Do you ever get that feeling that someone is following you, someone is watching you? Don’t quickly jump to the conclusion that you are crazy; many others feel the same way. The fact is that you are often being watched, and not just by other people. In Britain, and as being tested in some undisclosed parts of the United States, people are being held under surveillance by discreet video cameras mounted on houses. These video cameras can watch passerby and record everything that they see and or do. The cameras can be accessed by local law enforcement, federal law enforcement, or any other criminal agency at any time, with a live feed able to be brought up. These cameras are supposed to watch for “anti-social behavior”, and when detected, the police are to be dispatched and the situation taken care of.

While the idea of being watched sounds bad, it really is not. It depends clearly on the type. When you are being watched for your own safety, as these video cameras are doing for the citizens, sometimes it is necessary to make some privacy sacrifices to ensure your protection. The only question that arises is what exactly is “anti-social behavior”? If this anti-social behavior means a man waiting outside someone’s house looking to see if anyone is home, and then trying to break the door down or open a window, then it goes without saying that we would all be okay with these cameras. Sometimes these cameras can snoop into places we don’t want them too, and they then abandon their public service. This is the bad kind of being watched, a voyeuristic viewing of your life and its details. It doesn’t have to be the actual watching of your person though or what you are doing; this illegal type of surveillance expands into the extension of your self, except online: your social security number, your documents, your emails, etc.

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These days, it is hard to place our trust in anything. Perhaps it is the prevalence of terrorism, or the declining economy, or maybe even the thought of a nuclear war floating in the back of our minds. While we are hesitant to put faith in almost anything, we do so often every day in the least trust-worthy situations; the problem is, we don’t realize it.

Take the Internet for example. Kids, every day, converse with each other online. This has become the primary form of communication among the youth of America; rare is the case when a group of friends will actually go out and meet in person when it is so much easier to do so on the computer. With this virtual existence though, one can argue they lose who their friends really are. While this is meant in a sentimental, profound fashion, the literal meaning applies too. Without seeing their faces and hearing their voices, how do you know the person typing is the one actually typing? It would be easy and plausible enough that the friend they are exchanging personal information with is actually a hacker who is trying to lure them into a real life encounter. This is sobering news, but sadly it happens often.

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A cache system is storage of data that is saved to your computer every time you visit a site. When you access a site that the cache has stored data on, the site will be accessed more quickly because you cut out the middle man (the site) and load it directly from your hard drive. This will speed up browsing time, and allow some sites to even be viewed while offline using the cache! While you wouldn’t be able to interact with other users or post things, you could view the entire site while you aren’t even connected to the Internet.

Some people use these cache systems to help out with their P2P (peer-to-peer) transfers. This will store part of the data that needs to be transferred and copied, and will allow it to load much more quickly. The cache will also hold other data that will cause the Internet to be a faster place for users and allow more data to be transferred more quickly.

The cache also comes with some risks too. Anytime identifying data or browsing history is stored on your computer, you will have some sort of privacy issue. The less information you keep about yourself and your browsing habits on your computer and on the Internet, the safer and more anonymity you will enjoy. It is possible that a hacker could gain access to your data by using your IP address to hack into your computer. It is also possible to just steal your computer and get into your cache. It is one thing for your system to be physically stolen, but if a hacker could remotely access your computer and get all sorts of sensitive information and other browsing habits, it could be forever before you found out and tried to stop it, but by then the damage could be irreversible.

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In the U.S., we enjoy a great amount of freedom and many social rights. Privacy is one of those, and arguably the most important. Our Internet is completely uncensored and our government has no notions or plans to change that. We can surf what we want, when we want, and people have almost taken this for granted. Many other countries are not this way. For example, Iran is very censored, and around certain times, it gets worse. As the last election drew to a close, the government in Iran blocked Twitter and other instant messaging services were shut down so as to not give protestors a medium to communicate their message. In China, people always make jokes about the “Great Firewall of China”. It didn’t earn this nickname for no reason though, Chinese citizens are blocked from pretty much any site that has anything anti-communist or any content that might go against their ideologies.

Although out Internet is as free as red, white, and blue can be, freedom can bring about some bad things. Criminals and identity thieves roam the Internet; hackers and trackers prey on innocents. As technology increases, these criminals up their arsenal and still have some tricks up their sleeve. Some people may feel comforted by the security systems and firewalls installed on their computer, but this is just the same as a child hiding under the covers; what are the covers actually going to do?

These preliminary defenses are a piece of cake for a hacker of even the most rudimentary talent. The truth is, even if these defenses worked, they still wouldn’t fix the main problem: the IP address. This virtual nametag your computer wears is shown to every website, and contains your location. If someone got your IP address, all they would have to do is copy it into a Google search, and they would have your location.

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Blogging is a recent Internet phenomenon, which can be classified in a variety of ways. Blogging could be as simple as someone posting an update of where they are going for the weekend, or just writing their thoughts in a stream of conscious manner. Blogging can be angry too; there are people who have a wide following that read their rebel blogs about everything from government to driving laws. Blogging is also a good way to keep people updated; consider the social networking giants MySpace, FaceBook, and Twitter. MySpace and FaceBook both are used to provide an inside look into a person’s life directly from them, and also what they are doing. This is in the blog section you see; your friends could have anything written there. Twitter is just a more condensed form of blogging, making use of a minimal amount of characters to propagate a message to many people.

With blogging becoming such a popular and widely utilized pastime, people are beginning to see the security issues it represents. First of all, there is the possibility of someone tracking the blogger from his or her page, and maybe even posing as a friend (which isn’t hard to do online) to arrange a real life encounter. There is also the simple possibly that the blogger is just putting too much information out there. While they may talk about other things, blogs are often centered around friends and their activities together. Oftentimes you will see a blog that lucidly describes the place they are discussing, (sometimes even an address…) people involved in the event, and usually a picture attached of the person and their friends. This is everything and more than a criminal needs to find this person and rob, kidnap, or steal from them.

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When shopping online, there are many security risks to consider. While nobody is going to be stealing your purse or wallet like might happen in an actual crowded mall, you run many other risks a person in real life doesn’t have to. For example, by leaving your connection open and not making it go through some kind of encryption software or any sort of privacy software or program, a hacker could easily break in to your transaction and see what you have bought, are going to buy, or even deleted or put off of your shopping cart. Also, they could even more maliciously hack into your transaction or your account and steal your identity and credit card numbers and passwords. Many identity thefts happen on sites like these; shopping sites. The user is not protected by any sort of Internet software, and the hacker can easily break in with minimal difficulty.

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Many computers nowadays come with a lot of extras. In a world where every computer is lightening fast, these computer manufacturers have to have some reason to manufacture these more expensive models, and the people to shell out their hard earned money for them. Many say they have increased browsing speeds, free games, or other stuff, but the biggest draw these days is a built in “webcam.” This little device does as its name suggests, it is a camera that allows you to communicate on a face-to-face basis over the Internet. It is one thing to speak to a potential customer over the phone, but a business man who has something to sell has to show more than pictures to his or her client to convince them to buy. Through the web cam, the business man could show a customer how a product works, and see their reactions, and probably have a much better shot at making the sale.

While these web cams can be used for business related purposes as stated above, they can be purely social as well, and in this respect, they shine. People can, instead of simply typing out a smiley face emoticon, can smile and laugh and hear their friends or family’s voice. Imagine the joy a soldier feels when he is able to hear his family’s voice again; imagine the joy they all would feel if they could see each other again. Some couple are known to chat over dinner over the Internet when they are apart. An Internet program called Skype actually allows people to organize these chats with a phone number like system and chat and talk and see each other over the Internet. Many people use these to record their musical performances, their political rants, or just their random antics and upload them straight to the online video giant YouTube. The possibilities are endless; perhaps online classes will be enhanced to actually have a teacher lecture to students while they take notes.

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Cookies are little deposits of data a website puts on your computer every time you visit their site. These log where you went on the site, where you spent the most, what you looked at, and other things to pertaining to your site activity. They also save user preferences on log-in and password based sites, and even data from your word documents and other offline transactions.

Why do they do all of this? Well, for one they do save your user preferences, so maybe you can stay logged in until you sign out of some particular sites, and they can help bring you towards parts of the site you enjoyed. This is generally helpful, but these cookies can also be dangerous too.

Recently, a controversy has been brewing over the use of cookies. Some people go shopping on the Internet, looking for better deals by cutting out the middle man or what have you, and they do so looking for good deals. Recently, some sites have been using cookies and identifying which users have money and which ones don’t, and marketing their information and wares that way. This way, if a wealthy man had cookies on his computer of him buying off of an expensive car site, the merchandise he saw on the front page of a buying website would be different (and probably more expensive) than what others see.

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When one is at work, the Internet can be quite a useful place. You can research up and coming products, view videos and tutorials on how t use them, and even keep a watchful eye on the competition so they don’t get a leg-up on you.  This would be a great reality, but the truth is, it isn’t like this.

The Internet, for all of its greatness, can be a very distracting place. While many workers use it for productive reasons, some just lollygag all day on it, and create a large loss of productivity among their company. It is for these workers sake that the Internet at work is usually highly restricted and censored. The same goes for school; if a paid worker is slacking off, imagine the apathy an unpaid student involuntarily put in a boring class feels!

This is why many sites are blocked while you are trying to surf them. Every worker has had some downtime, and bored, they try and log onto YouTube and gotten the “this site has been blocked” message. The company IT department usually is the one who arranges and sets up all of these blocks. They do so by finding keywords that they wish to block, and anything with them usually is. “Games”, “Videos”, “Fun”, and “Social” are some stock examples of what they block.

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We live in an age of many concerns and fears. Children aren’t allowed to play outside anymore as they were ten years ago for fear of being stolen by some interloper patrolling the neighborhood. People are now given intensive scans at the airport for everything from knives, to drugs, to guns. Even your loved ones waiting to greet you are not allowed to come up to the terminals anymore, instead having to wait outside in the crowded lobbies and baggage claims. The Internet has also changed. Once there was only a few sites to go on, and nobody knew a thing about spy ware or malware. People sent e-mails and went on sites in a totally blissful and carefree manner, but that soon changed.

With the advent of the “Information Generation”, people flocked to the Internet for its unlimited resources and its great exploring potential. People began to have virtual lives online, living vicariously through games or social networking sites. The Internet unknowingly conglomerated with television through YouTube, and is currently putting television on its last legs. Even the drudging commute to work is becoming archaic, and being replaced by the coffee-fueled masses that earn their bread working from home.

America has always been a land of change, as well as freedom. Right now, we are in the middle of another Industrial Revolution; although perhaps it will appear in history textbooks as the Technology Revolution. As the people evolved and changed their habits, so did the inventive criminals. Crime has always been a plaguing leech on America’s side, but one that is inevitable by the amount of freedom each citizen enjoys. Although criminals are often stereotypically portrayed as completely ignorant, uneducated low lives, they know quite some about their art; it is their chosen profession. They follow people and find out where they are most unprotected and will strike there when the opportunity arises. They also factor in how likely it is that they will be caught.

When everyone began using the Internet, criminals began to see that this was an excellent new avenue for them to exploit. Instead of having to rob someone in a suspicious back alley or on a crowded subway train, they could do so surreptitiously online, without even a trace of fear. A robber mugging someone in an alley will be plagued by the screams of his victim, and most likely caught by police as he tries to escape. An Internet hacker who hacks into an innocent person’s bank account online will not have to worry about the victim screaming for help, nor about a quick escape. It is likely the victim won’t even know that they have been robbed until months later, and by then the criminals will be gone, without a shred of evidence left behind.

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