The Internet is definitely a microcosm of life in the real world. The real world is made up of all sorts of people from fine upstanding citizens right through to psychopaths who feed off society. You will find all sorts of people online too, complete innocents brush shoulders with the lowest of the low who brush shoulders with experienced web users who have learned the hard way to be cautious and to keep their guard up.
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"There is no business on this planet that can succeed without some level of security." |
Just because we are adult webmasters does not mean that we are somehow immune or insulated from this sort of contact. Nor does it mean that we are all honourable and trustworthy. Just because we run a business and adhere to strong business ethics does not mean that everyone who calls himself or herself an adult webmaster is prepared to adhere to the same business ethics or any ethics for that matter.
The fact is that anyone who does business on the Internet moves in very murky waters. In the real world, we have some opportunity to see danger approaching but here on the Internet, it can be on us in a flash. It can cause irreparable damage before we even notice the problem.
New webmasters come into this industry with trusting and open attitudes, all these friendly webmaster boards often lull people into a false sense of security. New webmasters often trust everybody and everything and post their email addresses, ICQ numbers and site URLs without any thought of the actual consequences.
Experienced webmasters rarely post their email addresses and when they do, it is in a form that is illegible to email harvesting software. Experienced webmasters know that if they do post their email addresses then they can almost guarantee that it will be harvested and used for spam, or even worse it will be targeted for virus attacks.
Experienced webmasters rarely post their ICQ numbers because they know that if they do they might be inundated with pleas for help and requests for advice to the point where they won't be able to get any work done.
Experienced webmasters rarely post their URLs because they know that if they do, their work might be copied and their images or movies hot-linked.
Webmasters are aware that revealing important info about themselves on a webmaster board is a form of opening up to both the friendly people who post on the board and to the lurkers as well. While many lurkers are just nice people who are too shy to post, there are many lurkers who are quite the contrary.
So, in this murky swamp that we live in, what can we do to protect ourselves and ensure our survival?
The very first thing is to be discreet. Don't rush in to post your email address, ICQ number or URL across the internet. By all means, exchange these details with other webmasters on a one-to-one basis, but try and keep it at that level. One of the most successful adult webmasters around has managed to build his empire into a million dollar business over the last few years without revealing himself to his competition for the very reasons that I have mentioned.
Make sure that your computers are secure from outside attack. If you don't have a firewall sitting between your computer and the Internet then you are just asking for trouble. Firewalls protect you from hackers and from nasty Spyware programs that hide on reputable software and install themselves without your knowledge. A properly installed and configured firewall will prevent hackers from getting in and these Spyware programs from sending out your personal information to their creators.
Email viruses are everywhere. It seems that if you run a link list or regularly write for online publications, you become a target for every idiot who thinks he has some vendetta against you. My wife runs a link list and gets up to 100 or more infected emails a day. Just recently, I must have upset some half-wit because I get a similar number of infected emails as well.
If we did not have anti-virus software in place, our computers would be a total mess and riddled with every imaginable virus. Fortunately we do have protection and we can set our anti-virus software to spot the infected emails as they arrive and dump them straight into the trash. We never see them and our computers never get infected. Just to be doubly sure, we have the anti-virus software run a scan on our machines every night just to ensure that nothing has been missed.
Earlier I mentioned Spyware; some of these programs are fairly basic and just open new browser windows full of advertising as you surf. Others are more insidious and give your computer an identifying number and then transmit your personal information back to a central database.
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Some of this software is easy to detect because it is poorly written and will often affect the performance of your computer. Other variations are extremely well written to the point where they will seek out and remove any software that you might have installed that might alert you of incoming Spyware.
Hot-linkers are definitely unsavoury type of webmasters. These guys are true criminals because they link directly to images served from your server from their website. They use your images on their sites and you pay the bandwidth. They are nothing more than common thieves and they can be stopped in their tracks with a simple file called .htaccess. It is completely free and fairly simple to implement, you can write it yourself in Notepad and once installed it will stop hot-linkers in their tracks.
There is no business on this planet that can succeed without some level of security. If you keep your shields up you can resist just about any kind of attack. On the other hand, you can choose to be sloppy and lazy and let the leeches and thieves suck you dry and leave your business devastated.
Here are some URL's to sites where you can find helpful software to keep you and your sites protected:
Ad-Aware
http://www.lavasoft.de
Lavasoft produces a great free piece of software called Ad-aware. It can scan your computer for spyware, identify and remove it. The latest version is 6.0.
Grisoft AVG
http://www.grisoft.com
Grisoft produces a quality virus scanner called AVG - the free version is adequate for most situations and updates are available on a regular basis.
Zonelabs
http://www.zonelabs.com
Zonelabs produces a highly recommended firewall that comes in two versions. The free version works well for most people I know.
All three of the applications listed above are easy to download, install and configure. They will go a long way to keep you and your computer protected from all the nasties out there in the swamp.