Expand Your Mind: 6 Internet Odd Bits for 2012
Saturday, December 29th, 2012
Everybody and their brother are doing Best and Worst for 2012 lists on dozens of topics, so I thought I’d provide something a different. Below are links to six odd bits involving the Internet.
Do you consider yourself Internet savvy? Too smart to click on iffy links or fall for the latest in phishing stories? That’s great, but how are you at avoiding extortion?
Essentially online extortion, ransomware involves infecting a user’s computer with a virus that locks it. The attackers demand money before the computer will be unlocked, but once the money is paid, they rarely unlock it.
If extortion is what it took to get you to focus on security you would probably appreciate some info on how to create passwords that hackers hate.
Hackers regularly exploit tools like John the Ripper, a free password-cracking program that use lists of commonly used passwords from breached sites and can test millions of passwords per second.
The Internet is the greatest face-to-face avoidance tool ever invented; in most cases that not good, but there are times when doing things at a distance and avoiding direct contact is a boon for all involved.
Let’s just say that no matter how well ex-spouses and still-parents coordinate, there’s a good chance of teary phone calls, angry exchanges during drop-off, and all-out fights about who’s not saving enough for college, often played out smack in front of the children. Unless, of course, it’s all done remotely. (…) It’s joint custody — at a distance.
But divorce is an exception; in most cases building an active cyber-life is no substitute for real-world, real-life interaction as multiple startups are proving.
“We have an internal tagline: Use the Internet to get off the Internet,” said Kathryn Fink, community manager at Meetup, an online-to-offline start-up with 11 million members. (…) Hybrid social networks are connecting strangers with similar interests online, then directing them to meet in person for dinners, bar-hopping, bowling or biking excursions. Unlike dating or networking sites, these start-ups are focused simply on helping users make new friends and hang out face to face. If a hookup or job interview results — well, that’s just an added bonus.
While cell phones don’t fit technically into a review of Internet odd bits, I thought you would find this article on nomophobia of interest.
Doctors at a California recovery center say they are working with more and more patients suffering from nomophobia, or the fear of being away from their mobile devices, and that the condition can seriously interfere with people’s lives. (…) “One of the biggest things is anxiety or fear or panic at even the thought of losing their phone,” she said. “They make sure their phone is constantly in their reach, obsessively checking the battery life, and take their phone into inappropriate places to use it.”
Finally, while people may be familiar with Harvey Ball, the guy who designed the yellow smiley face in 1963, fewer recognize the name of Scott Fahlman, who created the :-) 20 years later.
In 1982, as a young professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he realized the need for a symbol to temper the bickering that plagued online forums. The Internet was just a baby then, and yet already flame wars raged. Fahlman decided that a smiley face could be useful as a “joke marker” (as he called it) to take the sting out of mocking statements or pranks.
Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho
If I had spent the entire year scouring for business quotes to fit this title I probably wouldn’t find as perfect a selection as the ten offered up by Business Week in the 
