The Internet

Nowadays online use is essential in order to complete everyday jobs in one’s life. Online use has become a basic tool to complete tasks such as: communicate with others, pay bills, shop, fill out paper work, and take courses; just to name a few. This facility permits individuals to complete these tasks in a faster and easier way. In the same way there are many positive aspects about online use, there is also a very important aspect that every online user has to be aware of. That is the publication of personal information on the web.
In order to complete every one of the tasks mention before, individuals are required to provide their own personal information. This information could be as basic as a name and age, but it also could be very confidential information such as a credit card number. Individuals have to be very aware of the sites they are trusting with their information. In order to do this, the person has to learn how their information is going to be used, and also how is this information going to be protected.
Individuals also have to be specifically alert of their email. They should not open unknown or unsolicited email messages. Most importantly, they should not send personal information through email since this is not a secure transmission method. If there is a pop-up message or link asking for personal information is best to avoid it, not replay to it, or not even click it.
When shopping online, individuals have to be very careful when providing financial information trough a company’s website. They should take measures in order to reduce the risk. There are some indicators within a website that show their vendors have taken measures in order to reduce the risk. As an example an “s” after the “http”, the “s” in the symbol “https” stands for “secure”.
I personally, have seen myself forced to provide my personal information in order to complete tasks such as the renewal of my license, pay for courses, and shop. It is inevitable to provide ones information in such cases; but I always make sure these are secure sites.
At first I was extremely unconfident about giving out information such as my credit card or social security number online. As time went by, I saw myself more dependable on these online sources and I realized there were measures I could take in order to secure my information. To begin with, I noticed that the websites that I visit in order to deal with my driver license information end in a “.gov” domain. This means these sites are owned by the government. Government owned sites are very trustable; they will keep ones information secure and confidential.
In order to shop online, I always do a background check of the websites I am going to trust my information with. First, I look for a physical address on the site, not a Post office box. I also, request catalogs by mail to ensure the credibility of the company. In some cases, I look for telephone numbers posted on the site and I ask to speak to the company’s representative in order to clear any doubts I could still have.
The act of making personal information available online is going to be as secure as an individual wants it to be. If a person is providing his/her personal information online without making any prior measures chances are that this person is risking his/her information’s security. In the other hand, an individual that takes the required steps to ensure a website’s reliability is someone that is most likely not going to have problems with the security of his/her information.

Censorship

Censorship is permissible when a communicative media might be considered to obtain objectionable, harmful or sensitive material. I do believe censorship is needed in some circumstances and specific means of communication. As an example the military censorship, this keeps confidential information away from enemy hands. Moral censorship, to some extend, is also necessary, this protects specifically children and young adults from viewing material that is to obscene for their age. I believe that censorship of some mediums such as television, internet, and theaters is required; but I also believe that censorship of books is a very different matter. Books are medium of communication that is not as exposed as the once mentioned before. I believe that an individual has the ability of controlling whatever he/she wants to read and I also believe that parents are the ones responsible for their children’s exposure to books. This is the reason why I feel no one has the right to tell an individual what he/she should read and also why I trust no one to deprive me of knowledge. In my opinion this kind of censorship is a violation of the first and most important amendment of the constitution, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press…”

For government, censorship comes in handed too many times; it permits them to control their public’s knowledge making them unaware of subjects that might cause rebellion. In this way they have an ignorant, easily manipulated audience. Throughout history there have been many debates of what should be exposed for the public or not. In earlier times it was much easier to control this by acts such as the burning of libraries since many few copies of a book were available. Nowadays the solution is censorship.

If I was a librarian I would extremely dislike pulling a book. As I remarked before, I am in total disagreement of depriving individuals of any substantial knowledge.