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One does not need to commit a crime deliberately in order to break the law. Sometimes by not taking the necessary precautions we can do harm and we can break the law.

In the modern day and age of the internet and computers, it is easy to find yourself in trouble for not being careful. Now you will think, that “if I do not break the law, how can I be liable”? The answer is simple, and it is frightening. “Very easily. Without even knowing it”. How can that be? Here are three areas you should focus your attention to. You do not need to be an IT geek or have a Master’s degree. Simply follow basic safety guidelines, and above all … common sense.

Your wireless connection

More and more people chose to have a wireless connection at home and work. A router plugged in and you can have internet in every room of your home. That is fine, except for the fact that the router’s signal will not stay inside the walls of your house or apartment. The average router (most of them are 802.11b and 802.11g) has a range of 150 feet (46 meters) indoors and 300 feet (92 meters) outdoors. If you see on Google maps how many houses/apartments are there, 150 feet from your router to each direction, and estimate how many people live in there, that is how many people will be able (and often tempted) to login to your connection for a free ride. Even worse, someone with a laptop inside a car, can use your “free” internet connection and then disappear.

But you already know about this. You have seen other connections every time you want to get connected or you install a new internet connection. And you must have seen that some of them are not password connected. The question is … is your connection password connected? It is a simple and straight forward action. Get into the router’s setup menu and put a password. Not your name or surname. Something that you only know. Why would you do that you will ask. And what if someone uses your internet every once in a while. The answer to this is not that you will lose bandwidth and have a slow connection. The answer is that someone can use your connection to commit a financial crime like credit card fraud. Even worse, your connection can be used to download child pornography, or for terrorist activities.

Once the crime is uncovered, your IP address (a unique address assigned to every user by your provider) will trace the crime back to you. You may not be the criminal, but in your case it will be YOU who will have to prove your innocence. The authorities will have the proof they need to convict you.

So it is about time you ask yourself: “why don’t I have a password in my router”?

Malware in your computer

Computer viruses, spyware, adware, worms, Trojans, you name it. The internet is not a safe place, unless you take precautions. A firewall and an anti-virus program are as essential as the operating system.

In the old good days, computer viruses were crashing computers and formatting hard disks. Some of them would simply play some music (i.e. Yankee Doodle) just to annoy you.

Today it’s a whole new game. Malware is used to create instant profit to its makers or the people who lease it. Yes, you read right. You can lease the services of a hacker and his/her malware for your advertisement needs, or simply to harm someone’s computer infrastructure. This may sound like a new threat to many … but most of you have seen it in action. Many times you might have received messages with links on MSN or Yahoo Messenger (or any other instant messenger for that matter) from people actually in your contact list. A common theme is that most of these incidents show your friend being OFFLINE; and in fact they are. What has happened is that your friend’s Hotmail account has been hijacked by a piece of malware, and is using their contact list to send out links either for phishing or simply for advertising reasons. Unless the owner of the malware has a use for it, the code will remain inactive in your computer, using stealth techniques, in order to avoid detection. This lowers its profile and the possibility of erasing by an anti-virus application.

Your friends do not know that they have been infected, and neither will you, unless someone tells you they received a dodgy link from you.

These links are usually redirecting you to websites that are illegal and fraudulent. And it is not only your friends who are in danger. Some malware will not send to your contact list, but will use your connection as a “transmission hub” to send out thousands or millions of spam emails. Those emails will ALL include your IP address when analysed, and will all trace back to you. Once again, you have no control over their content, so it will look like you are committing fraud, phishing and or something more sinister as distributing child pornography. Maybe the worst case scenario is your IP address being used as a hub for terrorism. That will put you in the cross-hair of every police, Interpol and secret services.

Are you innocent or guilty? The evidence says you are guilty. And nowadays the legal defence that “a computer virus did it” is not so strong.

It is YOUR responsibility to protect your computer and make sure it is not used for illegal activities.

Access by third parties

This is a purely common sense thing. Do not less other people use your computer, unless it is your close family or you have absolute control of what is being used for. There are many free programs in the web that keep a log of what is done on a computer, from every keystroke to internet access. Sounds like a “big brother” scenario, but it is about time you realise that we live in tricky times, and that things change rapidly. And as things change, so must we and our attitudes.

It is not about losing faith to people. Is about securing your privacy and freedom.

Summary

Technology makes some things easier, but complicates other. It is our responsibility, if we adopt technology, to adopt the safeguards that go with it. When you buy a car, you make sure the breaks work, the oil level is right and that the windscreen is clean so you can see when you drive. If you go online, you need to make sure you take the respective precautions.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to one thing. Use common sense.