I can figure out the point of anything

F.Y.I.

Something interesting was brought to my attention reciently. So just as a warning I offer some advice/information to chew on as you surf the web. I don't mean to make anyone paranoid or anything, I just hope to offer some info that may help you in your internet sessions.

Reciently there was a bombing in London aimed to disrupt the summit meeting of the Group of Eight (G8). Sadly, there was losses. But sometimes in the aftermath of a major tragedy like the one yesterday and also after Sept. 11, there's usually an increase in the amount of hacks that take place on the internet. After Sept. 11, 2001, a sense of patriotism in hackers rose and multiple attacks on Middle Eastern sites and servers rose dramatically. New hacks, viruses, rootkits, and the like were created with the focus being on 'terrorist' information sites. But in the wake were new viruses, etc., that also affect unknowing and well meaning surfers like you and me. I wouldn't be surprised it there are new attacks in the next couple weeks.

So, in order to keep damage to a minimum and to safeguard your computer, I would suggest that you keep your protection programs updated, sweep your computer regularly, and surf the net cautiously. Some websites provide some useful and great information, but that may be a cover for something more malicious. Some websites may download programs to your computer without your knowledge just by going to their website. You may be surfing and wanting to know about certain groups or organizations, but may accidentally download something that you may not want. Not very likely but just to give you a heads-up, some sites are covers.

Some guidelines that were given in my IT 210 class included:
1) rather than clicking on links, type the entire address yourself*. It may be a pain in the keister, but if you are unsure of the link, typing out the whole thing may save your bacon.
2) stay with well known sites and names of companies who are trust worthy**. Well known sites like jaju.blogspot.com are safe but there are others that have hidden downloads in the html, I won't name any at the obvious risks.

Some of the newest security programs that safeguard your computer can actually block attacks on your computer as they are beginning. I hope some of this info was helpful. Happy surfing.


* In UNICODE, the international standard for encoding language characters for every language known, there are some characters that look like the Alphabet that we use in the US but are only slightly different and have a different byte value. (Funnily enough, the Klingon language was rejected but some Tolkien languages, like elvish scripts, are still under consideration. True story.) Example: the Latin letter o (value: 006F) looks like the Coptic letter o (value: 03BF). So in the .com portion of a URL, this little change could direct you to a site that may look like, say, google.com, but may really be a hacker site.

** Some sites may have the look and feel of a site that you normally visit, but may be a hacker site. Reciently, Paypal.com has experienced this. There were a series of emails sent from the fake paypal.com site asking that account information be updated or their spending limit will be reduced. Unknowing paypal.com users clicked on the link in the email and were taken to what looked like paypal.com but was really a hacked site that recorded account information.