If you remember the “Take Back the Night” campaigns in Europe and the U.S. aimed at helping citizens move against street crime, Net security expert/author Bill Hely has something similar in mind for cyberspace.
Hely launched a Take Back the Net campaign May 10, offering a free cyberspace self-defense course based on much of the content of his new e-book, The Hacker's Nightmare. Offered free, the campaign will send those who want to join daily articles outlining cyberspace self-defense techniques and applications anyone can use.
The first article in the series puts it plainly: "Many experts treat average PC users as if they are imbeciles. A few others (happily a minority) know better but they want you to think you are an imbecile anyway—it's in their vested interests to have you thinking like that. As long as you 'know' that security is just 'too hard' there'll be an inflated demand for their services."
Hely says he still recommends his e-book as a primary security resource, but he wants average computer users who are "completely defenseless" against cybercrime and averse to online buying to learn basic self-defense information and thus designed the course.
“Many people cringe at the thought of downloading files. They worry about making online purchases," he says. “They’re running scared of viruses, worms, Trojans, hackers, and other threats they can’t even name. And so they should be—there are plenty of traps awaiting the unwary and the unskilled.”
He has the evidence to back up the idea that there’s a large audience for his offering: JupiterMedia recently took a poll showing that more than half of the world's computer users have major interest in stories about Internet security and privacy.
Hely compares the cybercrime experience to the kind of street crime “Take Back The Night” campaigns fought by saying that a lot of cybercrime – harassment, stalking, robbery, fraud, criminal impersonation – is the kind people fear on the streets, just at a more sophisticated level. “In cyberspace the thugs don't need knives, guns, or batons," he says. “Information misuse is the weapon of choice”
Hely said the Internet community can put a big dent in cybercrime the way people did for street crime if enough of them take action. “Without mass action there can be no real improvement," he says. “There’ll be no cyber police coming along to put things right for us. We have to learn to protect ourselves. If the easy marks disappear so will many of the predators.”
