FACT: I know more people who’ve bought Firefox (and other free software) than I do those who got the free software for free.

Does Your Ignorance Betray You?
I turned off the busy street into the alley and suddenly felt an uneasy feeling of loneliness. I suppose it was because the place was a bit spooky, to say the least. The alley was almost empty, dirty and seemed dark, even though it was probably midday. An eerie wind blew seemingly directly at me, blowing polythene bags at me. I skipped over them and headed for the dirty little sign that said, ‘Cheap Software’.

The software was indeed dirt cheap. You could get the latest Microsoft software for pocket change! Not to mention many, many other notable software. Despite the temptation, I had not gone there for bootlegged software ( yes, I think piracy is wrong, immoral, and criminal) – I had come for something very specific. I had come for Firefox, the award winning browser. To my surprise, the guy at the counter told me I could have the latest copy for just under $5. He went on to add that for that same price, each, I could have some other software too. The interesting thing to note is that Firefox, and all the $5 software on offer at that particular place is what is normally termed as free, open source software. The guy was offering to sell me stuff that I could get for free. Surprise, surprise.

The sad fact is that millions of people the world over, especially in the so-called developing world buy all their software at roughly the same price. They get Microsoft and other for-sale stuff dirt cheap because what they pay for are illegal pirated copies and they get otherwise free software at a price because they have no idea it’s free.

I have no problem with you willingly buying something that you can get for free – heck, I’ll even sell it to you! I believe we should all have the option to pay for whatever we want to pay for, even free things. What ticks me off, however, is when one is ‘tricked’ into buying anything. Of course your ignorance is always your fault but taking advantage of it isn’t nice at all. That’s what this post is about: getting rid of buyer ignorance. So go on, gather all your friends and let me tell you about an award winning software whose price is shocking!

Is Firefox Really All That?
Yes it is, and more! You can skip my long explanation why by going here.

I’m sure you’ve heard tons about the virtues of Firefox so I’ll keep it short. Like any other surfer, I am concerned about my speed and efficiency online. Lately, I also think about my privacy and security. The only browser that meets all my need is Mozilla Firefox. Firefox was built to be the fastest, most efficient and secure browser available. It lives up to all that and also gives you the option of personalizing it by getting useful little add-ons.

I know there are hundreds of faulty and plain useless software out there so you are probably skeptical. I would be too. My secret of telling whether any software is any good is finding out whether that particular software has any fanatical fans who sing its praises. Firefox passes this test:
Yes that is the Firefox Logo in a crop field. These guys made it. If they love Firefox that much, it just goes to show that Firefox is simply that damn good. Period.

How To Buy Firefox and How Not To Buy Firefox
As I said earlier, if you want to buy something that you can get for free then go right ahead. However, since you’re going to pay, anyway, wouldn’t it be better to pay the person who made what you’re paying for? In this case, that is the Mozilla Foundation. If you want to pay for your copy of Firefox, then go here.

That, though, is your problem because Firefox is so free that I can even get paid to give it to you. Don’t believe me? Check out the orange image at the bottom of my sidebar. Otherwise, you can get Firefox for free, no strings attached, by clicking on the image below:

Go here to grab 27 cool tools to personalize your Firefox and make it even cooler(after your download, of course).

I know! How can something so cool be free? Well, technically you’ll have to pay for internet access. (If you write me a nice letter, I can send you a copy on CD.) 😉

The thought that the internet opens up a vast new avenue for sex offenders to reach out for kids scars me stiff. Ever since I started this blog, I’ve wanted to write on ways to protect ourselves and our kids from such criminals. But I’m no expert at this and the actual writing of the post was rather difficult. However, I recently found a way of overcoming this. Yesterday I told you about using Yahoo! Answers to research for your posts and just to expound further on how this can be done, and also to show how useful it can be, I went ahead and prepared the rest of this post using Yahoo! Answers. (Yeah, now your research doesn’t have to be limited to 2 hours at the library and 4 more googling) 😉

What exactly is an online sex offense?
Amber puts it this way, “I would think an online sex offense is when an adult goes online and finds minors to try to coerce them to meet and commit sexual acts on/with them or even inappropriate sexually charged conversations with a minor on an IM or through email. ” Personally, I think that an online sex offense’s victim isn’t just limited to a minor. Such an offense can be committed against anyone. Therefore, unwanted and undesired sexual advances of any kind are a sex offense, online or not. Obviously, some of these offenses are more ‘serious’ than others. Particularly, I think sex offenses committed against minors are horrible and are the most serious of these offenses.

How Can we Protect Ourselves?
I don’t get much help from my research on Yahoo Answers on this one. That illustrates a basic problem with Yahoo Answers: your questions won’t always be answered as well as you want them to. Keep in mind that the guys answering your questions aren’t necessarily experts; they are more likely normal everyday people like you and I.
So, how do you go about protecting your kids?

1. It is important to have open communication with your kids and educate them on safe online behave and on online safety procedures like these ones. Your kids don’t need you to be their friend, they need you as a parent. Clearly outline the possible dangers in everything they do online and make sure they know what’s safe to do and what’s not.
2. If they are not co-operative then you need to do whatever you can to find out how they spend their time online and who they associate it while online. If you have to, spy on them using the excellent spyware programs available. Here’s an excellent tool for doing just that.
3. No internet profiles. Not on myspace, not anywhere else. This may sound extreme but i is the safest possible approach. Think about it. If you(or your kids) don’t put yourself out there, then no one can find you. Not even a hardened sex criminal. (At least not easily)
4. There shall be no computer in your child’s room. The computer should not be your child’s ‘go to’ place when he/she is feeling lonely or sad. Nor should it be a secret personal playground. The computer should be placed in an open area, like the dining area or living room, where people pas by regularly. This way, your child will think twice about getting intimate with anyone or about breaking your rules on net safety (see #1 above).
5. If you suspect anything, anything at all, is amiss then notify the authorities A.S.A.P. Better be safe than sorry. None of us wants to see another horrendous crime (think murder, rape etc) on CNN that started out ‘innocently’ on the net.

For more on safe internet practices go here.

This post was prepared with assistance from a question asked on Yahoo! Answers.

Dear Editor,

I refer to your headline article, ‘Nasty cyber wars as Kalonzo website is hacked‘ dated Thursday the 22nd of February 2006. In that article, you have mistakenly misused the terms ‘hacker’ and ‘hacking’. You refer to hackers as intelligent computer programmers or idle, often malicious, people with administrator privileges. In your news story, you give the impression that hacking is wrong, malicious and even criminal. This is simply scandalous!

The terms hacker and hacking have been given a bad name by the media, thus giving all an impression of how little many people know about hacking. This has created a definition controversy worldwide. In actual fact, hacking is not bad or evil at all. It is good and even necessary. Hacking is the desire to fully understand something. A “computer hacker,” then, is someone who lives and breathes computers, who knows all about computers, who can get a computer to do anything. Equally important, though, is the hacker’s attitude. (http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~bh/hacker.html) Real hackers live by certain hacker ethics. From wikipedia.org, these are:

• the belief that information-sharing is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and facilitating access to information and computing resources wherever possible; and/or
• the belief that system cracking for fun and exploration is ethically acceptable as long as the hacker commits no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.

Hackers built the Internet. Hackers made the Unix operating system what it is today. Hackers run Usenet. Hackers make the World Wide Web work. The world needs hackers.

There is another group of people who loudly call themselves hackers, but aren’t. These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them. Real hackers mostly think crackers are lazy, irresponsible, and not very bright, and object that being able to break security doesn’t make you a hacker any more than being able to hotwire cars makes you an automotive engineer. Unfortunately, many journalists and writers have been fooled into using the word ‘hacker’ to describe crackers; this irritates real hackers no end. (http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html)

Those who defaced the websites decribed in your news story are not hackers but crackers. Their act was not hacing but cracking!