Reading Report #1

1/25/09

There are many things that I have learned from this first reading in lib 103. I had no idea that there were so many different types of mischief on the Internet. Like counterfeit websites disguise that themselves as legitimate sites for a purpose of releasing misinformation. And disinformation web sites which release of known false information with the intention of influencing the people that receive it. I am very interested to view the work of theses many counterfeiters. I found it very intriguing how most of these people use information as a weapon. A weapon they use to fight for their cause, whether or not the information is true is irrelevant, as long as the public believes it. I personally had no clue that you could “hijack” a website until I read about in this article. When a website is hacked, the contents of it are changed or even redirected to an unwanted site. A lot of scams happen after a major disaster or event, usually they are sent though e-mail and request for you to make a donation to a charity. There are a number of ways you can avoid scams like this including

- Only deal with the charity sites directly.
- Only donate to well known organizations.
- Most charity sites do not send out e-mails asking for money.
- Check the URL address; make sure you are where you think you are at.

I have actually fallen prey to a Phishing web site before. It was about 2 years ago when myspace had a break in security and I accidentally gave away my password thinking I was at myspace.com and the hackers wiped my account clean, but before that they sent credit card scams to all my friends list. Myspace had to delete my account and I had to start over.