The same internet connection that lets you reach out and touch millions of web servers, e-mail addresses and other digital entities across the globe also endangers your PC and the information it contains about you. Here's how to stymie the three gravest internet risks. Source: http://www.pcworld.ca/news/column/e0ab1c3d0a010408001a024c9dab7bab/pg0.htm
I don't think they will be any threats.... it's always blah blah... remember the year 1999 how much the made a big deal on the year 2000.
Microcoft is not the biggest threat to the computing world. It is simply the biggest personal software company in the world and one of the wealthiest. However, it is human nature to always think the that biggest and richest are the most evil. It would not matter if it was Apple or Red Hat or even the OSS. If any of those were the dominant force in the computer industry, it would be viewed as the most evil. This tendency is so strong that smaller companies run by people who laughed about stealing from the partners and who do not believe the laws apply to them are viewed as good. If I were to pick my biggest threats to the internet in 2007, it would include ignorance of history, because that leaves us vulnerable to repeat its mistakes. Scammers never changed anything but the technology used, and they still succeed. Another is security assertions by the marketing departments for the Open Source movement, Apple and Microsoft's Vista. Those claims make people complacent about security when they use those products. That makes them completely vulnerable. And they will switch to root or admin to install viruses and rootkits when prompted because they are ignorant of history. Another is people trying to manage their own web servers and install scripts from sites with fancy looking pages . . . and who never bother to read up on web security. They keep providing the bad guys with proxies and CPU cycles needed to manage truly evil empires.
For me personally, the biggest threats are: 1. More government regulation of the net - the end of net neutrality (this trend started heavy in 2006, when the U.S. government banned online gambling) 2. Unique article generation programs - it seems lately a lot of webmasters want to use automated programs rather than content written by humans. I write content, so you can see why I consider this a threat. For example, I start a thread offering to write, and I get two responses, while I notice another thread offering article generation software, and they get 56 responses. 3. Google - This company is becoming almost an online monopoly. Webmasters bow to Google, and they even want to put Microphones in our computers. All of you guys who are afraid of Microsoft better pay more attention to Google, because Google has MS beat on the Internet. 4. Privacy Concerns - I agree with the thread starter in that your personal information is readily available....including your cell phone records. It was reported on the news last year that your cell phone records can now be purchased. 5. The IRS suddenly getting permission by Paypal and similar companies to audit the accounts of online business people, many of which are not paying taxes. The IRS was pushing for this in 2006, but so far, Paypal has not responded, at least that I know of..... Of all the threats mentioned above, government regulation scares me the most. I dread the day when the Internet becomes like cable television, where a handful of large corporations can basically by out the net and force small business people out, or when free speech is destroyed. Those are my fears. Right now, the Internet is a true free market, and a true democracy. Unfortunately, politicians like John McCain want to see the blog industry destroyed, and AT&T and Verizon want to take control of the Net. Google is fighting for net neutrality, but there is evidence Google may have connections with the CIA, and the company may have its own agenda for wanting to keep the net neutral.
thats the big one for me, and you're right, online gambling is the first casualty in the governments "war for control of the net, as they control everything else"
There are a number of places online that talk about it, but I don't know how accurate it is, but it came from multiple sources, one of which I find to highly credible. You can check out this link:http://weblog.infoworld.com/techwatch/archives/008658.html I make money through Google just like most people here, but there are things about Google that concern me. This thing about wanting to put microphones in our computer freaks me out, and the company was quick to do business with China, a company with a lot of humans rights violation and Internet restrictions. Here is a link to an article that talks about Google wanting to listen to us through out computers:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/09/03/google_eavesdropping_software/
Very interesting, i have heard about that and surely i dont feel as comfortable. I dont know its too large of a business.
According to the article the three threats are: Phishing and identity theft Malware Internet Toolkit 2007
Government regulations and privacy concerns are what bother me alot. I cannot imagine the internet being anything less than neutral and universal. What I do hope for is the powers that be take more action to fight spammy sites and scraper sites and plagiarising...as more people come online, there's bound to be alot more cases of content copying and people getting banned from Adsense I would imagine. You would be surprised to know that many of my friends think they can simply copy anything from the internet...cos they think its all F.O.C. And hopefully for Adsense to improve itself to detect right from wrong.
I think some of the biggest threads are the higher penetration of broadband internet accesses and higher CPU power of homecomputers. The more of this the more damage can ignorant internet user do to others. And privacy is another concern.
That is a big concern to me, since I make money as a content writer. I've heard that Google and similar companies are not doing enough to enforce duplicate content penalties, and if people can get to the top of the search engines by simply copying from other peoples website, there won't be much point in paying. The problem is, a fine line must be drawn between enforcing such protections and allowing the net to remain neutral. At this point, the government can't even stop bit torrent sites from allowing free music and movies, and with the video revolution, it has become easy to create sites like Peek vid where tv shows and movies can be viewed for free. If they can't enforce that, I don't know how they are going to enforce the protection of written content on websites. Not that I think taking out bit torrent sites is such a bad thing.
somtimes people are acctually the biggest threat. people not knowing what they are clicking on and downloading onto their computers, and what could happen should you download and install somthing that you dont know is even there