The Internet needs more heroic users. In the book titled The Cuckoo's Egg, Cliff Stoll finds a way to catch an elusive hacker who has been stealing classified information. His key actions that stopped the wrong-doer were his persistent effort and his contacting the right authorities. Although we might never run across hackers doing malicious things on the websites we use, there are many situations that we can get involved in to help make the internet a better, safer place. What should we do if we see bullying happening on someone's Facebook account? What should we do if we find mature topics posted on forums intended for a younger audience? What should we do if we notice someone using a school computer to view inappropriate content? The best solution is to follow Stoll's actions and report the person to the correct authorities. Whether its parents, forum moderators, or school employees there is some authority that we can find to inform of the situations we've discovered.
Book inspired post: The Cuckoo's Egg.
Of course, in Stoll's case finding the proper authorities was a tangled web of phone calls and finger pointing.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that many websites have the ability to report inappropriate activity. In fact, I did that a while ago on Facebook with an offensive anti-mormon ad. Give the people the chance to stop the problem and they will. Much of the responsibility lies with the website owners to make it possible to report the issues.
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