The Internet is For...

When I was coordinating a wedding for a friend of mine, I got engaged into a conversation with another pastor friend about the internet. He had a friend who was given a free domain. So naturally, he accepted it. But this person who was given the domain to did something really bad. He asked another friend of his to hack the person who gave him the domain, so that he'd see if the GIFT was valid. It was valid alright, but then the giver found out about what he did. Naturally, the gift was revoked, and of course, the guy that had the giver hacked was, well, put to shame.

A few years ago, I got into trouble with a certain organization. My friends were all there, supporting me and encouraging me in every way they can. One of them suggested that if I wanted to, they'd be able to hack into the organizations' website and put porn links in all of their site's tabs. It was really tempting, but I of course said no.

A few months ago, somebody hacked into my friendster account and was sending messages via bulletin board and personal messages in my name. Most of them are links to some dating service and porn sites. A couple of months before that happened, someone also hacked my myspace account and did the same thing.

One of my friend's friendster account was also hacked. They didn't send messages or anything, but they did added pictures of a nude lower half of another guy in his site and made it his profile picture.

Just recently, an online friend of mine discovered that pictures he took were stolen from his multiply site. She (the thief) removed his signature from the pictures and altered it so that her signature would appear on his pictures. She then uploaded all the pictures in her site and claimed she was the one who took the pictures (oh, she did TOOK them alright). After the incident, friends of his rallied to PUT TO JUSTICE this girl by bombarding her sites with nasty comments. To make matters worst, they got hold of all of her contact numbers, and now only time will tell what they'd do with that.

The internet is a scary place. We don't know when we will be the victim of identity theft or a certain scam. Also, because all of this is happening, we sometimes become victims to paranoia when something happens to our internet accounts and sites. How do we protect ourselves? How do we know if we're being had? I hope THIS helps.

Also, not leaving a track of messy internet comments, blogs, videos, pictures, etc. will help. Remember, whatever you post on the net is a ticking time bomb if it has anything to do with you that'll ruin you. Nude pictures, scandalous videos, hate blogs and such... forget about it... don't attempt to post any of those... don't even THINK of doing it.

Your safety on the internet also depends on you and how you use it. I've learned my lesson... I hope you will too.