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Going online without understanding the basics of how the internet works is like getting behind the wheel without knowing the road rules: you might still get where you’re going, but you could be a danger to yourself and those around you.
Using the internet is now a daily activity for most Australians. Yet, the number of people who actually understand the internet’s mechanics is small. Government and schools do work to promote cyber security and cyber safety, but the message is still not getting widespread attention.
Ultimately there is only so much that government or businesses can do to keep us safe online. At a certain point, we need to take personal responsibility and educate ourselves about how to use the internet safely.
http://theconversation.com/we-need-to-take-responsibility-for-our-own-safety-online-38368
(Score: 3, Insightful) by anubi on Tuesday March 17 2015, @06:29AM
Yet, just one rogue Javascript will cause more harm than several gigabytes of the crass words listed above.
And our gummit has done absolutely nothing to rein it in.
You have no idea how much I wanted my "representatives" to stand up for me and insist that in keeping with the "copyright is like a book" mantra, "DRM is like a restaurant."... meaning I do not go in the kitchen and see how the food is prepared, and the restaurant takes full responsibility that I do not get food poisoning from their dish. I wanted them to codify into law so bad that hold harmless clauses were not applicable to DRM'd software.
The copyright people got what they wanted. I did not. "My" representative sure "fought for me", didn't he?
I feel if I pick something up off the sidewalk and eat it, if it makes me sick, I should have known better, but if I paid for the food, the person who sold it to me is responsible for it by the act of accepting payment for it.
Surfing today's internet seems so much to me like going out on the street only to have people handing me all sorts of hazard-laden things... even so-called respectable businesses will hand me dangerous things, thinking that "hold harmless" is the businesslike thing to do, instead of verifying the integrity of their offerings.
The copyright people want so bad to assign responsibility to anyone violating their desires.
So do I. I also want to assign responsibility to those forcing us to adopt risky computing practice.
But, who will Congress write Law for? Does Congress even represent the people anymore? Or are they just a wish-list enforcer for the well-connected?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @07:18AM
Congress represents The well-connected business-owning land-having People. Not the poor, not the injuns, not the negroes, and not you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17 2015, @10:40AM
Hey (grinning), you used a Food analogy. I thought all internet explanations used Car (or in extreme cases Pipe) analogies?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 17 2015, @12:23PM
Err... what? You still free to do your computation using pen-and-paper - it's almost safe (100% safe if you exclude paper-cuts).
(I don't think that word means what you think it means)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0