Internet Abuse

   The amount of resources and information the Internet contains is astounding. With the help of information collected on the net we gain vast knowledge. However, many people abuse the internet.The types of Internet abuse are spamming, virus & worms and hackers. Spamming is unsolicited e-mails. In 1997, AOL estimated spams make up a third of Internet mails. Examples of spamming is chain letters.It is sent by someone you know that require you to forward to all your friends, in order to win a prize, help someone , avoid misfortunes or pass lucks. Pop up windows which are not related to our visiting website is also another type of spamming.

     Very often, we will get virus from the e-mails that we receive. Therefore, we should not mails that come from people that we do no know. Besides, we might also get virus from downloads.  Infected PC become zombies to attack a larger remote computer, server or website, like MSN and Yahoo! Sometimes we might get server worms where web services become unavailable or Internet traffic becomes extremely slow.

     Some hackers do it for fun or personal gains. Hackers change the appearance of popular websites. Theft of confidential

information such as credit numbers and passwords are common. It’s becoming easier than ever to become hackers. Therefore, it is unsafe to disclose our credit card numbers when we buy things online.

   There are many consequences of Internet abuse. As an individual time is wasted in reading and deleting spam mails. It will also cause inconvenience because our mail box is full due to spam mails. We will become a victim and suffer from loss of productive hours due to an infected PC, loss of money due to theft of credit card information, embarrassment as private information being exposed and receiving harassed email.