Secure, or not secure, that is the question.

This picture borrowed from oziosi gallery


Internet security is an issue, but like Scott said, crime isn't the unique province of the web. The internet has opened up an entirely new plane of existence, so it brings with it parrallel crimes like theft, highjacking, etc. I think the main issue is when someone else is vastly more knowledgable than you are, then you are at risk. At the same time, major companies are developing a lot of stuff to keep people safe. For instance, I just got an email that claimed it was from PayPal. I've recently started using PayPal, and I guess some how some people got a list. The email was authentic, it looked just like a normal paypal receipt you would get after a purchase. It said something like, "your transfer to smileysmith38@hotmail.com of $639.99 has been sent" etc. etc. and at the bottom it said "if you have any questions or concerns click this link. The link takes you to a site that some con artists have designed to look very much like the PayPal homepage, with login fields. The URL is even masked to say "http://paypal.com", and when someone enters their username and password, BAM the criminals have access to your bank accounts and credit cards. Pretty heavy stuff. Anyway, the point of my story is that gmail caught it, put it in the spam folder and notified me that someone had just tried to "phish" me. It had a link detailing the scam, so that's how I found out how all that worked without learning it the very hard way. So through all this, I guess I personally believe that yes, con artists are out there developing really slick ways to scam you via the net, but at the same time legitimate companies are beefing up their security to negate the negatives. Following my previous metaphor a bit, I do think that in the future the internet can be just like a country. It will have its shady areas and its glossy areas, and most people will hopefully be informed enough to differentiate which is which.