Cyber-crimes

Communications revolution is one of the biggest steps in human history. This revolution began with the telegraph and after appeared the telephone, the radio, the television and finally the computer. Since computer’s invention, information and knowledge spreads at the speed of light. Almost every person is at the distance of just one click to one another. This could be positive, but also implies that you are becoming closer to criminals. Cyber-crime is a new modality of crime that employs computers like a target, a weapon or both to commit its illegal activity.

Every day we employ computers and internet for fundamental activities in our lives like communicating, storing and sharing personal information and for processing of financial transactions.

 We can use internet to communicate to friends in any place around the world by e-mail, video conference, using on-line call services like Skype or publishing broadcast messages trough social network like Facebook and Tweeter.

Computers have become tremendous personal data bases with information like photographs, accounting data, work reports, homeworks and much more. Environmental campaigns have promoted to stop printing documents and to use digital documents instead of that. This implies that digital information has to be backed up with more digital information, converting data bases in a critical point.

Commercial activities can also be done “on-line”, so you don’t have to physically go to a shop to buy clothes, electronics, music and even food. Financial transactions can be done trough internet banking, so you don’t have to be afraid about taking large amounts of money with you or spending hours in queues in a bank.

Technology has its benefits, but there spaces open for criminals to violate rules, interfering with communications, modifying computer information and stealing personal information. We are going to talk about spam, computer viruses and internet fraud.

The word spam is used to refer at unsolicited commercial e-mail. Electronic mail users are infested most of the time with adds about porn, medicines, casinos, travels and many other activities. Investment costs are zero for the spammers and it is very difficult to track the origin of the messages. Spammers can supplant e-mail addresses and give the wrong idea that the messages is being sent from a friend. E-mail providers have to increase capacity unnecessarily to attend the big flow of spam in order to prevent the accidentally lost of and important message. Some other methods for spamming include websites with keywords about popular searches but with no content about it, just to be ranked first by the search engine or pop-up windows with advertisements when you click on a link.

The second kind if crime consists in a computer program with the ability to copy itself, modifying information in the host computer. Viruses can go from one computer to another by removable devices like usb memories, compact discs or by computer networks. Viruses have economical impacts by the fact that people and industries have to spend millions of dollars in antivirus programs. Hacker is the name for criminals dedicated to the creation of viruses and programs for computer intrusion. Hackers can take economical advantage by creating viruses and selling the cure. Hackers are also responsible of creating many damaging programs like spyware and adware. Spyware are programs that collect personal information sent to a hacker to be eventually sold. Adware and advertising programs executed while navigating on internet or during program installation with unwanted advertisements.

The third crime is internet fraud and cheating. Inexistent business and people offer trough e-mail fake tour, prizes for competitions you’ve never participated, ask for donations for children that don’t exist or just ask for bank account or credit card information. Many people fall in this traps paying for services they will never receive of giving personal information that will allow access to criminals to your money

Countries have begun to implement laws against cyber-crimes but without evident results. One big problem with cybernetic crimes is the fact that criminals are hard to find. Consequences are as little as just pissing off users and as serious as collapsing internet servers and data base servers with millions of dollars lost.

Cyber-crime is becoming popular every day and we don’t see an effective solutions to this problem.

Comments about songs

I am a big fan of  british artist, like Radiohead, Oasis, Travis, Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand. 

One of my favorite female singers is also british and his name is Dido Florian Cloud de Bounevialle O'Malley Armstrong, known as Dido.

She jumped to fame when Eminen put a sampled of the song "Thank You" into his popular hit "Stan" in year 2000. Since then, her first Album was re-launched sold millions of copies. The next two albums, "Life for Rent" and "White Flag", were also top sellers but with less popularity.

Two of her more inspiring songs are "Life for rent" and "See the sun" from the album "Life for rent". Both songs are caracterized by a soft music, with slow rithm and the sweet voice of Dido.


Life for Rent
From my point of view, the song is about a girl that cannot stablish stable relationships.

She is not an owner of anything 'cause she rents lifes. With this statement, she is talking to the fact that probably she begins a relationship, but she knows that it has no future beacuse she is with him just for a while.

Her way of think consists in looking for easy giving relationships, with no effort. She thinks in a simple life, going around the world without stinking in a specific place.

She knows that she is going to hurt somebody and she can't derserve good thing for what she does, but she has clear that she's not going to fall in fall because her heart is a shield.

When you are with someone, you hope to receive what you get, but when you are in a relation with a person that doesn't believe in love, well... things are not going to work.

See the sun
This song is about a girl that is taking to a friend of her that is suffering because of the dying of his love.

He cries and he fells a big pain in his heart, he tought that he had found the one, but his love is gone. Dido tell him that tomorrow is going to be a better day  and he is going to "see the sun again".

She (Dido) represents the kind of friend that we need when we are in bad moments, that moments when we think that everything is over. Friedship is not only for good times, but also for bad times. Hapiness is not easy to reach, life has big obstacles and you're gonna face the death of people important to you.

Comment of the NY Times article

Today I'm going to make a comment about an interesting article I read from the New York Times called A Guide to the Caribben on a budget.

The articule, as written before is focused on US citizens (I refuse to call them americans) who are looking for cheap options for running away from winter and would like to visit the Caribean Islands.

The author, Seth Kugel, talk to us from his own experience and many recomendations from his pals.

He starts making an important clarification: cheaper island are more far away than expensives ones. This afirmation has the obvious implication that airfares are more expensive for longer distances. So it depends on the kind of vacations you want.

So lest start taking about the recomendations...
Bahamas
Airline tickets are the cheapest (from New York) and you can also take the chance of several promotions offered by hotels. Some of the promotions include the ticket for your companion when you pay before december for a four night staying. Some hotels tend to reduce his prices with non-all inclusive options.

Casually, I was taking a look to websites with tourist information about Bahamas. I realized that in general hotels are very expensive and the kind of tourism promoted is destinated for the noth american visitor, so architecture, foods and attractions are going to make you feel like you where in the US. I also saw through those webpages about the existence of a very famous hotel called Atlantis Hotel, located in Paradise Island. This place is huge, it seems to be a big entertainment city, with lots of big buildings, pools, aquariums, casinos, shopping centers, discoteques and bays.

Dominican Republic
Jamaica and Dominican Republic offer the best deals of deals, probably due to their low cost and high availabity of workers.

Dominican Republic is highly visited on christmas by many north-american, but also by dominicals living in USA. You can pay less than hundred dollars for double occupancy in high quality hotels like Barceló.

The writter of this articule made an important observation: if you want to get into dominican culture, you must stay away from Punta Cana. A recommended option for tourist looking for a more interaction with local people consists in Puerto Plata and the Colonial Zone.

It is interesting that very popular places are invaded by the world culture (pop culture mostly), you easilly will find fast food restaurants, asian food, discoteques playing music in english, people wearing USA made brands. If you really want to be in contact with the local lifestyle, you have to go out from touristic places. It can be dangerous, but otherwise you're not going to know other country. Be open to take some risks is a must when you are traveling.

Jamaica
This country is well-know because of its "relax" living style. Montego Bay is the place to go in Jamaica. You probably find find a place for you, since there are atractions for many tastes: couples, families and adventurers.

Barbados
It is very easy to find places under $100 and bus service is good. I don't know if this is the kind of vacation that a typical new yorker family is looking for. Maybe for college stundents or adventurers, but I can't imagine an enterprise executive into a backpacking tour.

Aruba. Bonaire and Saba
Seems to be cathching dollar places, specialy for gamblers. You can get rooms as cheap as $40 each night, but probably airfares will cost twice the price of Dominican Republic airfares. Some bautiful islands will require to employ ferry. As you can see the more longer from US, the more difficult is the access to services and places.

Some interesting additional advices given by the author:
- Take with you things that you know are expensive (because their imported) in the destination country
- Look for hostels
- Try restaurants away from the beach

My decision?
From my perspective, I have two type of vacation: adventure trips and resting trip.
If I plans were going to be for a resting trip, probably I would prefer to save a significant quantity of money and pay for an all-inclusive in Dominican Republic or even Bahamas.

If i were looking for adventure, my decision would be the cheapest one. Aruba would be ok for me.