I was wondering about everyone's views on the internet. How good/bad it is...how safe...etc. How trusting are you of people on the internet and of the whole atmosphere? :o *I don't know if this will get locked or not, it just seems like a good topic*

It goes hand in hand I think.There is a bunch of good stuff to the internet but also a bunch of bad as well. I think the good and bad of the internet are about equal. How trusting am I? Well, I guess you could say I trust people more then I should.....I need to work on that. I just like to trust everybody and give everybody atleast one chance. Im the kind that will lend $30 to someone who says they really need it and not question it or ask for it back. I love to help people. But yeah, ya gotta watch it on the internet......there are a bunch of freaks out there lurking around behind smiley icons and "LoL". be careful and draw your boundaries is what I say.

** Purg **

am with ^. I really have no comments on the internet, just i know i should watch out for the bad sites.

i'm more trusting than i should be, though i'm not nearly as trusting as i used to be. i never give away where i live (city). i hardly ever give my last name. yet i keep an on-line journal. and invite others to read it. so that can be seen as a little frightening.

To another Christian I'm totally trusting. And I know there's the 'what if s/hes not a Christian'

Thats when my discernment comes in handy ;) Theres been ppl b4 who've tried to pull a fast one on me and Gods told me of their deceit. I trust him to tell me

i usually think of the internet as safe as well. but then there are days like today. :-

i got onto AOL this morning & got a message saying that i've violated some of their "laws". i didn't do anything abnormal or more wrong than i normally do (which mean, i didn't do anything!). this happened once before too. someone broke into my account & used it to send spam. :o

so i guess that means i need to change my password more often. >:( & that AOL doesn't know how to punish people. punish the hacker who spams, not the innocent victim of the hacker. :(

but i know i'll be way more careful what i give out online as well.

the internet is like the contents of this world all whitin ur grasp. so the same evils in this world as well as the same goods can be found there.

my parents trust me on the net with a filter or anything cuz they know they can trust me.

Addressing two points (personal safety and trusting oneself with what is so readily available on the Web)...

I honestly think my mother didn't know much about the "evils of the internet" when we both had our first experiences with it buying a computer when I was in seventh grade. (The extent of my computer experience beforehand had been playing Lemmings on an old IBM in my third grade GATE class.) So I didn't really have a "guide" when I started exploring on my own (the computer was in my room): Mom had never been on the 'net herself and only knew what the TV evangelists said (evil! evil! evil! [sign of the cross, salt over the shoulder, etc.] -- amazing she didn't smash the computer to bits and burn the remains as they might suggest).

Really, the Internet is only as full of evil as the world is. Where do you hang out when you go downtown? The bar? The adult bookstore? The sweet hometown café? The toy shop? Those tables outside Mickey D's so you can chat with friends as you chow down fries? -- This is going to be reflected in what you do online. Do you close that porn popup immediately when you stumble across them (they come up even on Christian lyric sites sometimes), or do you look a little closer before hitting the "close" button? Do you hang out on the Christian board, or do you troll other boards starting flamewars? And even if you hang out on the Christian board, do you do so wisely?

The Internet does provide a bit more opportunity for exploits: What I say on this board, even if I say it explicitly to theinvaded (a friend from town), is available for anyone to see as they peruse the archives, so I have to watch it there. I have to use good judgment in who I talk to openly, and with whom I become intimate (my two best friends I did meet via the 'net), maybe more than when I do offline, but there's still that basis. Don't be stupid.

So you can't really automatically trust everyone -- folks, even if this is a Christian board, faith isn't a prerequisite for reading what's said. Anyone can "step off the Google bus" and stumble onto something you didn't want known to more than those few you posted it for. .... But at the same time, you can't follow the path of the TV evangelists and run for your garlic and stakes every time you see a computer. The Internet is just another form of communication, as is the TV, as is the telephone, as are newspapers as magazines, as is the traditional pen to paper. With it comes certain dangers, and you have to be aware of them, but they don't cancel out its goods.

I was an antisocial, annoying-as-heck brat all the way up to my freshman year, when I met some awesome Christian people both on and offline, and both groups helped shape me into what I am today. Use discretion, but don't be extreme either way.

It all comes down to what you're like offline, because even if online takes that extra effort to stay clean, you'll take it if your heart's dedicated to God. Everything available on the internet is available in the real world. You can't use "the evils of the internet" as an excuse if you start looking at filthy pictures, reading unclean webcomics, or anything else: it only reflects what's in you. If it were that easy to get offline, you'd have it in your house too. ... just be sure you keep your heart right, and your actions will follow.

i agree that is a wonderful description of the world of the internet.

just like how knives ca also be made into an analogy with the internet: useful tool, harmful weapon and can hurt you badly if you dont know how to use it.

I'm very depressed, I just wrote a HUGE reply to this that took an hour to write and accidentally hit my back button on my mouse and it disappeared, so I'm now rewriting this in Notepad because I do feel this is a subject needing addressed and usually when this happens, it comes out better than the first because I pick up on thigs I missed the first time around. I hope this is the case now.

This post (novel) is a very hard one for me to type. It's got a lot of humiliating things in it and a lot of hard truths I had to deal with.

The wire (internet) is a place full of both good and evil. Now I can say in all honesty that I have been online longer than probably 99% of the people here; maybe even 100%. Even before the internet, I was on BBS's (dialup communities similar to this board) on my nifty 400kbps modem. Back when cable, dsl, and broadband were all dreams. I was part of Sierra's Imagination Network in 1989 and I was also one of the first subscribers to AOL when it was first out in 1991 at a cost that would make a lot of people faint now days. I was typing at age 4, not very well but since my parents taught me to read at an early age.. you get the point. And from that point, I had an avid interest in computers. I've also spent more time on computers than I would care to admit to. For instance, in 1999, I became addicted to a game called Ultima Online. Durring this time, I would literally spend abut 22 hours a day on the wire. The only time I left the room would be to go get food to bring in, or to go to use the facilities. I would sleep durring the 1 hour of down time the game had for maintainence. It would go on like that till I became to exausted and would sleep for 3/4 a day. Then the cycle started again. Thank the Lord he got me out of that.

I have seen both the good and evil of the internet. Because of what I've seen and what I know, I will never let my kids (when I have them) on the wire until they are at least 16 or I feel they are responcibile enough. That may seem a bit harsh, but I have seen the evil the internet has to offer. I was been in the 7th level of hell on here. Around the time I was 15, I was already working away from Windows and had a base knowledge of Linux and Unix. At that time I had hooked up with people who were teaching me how to "hack". I know things that would scare a lot of people. It's one thing to know all your personal information is there for anyone to see at the click of a button, it's another thing to see someone actually show you how. Social Security Numbers, records, personal information you probably wouldn't tell just anyone. It was all there and so easy to get. A lot of the things we didn though, were meerly to see if we could. To test our own ability and see if it was possible. I was also taught to respect what we did and not use what we knew for bad... Knowledge is power. I also want to clear up the fact that hackers aren't the ones you need to worry about. Hackers are the ones who find holes in security, break in, and fix the holes leaving a letter to the Sys admin on how they got in and a detailed description on how they fixed it. Crackers are the malitious ones who do things like put porno ads on disney.com. At the age of 16, between me and a friend from Australia, we probably had one of the biggest pornography collections on the internet. At 16 I had access to anything I wanted. Things that corrupted my mind and things I still fight off to this day. And it's getting worse... while at 16, I had to spend hours to find that stuff, now a 13yo girl spends hours deleting hundreds of porn spams delivered to her hotmail. Even worse yet, the internet is now host to things like child pornography. Free speech has gotten out of control with pages on satanism, athism, homosexuality, fetishes, sick death things, and anything else you could ever think of. It's a community of people killing themselves spiritually, mentally, and physically.

Hard to believe in all the evil here, there is a light that grows brighter every day. In the Bible, the Lord tells us that the only place without his presence is Hell. This includes the internet. Thanks to this wonderful invention, we have created new means of fellowship with people from all over the world. If it wasn't for the internet, I would have never met my wonderful fiance' whom I met in a Xian chat room. And believe it or not, I gave my live to Christ through the beeps and squeels of my modem. There are so many amazing things the internet gives us the opprotunity to do. We can reach out to ministries, become part of world prayer teams, support our favorite Xian bands. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for this thing. And in an ever changing world slowly coming to Christ, the internet is slowly coming into the light as well. It's our job to stand up for what we believe here. God speaks even here...

In my time, I've met over 200 people on the internet,and I need to stress how important this is to listen to if you are one of those people who go meeting people from the wire. Of all the people I've met, I've really only ever had 1 bad experience (which was the one that changed my life forever. I won't type it out right now but if anyone wants to hear about it, lemme know and I will post it) meeting people. I've heard and seen the horror stories people talk about though. Not trying to put off people from meeting at all, I think it's an awesome thing to do. Just be careful how you do it. The person on the other side may not be who they say they are. That's one of the hard things about the internet. You can be whoever you want and act differently than you would in the real world. Here are 4 rules to live by whenever you meet someone online.

1. Be 100% confortable with it. If you are the least bit uncomfortable with meeting someone online, then don't do it. Explain that you just don't feel comfortable making that move yet. If they are really friends, they will be disappointed but agree to this and try to build up a stronger trust. God didn't give you that little bump of trouble that itches for nothing.

2. Take someone with you! Never, never go to meet someone from the internet alone. Especially for girls out there, always make sure you bring someone along with you. The other person will understand if they really want to meet you, you won't be alone. I don't care if it's some guy you like from online, if someone can't make it with you, don't go.

3. Let several know where you are. Tell them your plans for the whole day. Take a cellphone. If something comes up and plans change, call and let people know that you are going somewhere else. And always use public transpertation to get there. Never get into a car with someone you don't know.

4. Always stay in public places with people around. If they ask you to go somewhere more privite, it usually means they have other things in mind and that will only lead to trouble.

Meeting people should be a fun experience, so do your best to stay safe and keep it one.

I hope you enjoyed my small novel and took it to heart. We are a rare breed of people on the internet. The underdogs. But luckily, we know we've already won the battle through Christ. We are the ones who can help make changes, even here in this cyber world. God bless your venture into cyberspace and stay safe.

CJ

TerraSin, thanks so much for sharing that. It really blessed me to read. Sorry the original got deleted (Whenver that happens to me, how I long to hurt my computer! But then I remember it's not his fault. :)) I remember Sierra's Imagination Network. Man, that was awhile ago. lol. Well, anyway, I've tried to be more wary when I surf the internet, concerning the people I meet. I've met a lot of awesome people online and sometimes I let my guard down. Concerning pornography, I don't really struggle in that area, but for those who do, there's a ministry called xxxchurch.com (http://xxxchurch.com). Maybe you can find something that can help you there. I've seen a lot of awful things on the internet. I was even bold enough to visit the official Ku Klux Klan website (that was scary), and I've run into a lot of witchcraft/pagan websites too. It just reminds me that there are a lot of lost people out there trying to substitute light with darkness. The internet is like the real world in a lot of ways except that you can get away with more online. This is a good way to reach people, but as Christians we need to be careful about we stumble across at the same time.