Open Writing

The Internet Age is also the Age of Uncertainty. The internet’s altered the way we communicate and socialize, but, along the way, scads of promised innovations never reached fruition. Fifteen years ago, for example, futurists predicted that robots with artificial intelligence capabilities would soon replace reference librarians. Librarians can’t match computers’ speed and storage, but we beat them at deciphering human communication, with all its nuance of facial expression, posture, eye contact, and so on.

One of the greatest uncertainties surrounding computers involves security: keeping out the hackers, Trojan horses, and other nefarious interlopers that prey on the unsuspecting. Many major universities are not among the latter, though. A recent Salt Lake Tribune headline reads “BYU among colleges buying up XXX domain name to protect image.” The article says, “the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the nonprofit organization that controls the Internet’s top-level domain names such as .com, .biz and .gov, officially turned on the .xxx domain in hopes that adult entertainment companies would use it to more easily identify their websites … Colleges and universities along with companies with well-known trademarks have been buying up related domains with the .xxx extension to protect their image. It’s to avoid the problem that haunted the White House in the early days of the Internet when WhiteHouse.com was a porn site (the real website for the president is WhiteHouse.gov.)”

Many internet users are uninformed babes-in-the-wood when it comes to the most elemental security risk: personal passwords. A password management firm, SplashData, recently issued their list of the twenty-five worst passwords of 2011. People naturally gravitate towards easy-to-remember passwords partly because they have so many to keep track of. A Microsoft study back in 2007 found the average person had twenty-five different passwords, eight of which were in daily use. Today’s total is probably higher, and someone probably has all twenty-five bad ones.

The top offenders are “password,” “123456,” “12345678,” “querty,” “abc1123,” and “monkey.” Others include “trustno1,” “111111,” and “baseball.” OK, I use “baseball” for downloading Texas Rangers radio broadcasts. Someone breaking into that is no biggie, but accessing my public library account is something else. Library card holders can use a personal identification number, or PIN, to reserve materials and check their accounts online. PINs act as backup security for passwords, and they’re generally not as lengthy.

Many experts have suggestions for beefing up one’s passwords. Make them at least eight characters long, use a upper and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols, change passwords every six months, and use different ones for different accounts. Even changing a single character makes a big difference when it comes to hackers favorite password code-breaker: “dictionary attacks.” This software attempts to access your online accounts by trying extensive lists of common passwords and strings of numbers and letters to crack the code. That’s why breaking up words with numbers and symbols help thwart the evildoers. Of course, it’s best to start with a secure computer loaded with strong anti-hacking software, like Norton’s or McAfee’s.

We also have to deal with all the new words, mostly technology-related neologisms, being generated by computer users. Merriam-Webster.com has a section titled “New Words & Slang” to which readers suggest new words for the dictionary editors to consider. Recent ones include “intexicated: distracted by the act of texting to such a degree that one seems intoxicated,” and “coffice: a café that a customer uses as a place in which to conduct business.”

Then there’s “wenis,” which shouldn’t be confused with the Pharaoh Wenis, ruler of Egypt between 2375 and 2345 B.C. This one’s defined in UrbanDictionary.com as “the skin on the outside of the elbow.” A number of feisty internet-connected wordsmiths have used the expression online as often as possible for several years, trying to popularize the term enough for it to enter the lexicon. Language purists can take heart in knowing that young people have always tried gigging their elders by promoting surprising slang expressions. However, we know that most soon fade away. Remember “twenty-three skidoo?” Me neither.

Such antics keep things interesting, however. As Carl von Clausewitz, the military theorist, put it, “Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.”