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As with any other "hot topic,"
the Internet has been the victim of more than its share of myths,
superstitions, and falsehoods. The media hasn't helped, to be sure,
but uninformed people are just as much at fault. These rumors, if
left to fester, will do nothing but damage the reputation of the
Internet and those that use it. This report will debunk three of
the most common rumors being spread about the Internet.
>Myth #1: The Internet is just a garbage
dump of pornography, pedophiles, and other miscreants.
Untrue! While I will concede that there
is some unsavory material available on the Internet, it is nowhere
near as prevalent as the rumors would lead you to believe.
First, the percentage of material that would normally be considered
objectionable is quite the minimum. While it's impossible to estimate
the exact amount, my guess would be 1/2%, at most. In other words,
no worse than your local bookstore that might have a copy of "The
Joy Of Sex" and Playboy for sale. While even that much is too
much for some people, most people would agree that it really isn't
a problem.
In 1995, though, Time Magazine cited a study by a university freshman
for their cover story on Internet pornography. This article grabbed
headlines everywhere with its statistics showing huge amounts of
child pornography, bestiality, and other sickness travelling across
the Internet. What the article didn't tell you was that the statistics
weren't based on any credible study, but were estimates that this
one freshman, who went on to write a book about how to "pick
up women online," had pulled off the top of his head. The study
that the article was based on has been 100% discredited, and Time
even published a large correction and apology soon afterward. Unfortunately,
the rumor was in place by that time, and the retraction didn't get
as many headlines as the original article did.
Second, a good percentage of people can't even access areas of the
Internet that contain objectionable material. This is because those
areas are blocked out by many Internet service providers. These
providers either have a moral objection to making those areas available,
or they don't want to leave themselves open for any legal issues.
Thus, the people who have their Internet connections via these providers
don't have to worry about encountering material they dislike.
Finally, if you have a child in the house who's allowed to access
the Internet, parental responsibility comes into play. Just as you
would make sure that your child isn't at the bookstore mentioned
earlier, reading materials you would find objectionable, you should
make sure that they aren't able to access raw areas of the Internet.
How can you accomplish this?
>Use a service provider that does not
allow access to these areas.
>Only allow your child to use an online
service such as America Online, which has parameters you can set
in order to screen out areas you don't like.
>Use a software program such as SurfWatch,
which blocks out areas of the World Wide Web and other parts of
the Internet that contain objectionable materials. SurfWatch has
a subscription updating system that makes sure your child is always
blocked from those areas.
Unfortunately, if you don't like sexually-oriented
material, there's not much you can do to prevent it from being posted
on the Internet. The Internet is a true bastion of free speech,
and with that, comes that possibility that something you might not
like will occasionally appear. If you attempt to censor the areas
you don't like so that others can't see them, others will censor
areas they don't like, so that you can't see them. These might be
politically-oriented areas, or other socially acceptable areas that
promote opinions others don't like. If it were even physically possible
to censor the Internet (and it isn't, whatever politicians try to
tell you), there would be such an outcry that it would never happen.
Suffice it to say, though, that the sexually-oriented materials
online are a severe minimum of what's available, and little, if
any, truly perverted material ever makes it online.
>Myth #2: It isn't safe to send your
credit card number across the Internet.
Yes and no. This is another area that has
been unfairly exploited by the media. There are certain precautions
you can take to ensure safety when paying for a product online.
The advent of secure servers stands to change the way commerce is
conducted on the Internet. The server is the primary connection
to the Internet at your service provider's location. Secure servers
use encryption to ensure that anything that might be intercepted
would be useless, as it would be scrambled. If you're accessing
a website stored on a secure server, there will be some indication,
which varies from program to program, that shows it's secure (Netscape
Navigator, for example, has a broken key in the lower left corner
for non-secure servers, unbroken for secure).
One thing to realize, however, is that you really aren't that much
at risk if you transmit your credit card number through a non-secure
server. Here's what someone would have to do in order to steal your
credit card number from an email message: they'd have to intercept
the single message that contains your information at the exact right
time. Chances of that actually happening are low.
In fact, after doing some independent research, I wasn't able to
find any instances of this happening. The credit card thefts that
have occurred over the Internet have been mass thefts from banking
and online service computer systems that contain databases of customer
information. Wouldn't that make more sense, anyway? If you were
a thief, would you rather spend a large amount of time trying to
intercept individual emails, or spend a short amount of time accessing
a single source where you could get hundreds or thousands of card
numbers, all in one shot? True, criminals aren't always logical,
but most of them want to do as little work as possible.
What it boils down to is that sending your credit card via email
probably is no riskier than giving your information over the phone
to an operator at a catalog company. After all, someone could be
listening in on the phone call, or the person at the other end of
the line (or someone else in that office) might be running a credit
card fraud business on the side. Secure servers just enhance the
safety.
>Myth #3: The Internet is a hostile
place for newcomers.
False, false, false! The only way you'll catch any guff as a newcomer
is if you don't use common sense and jump into things without knowing
the proper procedures. As long as you know some basic information,
you'll do fine on the Internet.
Just like in the real world, if you don't know how to do something,
read the directions first. Almost all Usenet groups and email lists
have what are called FAQs, which stands for Frequently Asked Questions.
These documents will contain all the basic information you need
to know before participating in that discussion group.
For example, suppose you want to participate in the fictitious Usenet
discussion group Alt.Fan.Redbirds, a group which talks about your
favorite rock group, the Redbirds. The FAQ for that group might
have the biographies of each member (so people won't be asking the
same "where was the lead singer born" questions all the
time), a list of all their records, and any other basic information
about the group. Having this information in an accessible document
prevents discussions from getting bogged down with the same subjects
over-and-over. Also, you'll find information in the FAQ about who
the moderator (basically, the boss) of the group is, procedures
for posting messages, subjects that are welcomed or should not be
discussed in that group, etc. You'll save yourself a lot of grief
by reading through the FAQ first thing!
How do you know where the FAQ is? That brings us to the second important
skill Internet newcomers must have and use: the ability to ask.
Just ask someone in the group, they'll tell you. They won't "bite
off your head" or make fun of you because you're new. In fact,
almost all discussion groups on the Internet welcome newcomers,
because they bring with them a fresh perspective on whatever topic
is being discussed. Just post your first message as a short introduction
of yourself, along with a request for directions to the FAQ. Check
back tomorrow, and you'll probably have a response, whether by email
or posted in the Usenet group itself.
Read through this FAQ. If you need more help, contact the group's
moderator by email. Either the moderator will volunteer to help,
or you'll be given an email address of someone who can help you.
The Internet is, for the most part, a friendly place. And, if you're
still nervous about dealing with the "old timers" on the
Internet, remember this: they were "newbies" once, too!
