Soon enough microsoft and all the other software makers around the world are going to have to start identifying the user. That is, when you sign on for an internet username/password, your unique identity and your ip will be logged accordingly and you will no longer be "anonymous" to everyone else.
This has to happen. Why? Well, with the growing scams out there and the harmful users that use the internet... someone has to be responsible, and it has to be easier to figure out who.
The internet is no longer just an information gateway, it's also a gold mine. Wherever money goes, security has to be there to assist it. "Phishing" is huge now days, and it's only getting more intelligent. Now days you get e-mails in your spam folder that can look exactly like the "Ebay" messages you receive from ebay, and take you to a very simular link with almost exactly the same looking website and functionality. Except with one thing extra, it records your username/password as you type it in.
Same with paypal, same with lots of sites. Phishing is getting so intelligent now days that it's hard to tell if something is from a "real" site or a fake one. Signing on to a site has become a very scary thing, and giving out personal information even scaryer. No longer are you safe just going to the secure bank site, now days there's keyloggers that can easily get on your computer from just visiting websites.
Then there's the ever growing porn industry. Free porn is a huge problem, because this is actually where a lot of virus's come from and one of the main ways majority of casual internet users that are young (maybe old as well) get most the serious/harmful virus's.
To remove most virus's you have to be semi-educated on the subject matter of virus removal, and to be that far along you have to have a good education on computers. Otherwise, virus removal itself can be a very scary thing.
To be safe on the internet requires a pretty decent education on computers and you have to be well kept up on the times, and I don't see many users now days actually well kept up.
So, the only way this could be solved is if there was a way to personally identify a computer to his owner. This way, whatever you do can be recorded.
It makes perfect sense. If you were to buy kid porn in real life or talk about being a nazy, or wanting to kill blacks... There's obvious repercussions for these actions. On the net, there's almost next to none unless they find a way to trace you and your actions. The internet has been a maintstream way of uniting hateful people of all kinds, and sick people of all kinds... including people who take advantage of the elderly. There are actual companies that specialize in taking advantage of the elderly, and taking their money.
ID:276791
 Mar 22 2006, 12:55 pm
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Scoobert wrote:
I have yet to see a phishing scam that I thought to be real. It is the general rule of thumb that if a company is randomly emailing you asking for personal information, than you should be able to manually type in the address into your web browser, and not click a link, to do what they want. It's like every other scam, it just takes advantage of unsuspecting or outright unaware people. Majority of people don't realise to check the url in the address bar after clicking through from an email. When the email looks identical to legit emails, and the website the links lead to look identical to the actual website, you can't expect a less-than-savvy person to be aware of such things. People are used to a world where something goes wrong someone tells you either by mail or phone with instructions to resolve the situation. People carry those same expectations to the internet. They get an email saying "There was a problem with your account go [here] to fix it" and treat it no differently than getting a call from someone claiming to be from their bank and asking for their mother's maiden name and last x digits of their social. | |
As long as there are off-shore hosted webservices theres really not much that can be done short of outright restricting any access to those areas, which you can bet wouldn't go over too well, regardless of the intentions behind it.
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If I got a call from my bank and they wanted more info than my name, I would simply tell them that I would only do anything if I could get ahold of them by calling the phone number I already know, or could get via there site. I have heard many times that it is never a good idea to give that type of info over the phone unless you call them.
I realize that some people are gullible, and that can't be helped(completely), but what he is suggesting is far worse than a few people getting scammed, it is a removal of our right to privacy. Something that may cause some problems, but allow us to maintain most of our freedoms. | |
funnny thing is that companies already do most of what Jon's post suggested. you just don't realize it have the time, or don't mind. how many websites have you registered with to access their services? they use a name/email/password to distinguish you from others.
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Not going to happen. Any attempt to introduce such a system would backfire; nobody would use it.
Your ISP does already identify you by your account, of course; the difference is that they don't disclose that information to everyone else. And neither should they, really. | |
Well, I don't mind registering for a Microsoft.com and other Microsoft websites. What he is talking about is a universal "Passport" that all sites can use to make sure that you are so and so. Ensuring that you are who you are and marking you as this IP. I will not sign up for something like this. I would rather not be able to use %90 of the internet than take away my right to privacy.
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It's inevitable that this does happen, because think about how many people are malicious on the net. How many people do bad things, but all they get is their "account" banned, but it's easy enough in most systems to create a new account, create a new name, get a different ip, etc. When are internet users going to start being held reliable for their actions? You Scoobert are saying that everyone should have common sense at a decent level. When is this ever the case? In fact, as Plato said, the majority of people are stupid. A lot of people don't have the time to learn much about computers, and so they get on very rarely. Others just don't understand that "ANYONE" can create a website that looks very simular to another (even a little kid can) and try to scam you. Majority of people probably don't even know what an IP is. Or, don't know what phishing is. It's becoming more and more a problem, and as long as the internet is anonymously used, it's going to be a super-highway for criminals to do things in half the time it would take or faster in real life. Laws are only in place to keep the dumb people in line, they don't even apply to us | |
Lets just implant GPS tracking devices in our body, just in case someone gets lost...
If you don't know what phishing is, you probably don't watch the news. Seems like every other week they are having a report about it. How hard is it to have a 30second tag at the end of some news show to talk about phishing. Would it not be more cost effective for the Government to just buy a little advertising time to educate the people? Also, schools are teaching kids more about these things, meaning that as time passes, people will be educated, we just need to educate adults. I refused to be labeled(Beyond the need, IPs are needed). This will not happen[period], at least not if I have anything to say about it. | |
Scoobert wrote:
Well, I don't mind registering for a Microsoft.com and other Microsoft websites. What he is talking about is a universal "Passport" that all sites can use to make sure that you are so and so. Ironically, Microsoft already tried something like this. It was indeed called Passport, and it failed miserably. =P (You probably already knew about that, just thought I'd point it out.) | |
when you go to the store, are you not responsible for your actions if you steal something?
On the internet you can do a butt load of things that destroy peoples property, attack personal information, etc... and get away with it. A passport would do nothing but verify you're you. It wouldn't even APPLY to anyone but the bad people. Meaning, virtually nonexistant to people who don't do bad things. You may have to sign on a username/password or whatever... but that'd be that. If you don't do anything bad, I see no reason for you to even care. | |
No, that's exactly why it won't happen. Many of the scammers are already computer literate and are good at what they do. Applying a tag to all of the legitimate users of the internet would be like removing a person's defense against criminals. All of the legitimate users would become lambs for the slaughter.
Why? The people doing these scams would still find a way to get on around Microsoft, unregistered. Then they find you, find out who you are, then rob you blind. They would have absolutely no restrictions, while you yourself would be confined and basically - screwed. Don't worry so much about it, it WON'T pass. People's identities are hidden over the net for good reason. | |
They can have my personal information when they pry it from my cold dead hands.
The Internet is a free and open network for a reason, and if they tried to update it, all of us undergrounders would just keep the old system, and only use the new one when it was required(Which isn't very often). I have yet to see a phishing scam that I thought to be real. It is the general rule of thumb that if a company is randomly emailing you asking for personal information, than you should be able to manually type in the address into your web browser, and not click a link, to do what they want.
Perhaps what needs to happen is that people need to be educated on common sense.