k accounts, pay their bills, transfer their money and even trade their stocks. The internet is, beyond doubt, the most efficient and economic tool of the next generation.But, the dark side of the internet reveals some serious drawbacks. First, it was not designed with tight security in mind. This was demonstrated, at least once a month, by so-called “crackers”: growing minorities of people with nothing better to do than spoil everyone else’s enjoyment. Crackers dedicate their work to purposely infect programs and distant computers that access the internet. In July 1997, successfully capturing and distributing credit card numbers of NBA and ESPN users, crackers achieved the first widely known attack on internet credit card data. On the same year, another cracker known as “Snak” was taken into custody by FBI agents after he had stolen over one hundred thousands credit card numbers from an internet service provider (ISP) located in northern California. Nevertheless, the “internet tasking force” (ITF), a group of knowledgeable engineers whose sole task is to reinforce the integrity of the internet, is taking significant measures to prevent such unlawful actions.Secondly, the internet’s structures do not only transport data, but it also transports compact and yet very harmful intruders: computer viruses. These artificial clever beasts that destroy data, have existed since the very first birth of personnel computers. With the growth of the internet, virus authors have been faced up to nothing but a widespread gate to the information superhighway, efficiently supplied with new viruses. “Veronica”, last century’s award winning virus, transformed to inoperative rather hundred thousands of computers and thousands of networks around the globe for quite few days; financial institutes deciphered the heartbreaking event to more than a few million dollars of vanished money. This is wond...
