Virtual Thursdays: The Internet's security complex

July 10, 8:04 AMSF Boomers ExaminerSuzanna Stinnett

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I’m already learning things as I gather data from the brainy bunch of Boomers who are participating in my book, Web 55.0. Mostly I’m learning how Boomers learn from each other. I asked the question, “How could a book like this be most useful to you and most informative to the general public?” Several people address internet security – both their fear about it and their desire to make sure people understand what to do. Here’s a microscopic preview of Web 55.0, with three simple recommendations for the novice from Bill Haynes:

• never download a file from an unknown source
• virus protection only works if it’s kept up to date
• never use a credit card on an unsecured website. (Today any bonafide website will tell you who is securing their site on their homepage.)

Freedom of click
Security comes in different forms. In Jonathan Zittrain’s book, The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It (with its powerful cover graphic that puts the eye on a train and hurtles it off a cliff),  he says the Internet’s innovative nature is at risk, and that its current trajectory is one of lost opportunity. On the surface I think that’s myopic, but I respect his opinion, and I’ll delve more into what he has to say. I think about trajectories too, and wrote in my book about how small changes make all the big changes happen. Mr. Zittrain confirmed my  train of thought by suggesting that the Internet’s future as an openly innovative machine can be secured by its millions of users. (Something about the price of freedom is buzzing in the back of my mind.)

Mr. Zittrain, the Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at Oxford Internet Institute (Oxford University), made his book available as a download by using another arm of Internet security: Creative Commons. 

You can download a PDF of the book through the Creative Commons noncommercial share feature. That’s what I did.( Learned another cool new thing there. But that’s another post.)

My own security tool is called “avast!”  http://www.avast.com/   (I do wish people would leave punctuation marks out of their company names, but there you are, and no, I didn’t choose it just because I’m a sailor). I’m happy I hired an IT person who was able to get an industrial version for me, because I doubt I would have known about it otherwise. Part of the morass, the swampy and exponentially organic Web – there’s simply too much out there to have a truly comprehensive understanding of it all. Don’t even try. Just keep extending your circle a bit here and there, and you’ll do fine. And keep your firewalls in order.

Internet security is a hot issue and it should be. At least we’re not just la-la-ing around in the clouds thinking our little worlds are safe as chicken pot pie. Or are we?

Suzanna

Resources for security software:
Reviews: Top Ten Firewalls
Wikipedia’s explanation of firewalls
The difference between hardware and software firewalls