Web Safety: Hide the Keyboard! Those Tubes’ll Kill Ya!

It's amazing anyone has the courage to even venture online these days. From web sites to virtual worlds, we are being told to fear those tubes at every turn.

Google went on the terror offensive this past weekend with the fearmongering, releasing a report that told us it isn't just porn sites that may want to install malware on your machine. According to the study, however, it probably isn't intentional on the part of the site owners, who are being hacked because of security holes in THEIR sites, which are then used by the hackers for their own nefarious purposes. Now, one would assume that if Google spent all this time and energy on a survey they'd have some suggestions, right? Their suggestions? Make sure your anti-virus software is up-to-date, and run it often. How clever! Really? How about using something like Firefox and add in a plug-in like NoScript that disables scripts instead of fun with ActiveX? Of course, by just pushing the fear out there, won't that just keep people reliant on using Google's search with their “this site may be a bad, bad site” messages?

Google aren't the only ones out there preaching fear; the U.S. government is also warning of the Dangers of Virtual Worlds, otherwise known as the “OHNOZ! TEH TERRORISTS BE IN SECUND LIFE” campaign. I honestly believe that they speak in LOLcat amongst themselves, because I find it a bit hard to believe that Second Life can be used that readily for money laundering. The casinos are closed, boys, remember? The exchange rate of Linden dollars to USD is so out of whack that any significant amount of money being pushed through there on any sort of regular basis would raise a huge red flag. Or do the terrorists have nothing better to do than sit all day in Second Life, passing out hugs, and moving money around in small increments? Next thing you know, they'll be telling us that the “Save Scrabulous” group on Facebook is really a terrorist recruiting tool.

Of course, the constant fear of social networks being a haven for online predators is regurgitated time and time again by any politician wanting some media time. Too bad none of them will pay any attention to the recent study that most of the grown-ups pretending to be teenagers to solicit sex are working for To Catch a Predator. Apparently, most of the sex offenders who ARE online identify themselves as adults and they aren't going for the young children, but rather, disaffected teens looking for love from a grown-up who understands, unlike their square parents.

In other words, all we hear is fear, fear, fear, with no one actually paying attention to real online concerns, nor teaching the average household what they REALLY need to do in order to keep computers, country, and children safe.