily get any password they desire. Then they could go into your accounts and say bad things in your name, people believing it was actually you.
Images of you: Posting a picture of you in it can be dangerous. As for people can do many things with it? Post it on the web; modify it (making you look ugly), and some other things. Why do you think they block out faces in shows? They’re protecting the privacy of that person.
Other Things You Should Know
If you’re at a Web Site. Read their Privacy Policy to expect what you’re getting yourself into, if you are submitting anything. But just in case read it.
At any time when a website asks for your e-mail address or any personal info, make sure you know why they want that information. If a website has an “About us” page read it first so you know whom your giving your E-mail address to.
If a website is new to you. Ask yourself this. Is this a good site? Does this site have good reputation? Have I ever heard of this site?
If the answer on the last question, Have I ever heard of this site? Is no. Then that site is probably bad. If you can’t find it in any search engines or if you find that site strange, ask a parent before submitting any work.
Keep your Identity a secret. Like if your name was Bob use Bob3846. So people won’t know it’s the real you. So before you go onto a site try to stay anonymous. Then once you make friends, know the site really good, and there are no creeps on log onto to that site you can change your name.
This legendary rule you should know by now. Don’t talk to strangers. Unless you want to. Like in most cases they will probably ask you to meet face-to-face. Also in most cases they strangers will probably be males. But not always. So if e-mail showed at your Inbox with an address you don’t know don’t click it. Instead, delete it.
Now the next few parts you’re going to read may not have anything to do with Online Safety but I’ll put it there. It’s Internet History. Why? Without this you wouldn’t be reading this!
Intro
Large groups of computer called Servers, connect to one another. The home computer (PC) connects to these servers using a modem, joining a Network. 14 Years… it took for Internet to work properly. Or so they say, as the Internet is still having some problems.
History
February 1969: Two guys called Kenneth Thompson & Dennis Ritchie created a software program called UNIX. UNIX allowed people to communicate to one another. That was the start of the Internet.
September 1969: In this time four computers were set up at ARPANet to communicate. It failed while trying to send the word “Log”. At letter g the system crashed.
April 1972: First E-mail letter sent. The word and Electronic-Mail (e-mail) was born!
December 1973: Language called transmission control protocol/internet protocol was developed so computers at ARPANet could communicate with one another faster.
February 1974: The very first mouse to go across a mouse pad.
January 1975: Bill Gates dropped out of college to write the first basic computer language for the first working computer, Altair.
March 1975: The first version of ARPANet was released.
April 1975: Two guys named Bill Gates & Paul Allen found Microsoft.
March 1976: Apple computer gets started as Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak develop Apple 1 Computer.
March 1977: There are one hundred computers online!
August 1981: The IBMPC is invented, that contained an operating system called MSDOS. Made by Bill Gates and developed by Tim Paterson.
December 1983: Internet connection was established, so a real life Internet was running. Used by research and military things related.
October 1984: The Apple Company makes a computer that is now called the Macintosh (Mac).
April 1987: The first computer virus made it’s way across the servers making the whole entire network to shut down for 24 hours.
April 1989: America Online (AOL), Prodigy, and CompuServe were the first sites to give everyone free Internet connection.
May 1990: HyperTextTerminalProtcol (HTTP) was written. Creating a big universe of search and displaying!
January 1992: Switzerland’s company C.E.R.N created the World Wide Web. Numbers of servers makes it to 1,236,000! January 1994: The White House website is published and released for us to see!
February 1994: Pizza Hut takes the first ever online order!
April 1994: Two guys named Jerry Yang and David Filo created Yahoo!.
May 1995: Java was invented by microsystems.
July 1995: Amazon.com, virtual bookstore, is created.
January 1997: Browser war between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape sparks!
August 1998: Steve Jobs goes back to Apple computers and created the iMac.
November 1998: AOL buys Netscape for $4.2 Billion.
June 1999: The Internet reaches 56,218,000 connected computers!
If you have an important date I left out please restate it like I did. I will add credits! wink.gif
Internet Viruses can be deadly, but some do practically nothing but scare you into really affecting your computer. Here are lists of viruses.
A Virus can get onto your computer by E-Mail attachments, Downloading programs, File sharing, and CD Sharing. But anytime your computer gets data a virus might be hidden inside! Like a biological virus, a virus can replicate its self, and then looks for other computers to feast on.
Small Timeline
1981: A virus makes its way across Apple users in Texas A&M University.
1991: The Tequila virus becomes the first shape-shifting to infect computers in the world.
1992: The first virus kit becomes available to users around the Internet.
2002: David Smith, creator of the Melissa Virus is sentenced to 20 months in Federal Prison.
Software Viruses
Software Virus hide in programs in your computer. Waiting for you to click on that folder that they are hiding in.
E-Mail Viruses are the most common. What happens is that if you click the attachment, sometimes the virus will mail itself to everyone in your address book and will hide in hyperlinks. The person’s friend who got infected clicks it and they get a virus too! Usually, some smart friends delete it and warn everyone on their friend list.
Computer Worms are very damaging. A worm is a program that searches for security holes in networks. When a worm finds a computer that is safe for that worm to go in. It copies itself into that computer, and then it looks for other computers in that computers network.
Trojan Horse will erase your hard drive in your computer. All your files, programs, downloads will be gone. Trojan horses are disguised as something good like game downloads or something.