The Net vs. Nature.

Written by Michael Bloch


Overrepparttar last few days, I've noticed many disturbances onrepparttar 119028 Internet. Mail has been going missing, a lot of sites have been down. It seems to be a global thing. It can make life pretty difficult if you are building and maintaining sites, or are reliant onrepparttar 119029 Internet to communicate with family and friends.

So much of our world is now dependent onrepparttar 119030 Internet to keep things flowing. I still think it's a great tool asrepparttar 119031 Internet has broken down international barriers. I have met many wonderful people through this medium.

Whilerepparttar 119032 difficulties I have been experiencing overrepparttar 119033 last couple of days are probably coincidental, I remember a point last year when this wasn'trepparttar 119034 case. It wasn't caused by hackers, or Australia's "extension cord" being cut by a Japanese trawler (again).

It wasrepparttar 119035 sun....seriously...solar flares.

A solar flare is an explosion onrepparttar 119036 Sun that happens when energy stored within it is suddenly released. Flares produce a burst of radiation acrossrepparttar 119037 entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays - it's a radiation smorgasboard!

The frequency of these flares is tied in withrepparttar 119038 Sun's eleven year cycle. Whenrepparttar 119039 flares peak, radiation forty billion times greater than an atomic bomb, weighing from 1-10 billion tonnes and travelling at approximately 1-2 million mph is flung intorepparttar 119040 solar system. Whenrepparttar 119041 solar cycle is at a minimum, active regions are small and rare. Few solar flares are detected. These multiply asrepparttar 119042 Sun approachesrepparttar 119043 most active part of its cycle. The Sun reached its maximum, from what I understand, late last year.

Flares and geomagnetic storms (extreme solar wind caused by charged particles) can have serious ramifications on our communications, navigational tools and power supply. On March 23, 1989, Hydro-Quebec had a 9 hour blackout affecting 9 million people. The cause was a geomagnetic induced current (GIC) due to a large geomagnetic storm. Solar flares can effect cell phone communications, GPS navigation, other satellites and more importantly, my dear friend, business partner and confidant - The Internet.

Hacking in Cyberspace

Written by Dr. Adnan Ahmed Qureshi


Did know you that your normal, everyday e-mail could be viewed and read by practically anyone onrepparttar Internet? It's like someone reading your personal mail without asking. Recently security onrepparttar 119027 Internet has received a lot of attention inrepparttar 119028 Press. The exploits of various "hackers" andrepparttar 119029 heroic efforts ofrepparttar 119030 people who track and capture them have grown to soap operatic proportions.

This is not without reason. As more and more companies and services come online,repparttar 119031 risk andrepparttar 119032 potential damage of security breaches increases. Asrepparttar 119033 number of appealing targets grows, so doesrepparttar 119034 number of hackers. The number of poorly administered servers onrepparttar 119035 Internet is staggering. Blatant security holes, bugs from old software that system administrators have failed to update, and compromised file systems are scattered all overrepparttar 119036 world.

One weak server onrepparttar 119037 Internet is a danger to all servers; if a hacker can attack and take over one system, he or she can use it as a base to launch attacks on other systems. The most important thing for hacker is hiding their trail. The more systems hackers can conquer,repparttar 119038 harder it becomes to trace them. It is very important that everyone onrepparttar 119039 Internet spend some time shoring up their systems.

It is a simple fact of life that robbery, decryption, and embezzlement exists in our societies. It is only natural that this human trait will carry over to cyberspace. The Internet is a dangerous place. Just as it isn't always perfectly safe to go torepparttar 119040 ATM machine alone at night, it isn't always perfectly safe to send a credit card number electronically. How saferepparttar 119041 transaction actually is depends onrepparttar 119042 amount of time and effort we (bothrepparttar 119043 customer andrepparttar 119044 vendor) spend protecting ourselves.

We have lot of naive Internet users who think all thy have to do is get connected torepparttar 119045 Internet, get an e-mail address, and all is wonderful … The people who are sellingrepparttar 119046 Internet are basically selling vacation land with beachfront property, and lot of people are buying it. They think it's a great investment. But when they show up, it's got alligators, it's underwater, and there's yellow fever. Any user ofrepparttar 119047 Internet can be a victim of crime.

A lot of people are breaking into lot of systems. They are looking for information. An obvious symptom of intrusion is a change in login time showing your computer use when you were nowhere near your computer. Or, you might notice that a broad array of your files have been tampered with. Perhapsrepparttar 119048 system's memory space has been changed or somebody is sending e-mails on your behalf by using e-mail address.

Crackers, as they have come to known, arerepparttar 119049 people who are exploitingrepparttar 119050 security laxity onrepparttar 119051 Internet. They are high-tech criminals who enter systems through networks to do damage. Crackers may be thought asrepparttar 119052 malicious cousins of computer hackers. Although they're not angels, hackers do not get a thrill out of breaking into someone else's computer and gobbling up information like crackers; they simply are people who are crazy about learning computer systems from top to bottom. Crackers, onrepparttar 119053 other hand, have gone from snooping forrepparttar 119054 thrill of it to exploitingrepparttar 119055 privacy of others for monetary gain. Their crimes include financial theft, software or hardware theft, and sabotage. As more people connected torepparttar 119056 Internet, crackers are creating some real problems.

Cont'd on page 2 ==>
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use