Matt Knight

Whenever you read the news, there’s always a story about someone who has fallen victim to one online scam or another. Just this week in the news we have seen how a team of researchers have devised a way to intercept your keyboard keystrokes remotely, by detecting the minute radio signals produced by each key press (read more in the billblog).

And the ever-present threat of viruses, worms & trojans doesn’t appear to be subsiding, the latest advice from the Georgia Institute of Technology Information Security Center (GTISC) being that our mobile phones will be the next targets. Ironically, with mobile viruses potentially able to spread via Bluetooth and over the mobile phone network, we could be about to see a truely airbone virus.

But a lot of the press recently has been surrounding who’s responsible for protecting people. There have been countless examples of innocent people falling victim to scams such as the Nigerian bank scam. Some people are calling for the government to intervene, or even placing the responsibility on computer hardware & software manufacturers.

I disagree. I think the responsibility for a person’s online safety rests entirely with the individual. If you walked down the road with your wallet on a piece of cotton trailing behind you, would you blame the government if it was stolen? Or if you left your iPod sitting unattended on the counter in a crowded bar, would you blame Apple if you found it wasn’t there after coming back from the toilets? No.

The only difference between the offline and online realities is awareness. Most people are aware of the risks they face in every day life and take appropriate precautions. But too many people are oblivious to the similar risks they face when using their computer. Private companies are already doing their utmost to let people know these risks - after all, that’s how they sell their software! I believe that the only responsibility the government has in this issue is education.

With a few simple precautions, using your computer and browsing the internet can be perfectly safe. The problem is that some people don’t realise they need to take these precautions. And unfortunately, you don’t need to let your guard down for long before your computer is compromised. If the problem just affected those individuals it would be bad enough, but in reality it affects far more people. For example, a large proportion of spam originates from botnets comprised of hundreds or even thousands of innocent peoples’ computers.

This is why if I am involved in helping someone setup new computer systems, I always check they know the risks involved. It needn’t be difficult - make sure they have a firewall, an anti-virus package, and employ common sense when browsing. The old cliché holds true - if something looks too good to be true, it probably is!