2008 Woodie Awards
OUR VIEW: Common sense
AT ISSUE: Students should think before typing
The actions of few have yielded great consequences for all Ball State University students.
In the past week, a handful of students have fallen victim to the efforts of crafty spammers. The spammers have infiltrated the unsuspecting students' inboxes, deleted the content and sent out massive amounts of spam to the students' contacts.
It took only four students falling for this scam to cause the BSU e-mail system to shut down for four hours.
Most recently, the e-mail system shut down between 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. For most of us, that's when we get motivated to start doing some homework.
We don't know about you. But our homework usually requires e-mail. However, since the e-mail service was down, homework was likely pushed to the back burner and let's be honest, who actually went back to it?
So instead of homework, perhaps you surfed the Web, unaware of the real reason why you couldn't access your account, unaware of the scam that your fellow students had succumb.
We live in an era where the Internet is a constant factor in our lives and, as with any constant factors, we begin to take safety for granted.
Despite the constant threat of identity theft, college students have forgotten the Internet is full of people looking to swindle unsuspecting surfers out of money, time and apparently inbox space.
To help you understand the importance of using caution on the Internet, we'll relate it to something more common and concrete.
Take inventory of your wallet. Look at all the shiny, plastic cards with PINs to keep people from using your account and stealing your money.
How likely is it that you'll give that PIN out to a stranger for any reason?
We hope it's not very likely.
Now, consider your password to any online account the same as your PIN. Seems kind of silly to give it out now doesn't it?
In the past week, a handful of students have fallen victim to the efforts of crafty spammers. The spammers have infiltrated the unsuspecting students' inboxes, deleted the content and sent out massive amounts of spam to the students' contacts.
It took only four students falling for this scam to cause the BSU e-mail system to shut down for four hours.
Most recently, the e-mail system shut down between 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Tuesday. For most of us, that's when we get motivated to start doing some homework.
We don't know about you. But our homework usually requires e-mail. However, since the e-mail service was down, homework was likely pushed to the back burner and let's be honest, who actually went back to it?
So instead of homework, perhaps you surfed the Web, unaware of the real reason why you couldn't access your account, unaware of the scam that your fellow students had succumb.
We live in an era where the Internet is a constant factor in our lives and, as with any constant factors, we begin to take safety for granted.
Despite the constant threat of identity theft, college students have forgotten the Internet is full of people looking to swindle unsuspecting surfers out of money, time and apparently inbox space.
To help you understand the importance of using caution on the Internet, we'll relate it to something more common and concrete.
Take inventory of your wallet. Look at all the shiny, plastic cards with PINs to keep people from using your account and stealing your money.
How likely is it that you'll give that PIN out to a stranger for any reason?
We hope it's not very likely.
Now, consider your password to any online account the same as your PIN. Seems kind of silly to give it out now doesn't it?
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