Within two days, I have successfully collected over 29 cookies and probes from websites I have visited while on my computer at work. Cookies are not really a big deal, in fact, a lot of them are just another website's attempt to sell your name off to other websites or to products you might be interested in on the Internet. One huge thing they are is an annoyance.
I generally sweep my computer about once a week, and I have to say, if I have 29 cookies and probes listed in my "ready-to-quarantine-file" through Webroot, what other little nasty hiccups and intrusions do I have on my computer that has not been cited?
Browsing through Myspace is like walking through a swamp full of hands that grab at your pants' legs and won't let go. The only problem is, sometimes you get away, and sometimes you unearth a body, whose mouth is constantly running, trying to advertise to you, or scam you into something you don't want. Having a firewall or virus/spyware and adware program is like giving you a fly swatter to smack the hands away; so...so many hands....
That swamp of hands used to not be so crowded; that swamp used to have a gravel road which you could travel down, and, in the off chance you were grabbed, their hand would break off leaving a bloody stump in the ground, and a morsel of bloody hand still clinging to your clothes. But alas, the advancement of technology has destroyed that little trail, leaving you to calculate a safe-route through the swamp. Sure, back in the day, you could surf the Internet and not worry about cookies or someone threatening the longevity of your PC. However, you have to take into consideration that back-in-the-day, we did not know as much about the difference between harmful and safe computer applications that we have the knowledge of today. So are we better off? Yeah, I would say so. And yes, people were trying to hack your PC back-in-the-day; hacking has a pretty extensive history, but today people have Norton, and the rich crop of other virus protection, spam protection, pop-up stoppers, cookie-munchers, anti-spyware and adware agents, and sweepers that weren't thought-up or in testing in '95.
A lot of this has me thinking of my computer as more of a child than a tool. Defraging your computer keeps your computer healthy. Update your Norton definitions every two-three weeks. Don't let your computer play in a busy intersection. Putting peanut butter on a CD-ROM and stuffing it into a CD-ROM drive doesn't mean you're feeding the computer. Give your computer a check-up by updating software and inspecting its many components; pretty much, HP and Gateway, Apple and Dell are all like foster care, and you're adopting a machine.
So what other things could your PC be? Well, if you're in utter desperation, sexually, it could be your girlfriend; gamers and PC-enthusiasts alike know exactly what I mean when I state that. The computer can be your organizer. Let's say you are so organized, every appointment of yours, every meeting, every little quintessential thing you do in your fucking life is recorded on your PC, as, literally, external memory. Shit, my PC is my journal; I log on to blogger about three, maybe four-times-a-week and unload upon my maybe one fan what pisses me off, what makes me happy, what's going wrong and right in the world, and maybe a random story or two. Yes, I'll state it! The computer can run your life! Some people use it as a friend they don't have at a certain moment in their lives, and I will elaborate; some people play computer games hours-on-end because it's enjoyable. In fact, in a new study, people who are stressed out all the time will release some pent-up emotions by playing violent video games, and people out there say, "That's where violent tendencies start," and blah blah blah. In-a-way, yeah, that's true, for mentally disturbed people. For normal people, they cope; fantasy stays fantasy. No I don't see the connection between violence in the world and video games because you don't see a person robbing you, holding an xbox controller, you do not hear of a kid who pressed R1, L1, X, O, Triangle, L2, Square or R1, L1, A, B, L2, Y to set god-mode and infinite ammo simultaneously, and then go blasting his or her school with his parents' licensed 9mm's or rifle. You do, unfortunately, see kids running around screaming, "I'm just like CJ from San Andreas...blittatatatatat," them, imitating, acting as though they were holding an automatic weapon, and pointing it at someone else. Censoring is not the answer because it's all imitation. You censor violent video games, you might as well censor television more because if they don't get it from somewhere, they will get it from somewhere else. Next, it's movies, then books, then our culture, our past, our present, our future, our way-of-life...now I am repeating what I have said before; the government can not have that much power. It's scary stuff. In an essence, a computer can be a provoker.
It's quite astounding thinking about the jump we have made in the last decade with technology. If change can happen that quickly, what's next around the corner? Computers replace people everyday. When is that trend going to end, or, are we seeing a glimpse into the future?
No comments:
Post a Comment