.Sunday, July 11, 2010 ' 5:31 PM Y
The world has now covered with high technology in terms of almost everything. We can see that information technology have been used in almost every aspect in our life. One of the very famous information technology is the internet. That is why there is something called Cyber Wellness to tackle problems online such as scams and know how to protect themselves in the interent.
There have been high risk harms on internet for the past few years with scams of account number or information and sometimes even hacking into accounts such as online bank accounts to make some secret transactions. In addition, viruses are now everywhere, more wicked, more powerful and more dangerous. These viruses can actually hack into computers without the owner noticing it. So there is nothing safe when we are on the internet as we do not know what the other party actually is. There is also spyware which is difficult to detect. It collects little bits of information from the owner without the acknowledgement.
Recently users online are posting remarks in the net without thinking twice. In fact, they should think thrice instead. Posting sarcastic or racist remarks online could lead them into court case. Sometimes cyber bullying can also lead to court case. Users online vent their anger or frustrations on targeted people's blogs or for example facebook to discriminate or to show him or her that they are not happy. It could also lead to further parties involved when one of the side calls for more help from other party. Therefore, users online must be responsible, respectful and rational on the things or remarks they post online.
When we navigate to different websites, we can see that there is "congratulations" message or banner at the side of the web page. Most of the time it congratulate users of winning some kind of lottery or prize. However, how do we know that they are real? Sometimes when users simply click on those banners or messages, they got struck straight away by viruses. This is how dangerous internet can be. Many users will think that it is a scam and they will choose not to click on it. However, there are also users who are curious or thinks that it really is true. In the end, they are the one who gets scammed.
Users nowadays believe that once they do not trust any scamming sites or do not reveal their personal information, they are safe. However we must be very aware that even though such precautions are taken, internet is never safe. Even if Anti Virus Software is even installed. Statistics shows that around 90% of the users downloads files online instead of buying from stores. We must be aware that sometimes files uploaded contains spyware which is purposely uploaded with the files by the user. This is one of the ways how users bring spywares to other user's computer.
Students go online to do homework, they do research and then look for information for their studies. Students tends to plagiarise informations online. This is one of the way that has harmed students in terms of effort put in in projects.Users who are shopping addicts do shopping online. However, did they think about any possible scams that is going to occur in terms of payment made but failed to get the things they are looking for. This questions users online of how well they know which is the trusted site to go make their orders on.
Pornography have also been one of the very famous negative cyber points that have affect users online negatively. Due to high technology, pornography can now be found anywhere and everywhere online. Though there are efforts in removing such sites, there are still too many to hunt down. Pornography also affects youths or teenagers to think dirty and sometimes it do affect their thinking. Online news shows many people are convicted of rape or molest mostly due to uncontrollable actions when they are way too engrossed in such stuffs.
In conclusion, we can see that these cyber problems has caused so much harms on users and may result to serious penalties. Users must not look on such cyber attacks lightly. There is nothing in this world that is safe in internet. More schools must follow the foot step of Nanyang Polytechnic which has introduce modules such as Cyber Wellness to students to teach them some internet skills to protect themselves against possible cyber attacks. I believe parents also plays a huge part in making sure that their children are on the right site which are trusted in order to make sure that they do not go untrusted site.
Er Chin
Labels: Cyber Wellness
