Little do most web users realize the various ways they open themselves up when they click on a link. Some articles posted here, you may notice, contain links. Ostensibly, they appear to be to personal web sites, but many can be traps.

Using various web technologies such as php, perl, javascript, embedded coding and mac addresses (as in machine address not macintosh) quite a bit of personal information about yourself, your computer and your system can be transmitted.

Got that resume sitting on your hard drive? It may now be in the hands of someone you wouldn't wnat to have the information. The newest generation of hackers exploit people's voyeristic tendencies, and draw them into personal sites of people depected as pollitical "boogiemen" so they can gain access to the vast information accessible via the holes Microsoft intentionally left in Internet Explorer as well as the various Windows versions.

one victim, we'll call him Ted, fell for this ploy. He visited a web site, curious about the claims b=made against the owner. Within a few days "Ted" found personal information about himself being displayed across the internet as he became the next "boogieman" accused of being a "leftwing" or "rightwing" extremist/terrorist/agitator/activist. In the end "Ted" had to change ISP's and email addresses, pay for an unlisted phone number, and still didn't feel safe.

Some of these "hackers" are simply trouble makers who've found an interesting game in painitng random people as some kind of nefarious extremist. Due to the dynamics of the internet, it becoems easy to create villains out of ordinary citizens.

Some of the "hackers" aer actually activists, who wish to garner supprt for their cause by creating enemies. In one case, an activist who began by gathering personal info on a public figure, continued to do so on randomly selected private citizens, trampling lives as he bemoaned the numerous "enemies" he'd uncovered.

Please use caution when clicking on links left on message baords and open news sources.