Safety on the Internet

I was browsing the IT stacks at the nearby bookstore, looking for Kerberos or Linux security books, when I noticed several home network security books designed to teach home users how to safely access the internet without turning their home pc into part of a botnet. I recalled my friends wrote a similar book many years ago. I thought it was a great resource. I have a signed first edition copy.

The environment has changed somewhat since that day. I know a lot more about networks and security than I did when the book first came out. The World Wide Web has also become 'wilder'. I guess you could add another W to WWW. If I could give just one piece of advice to someone who is going the internet for the first time, it would be "Don't go on the Internet".

Your home PC could be infected in minutes, disabled in days and keyloggers, phishers and trojans could have all your bank account information without your knowledge in a few weeks or less. What should you do?

Start using the internet from your office, a cybercafe or a live CD. That will educate you without exposing your home pc to any undesirables. Furthermore, these systems are usually more protected than others. But during that time, stay away from any sites which require you to provide your actual personal information. Use a dormant email account when sites ask you to register. I keep a hotmail account just for that purpose. Once you've learned the basics of the web, its time to protect your home pc. What you will need is
1. Discipline
2. Firewall
3. Anti-virus

Strictly speaking, if you have [1] you don't need [2] and [3]. But just to be safe, have all three. My personal observation is that I end up disabling my firewall, and not running anti-virus checks so effectively I'm running without [2] and [3] and so far, nothing too terrible has happened to my PC. So rather than talk about which firewalls and anti-virus to get, I'll talk about discipline. You can learn about firewalls and anti-virus from other sites. In MS Vista, those two items are already bundled in your OS.

Discipline Tip #1: Don't surf for porn
Out of 10000 sites offering free porn, only 1 actually has free porn which you can download safely. You have a better chance at winning money from a scratch ticket than actually getting free porn which doesn't screw up your computer. So just stop that. Buy/Rent a DVD from your local video store instead.

Discipline Tip #2: Don't open email from people you don't know. Even if you do know them, don't click on any links. Don't forward email to people. So you miss out on the latest novelty. I'm sure someone will explain it to you if you ask them nicely. Don't ask me why you shouldn't. The answer is terribly complicated and you won't understand it anyway.

Discipline Tip #3: If someone offers you something for nothing, and you believe them, you are being cheated.