Many people have experienced uncivilized behavior since being introduced to the Internet. Many people try to force you to join their friends’ lists without you being acquainted with them, without an introduction and without an opportunity to accept or reject the invite.
In the past two years, this trend has spread so much that not a day or two passes without an anonymous person adding you to their e-mail group or MSN Messenger list. This is done without the person taking prior permission or bothering to identify himself or herself.
A woman friend of mine said to me that being a man I would never understand the size of the problem. “If you had a feminine nickname or e-mail address, then you’d have at least tenfold more invites than what you’re currently getting,” she said.
Apparently, I had not realized how much we respected women until I heard that comment. But the longer you live the more strange stuff you get to see. By the way, while we are addressing the passions and obsessions of the Internet, I would like to say that if the people who invented the Internet knew of the way we are using the Net, then they would have never invented it in the first place.
In the past couple of months, I have received a number of mobile text messages warning me about receiving e-mails from a particular e-mail address because the e-mail had been stolen and was being used to send spam and virus-infected e-mails.
The worst story I have heard about the revolutionary invention was a story of a friend whose e-mail address was hacked. The hacker, a sure criminal, used her e-mail address to send disgraceful content to people in her address book.
Sometimes I feel we are not prepared to enter the digital world. The proof of what I am saying is that many of us use the Internet as a way of flirting and getting to know individuals from the opposite sex. They abuse the Internet just as they misuse cell phones, which are used by people to brag about the latest Bluetooth clip and multimedia messages.
Legal action has to be taken against people who hack e-mail addresses. Otherwise, we will end up living in an electronic jungle that would bring such disasters that only God knows of.
