CyberCrime, Everyone is screwed!!!

As a society, we have gone from a false sense of security, to a more in depth BS sense of security. Ripping people off and taking advantage of people has never been easier. Fancy anti-virus programs, anti-malware software; Whatever you have, unless you understand standard safety practices, you're royally effed. Are you ready for S to go down or what? I am so tired of fixing peoples computers whenever I'm there, usually it's during the holidays, eff that (I'd rather have a beer). This isn't the mid 90's. No person has an excuse, unless they just learned about things like the Internet or email (much older generations). This isn't a brand new thing, same ol' stuff, new methods. The fact that people still think that they actually won something by a cheaply designed GIF is beyond me. Seriously people. The people that are prepared and willing to steal your money aren't like what would be expected. Many people would assume that it is the work of a pock faced teenager, when in fact hacking your information has gone professional. A company can spend as little 10 dollars an hour for their competitors site to have denial of service attacks, up to 50 for a larger scale corporations. You can actually make money messiong with people. Many new "attacks" involve a mock virus scanner. Newer users will let this BS scanner finish and it will tell them fake viruses are infecting their system. Not only that, it may also say that there is malware "due to" illegal activity, like child porn. Nobody would want to be affiliated with that, soooooo..... Many of those mock scanners require a fee to "get rid" of said software (viruses). This fee is a bunch of crap and you are only helping those that feed off the dollars of people who are believing this crock. Your can also pay to have your own personally created viruses checked for efficiency, before you unleash them, before you commit a crime you can find out how efficient it can be. If there were only one thing that I could recommend; Know your system or how it acts. I personally know every aspect of my computer and can tell when I'm infected.  Considering that this class has ended, I doubt that anyone will ever read this. Regardless, if one does, take care of your technology. Whether you know it or not, your electronics could potentially be a digital representation of yourself. Everyone only gets one.

Is a Virtual Community Really a Community

I think that it is possible to find that a virtual community is really a community. The only thing missing is human to human physical contact. Instead of people meeting people through traditional means, people are able to meet and interact with a wider range of people through the Internet. Whether it be a site like Facebook or Myspace, people are still interacting as if they are connected in real life. There are a set of rules, like real life. There are many things that make an online community similar to a physical community. I think the only difference is the fact that most people that are involved online, don't come into contact with the other individuals in a physical way. I think people that are so well adjusted to a virtual community will eventually have problems with the real world communities. Face to face contact is important, you can just evaluate human emotions through an emoticon.

Dot.com to Dot.bomb

The Dot.com industry went wild in the mid to early 90's. It was a time where people made many attempts to make money off the growing industry opportunity, however, they were quick acting. Many companies went under due to many factors. Competitors were no longer confined to locality, but the world could view what they had to offer. It was essentially a dog eat dog world. Some companies prospered and caused smaller companies to go down. It wasn't only who could find your site, but how well the site worked with users. It was a new technology that many didn't understand and opened up the world of e-commerce. Now people are finding new and innovative ways to sell their products to the public, with competitiveness that may help smaller businesses prosper.

Presentation

I'm doing my presentation on cyber crime. I am not focusing on it as a whole, I am focusing on it as a way of prevention. There are many things that people can do to ensure their online safety, however, criminals continuously find new ways to rip people off. It is up to people to keep up to date with current scams that could cost them lots of their hard earned cash. Older generations are the biggest target to to the fact that they are likely to be the most technologically uninformed and may not understand the potential of information that they put online for all to see. There are also many new technologies that have come out that put all people at risk. RFID chips in credit cards are one thing that people may not know if they are at risk or not. People have been known to use their cell phones to pick up these signals and get all the information they need to take all the money they can get, with minimal effort. I won't be focusing on that specifically, but it is important for people to be aware of.

Startup.com

I thought the govworks.com documentary was really interesting. It gives you a different view of a company as it starts up. It also give you and idea of how the dot.com and bust went down. People worked very fast to get their idea up and running, and also cut a lot of corners. They had a good idea, but the implementation was lacking. One of the founders (Tom), was also not that great of a founder. When you open a business of any kind, you almost have to treat it as if it were your child, but he did not do that. It seemed like he didn't care that much if the company went under. If I was the other founder, I would have let him go sooner. The second a founder looses interest in the company, they should exit as soon as possible, so that others can do whatever is in their power to keep the company going and keep the company successful.

Disintermediation

Disintermediation is a good and bad thing. Bad because it does cost some jobs. Since it cuts out the middle man, there are many jobs that are no longer needed. In turn, it does make it much easier for the average consumer to deal with many things with minimal interaction. In banking, there are no longer a bunch of tellers to help people, most things can be done online or at an ATM. You no longer need to deposit money with a person, because many ATM's allow people to directly deposit their money and check, and even with cell phone applications. People can invest money without the need of a broker. One thing that has changed dramatically, are travel agencies. People can now book flights and hotels online. You can usually get a better deal when buying online as well. A travel agent no longer gets a cut of your investment towards a vacation. I find it much easier than making numerous phone calls to plan a vacation.

Things I would nevery buy online

I like to buy many things online, but there are a few things that I would never consider buying online.

• House or land: I think it would be a bad idea to invest so much money into something that I have never personally seen with my own eyes. Some may have a walk-through and pictures, but that doesn't truly tell you anything. Mold, termites, sewer or heating issues; who knows? Photoshop can fix many things.
• Car: Same thing as the house. There is know way to know how a car runs solely by` a description.
• Child Care: People can easily misrepresent themselves online. There are too many people that you can't trust when it comes to kids, even with a good review.
• Groceries: I wouldn't want someone picking out my fresh produce, I'm picky. Sometimes I don't want to eat something right away, so I would rather have something less ripe. Don't mess with my avacados!