one question :)

How much time do you spend online:
a) at workdays
b) at weekend?

I think it will be a interesting "mini investigation" at our blog! Please - be honest :)

before we go to university...

After 2 months I will finish school and for that reason I must think about university. But I do not want talk about me, but about internet. Sometimes it is not possible find time to go to university (to get information about studies) and "internet alone can save us". All universities offer us a main information in Internet. We can find almost everything we need - information about payment, budget, subjects, exams and so on...
What you can tell me about situation in Austria?

You won't believe it ...

Hi folks!

Mr. Netiquette (a person that does not exist :=)> ...) got an email from Ghana. I will quote it:

-------------- Q U O T E ------
FROM THE DESK OF

MR KOFI KWAME
REGIONAL MANAGERINTER
NATIONAL COMMERCIAL BANK
KUMASI BRANCH GHANA.

HELLO DEAR,

My name is Mr.kofi kwame, I am the regional manager of the International Commercial Bank kumasi branch Ghana. I got your information during my search through the Internet. I am 48years of age and married with 3 lovely kids. It may interest you to hear that I am a man of PEACE and don't want problem,but i dont know how you will feel about this because you might feel that its scam yes there are many scammers. but am telling you that this is real and you are not going to regret after doing this transaction with me. I only hope we can assist each other.But If you don't want this business offer kindly forget it as I will not contact you again.

I have packaged a financial transaction that will benefit both of us, as the regional manager of the International Commercial Bank; it is my duty to send in a financial report to my head office in the capital city Accra-Ghana at the end of each year. On the course of the last two years 2006 end of year report, I discovered that my branch in which I am the manager made Three million seven hundred and fifty thousand dollar [3,750.000.00] which my head office are not aware of and will never be aware of. I have since place this fund on what we call SUSPENSE ACCOUNT without any beneficiary.

As an officer of the bank I can not be directly connected to this money, so this informed my contacting you for us to work so that you can assist receive this money into your bank account for us to SHARE. While you will have 40% of the total fund .Note there are practically no risk involved, it will be bank to bank transfer, all I need from you is to stand claim as the original depositor of this fund who made the deposit with our branch so that my Head office can order the transfer to your designated bank account. If you accept this offer to work with me, I will appreciate it very much. As soon as I receive your response I will details you on how we can achieve it successfully.

I hope to hear from you soon for good understanding.
Best Regards
Mr.kofi kwame.

--------------- End of quote -------------------

Please read this and think about! This stupid little asshole tries to defraud me - the email adress is faked, there is a group of criminals searching for stupid greedy people, who want to wash their black money ...

If you have ever seen Emails like this - tell us! And never answer emails like this!

Mr. Netiquette

I hate signatures

I don’t like signatures. I don’t want everybody to know my address. If there is some case where someone needs to know it, I’ll write it down myself. I fear I will get spam mails if I present my email address on a silver tablet.

Abbreviations

I think that abbreviations in emails lead to confusion. Because not everyone knows the meaning of *g* or other shortcuts. So the meanings of the most emails are senseless for the most people. Everyone should write full words so that everybody can understand the sense of such emails.

signatures

Adding a signature to an email looks professional. People know how to reach you outside the internet. They know your name and where you live, what can also be problematic, in case that the email is read by people you don’t want to know such personal things. Your email can be abused for spamming, your postal address tells a lot about you. But sometimes, a signature is necessary. You have to evaluate for every email if you add a signature, but the danger of spam mails is always there.

Internet addiction

I think many students have a very serious problem. In my opinion they spend too much time in Internet. Sometimes it is like a addiction. They stay up very late and after that they can not have a good sleep. Next day they must go to school, but they are too "weary in body and mind". And it is daily ... I do not want say that it is problem for all students ... please, do not get me wrong, but we should think about it!

New development

The project develops dynamically in never planned dimensions:
Students of the J.NEIKENA DIKĻU PAMATSLOLA (in DIKĻU PAGASTS, VALMIERAS RAJONS, LATVIJA) are studying the blog about netiquette.
Spreading out the awareness of using the internet and the problems with internet, the knowledge about internet security and to keep good manners using communication possibilities of internet are always a theme.

As partners of a new Comenius project (in the frame of the LLL-program of the European Community) these are first steps into a good future of collaboration.

Have a look at the picture of Rota Barite, teacher at the DIKĻU Pamatslola (a famous place in Latvia containing the memorial of traditional Latvian songs).

Vircavas vidusskola in Vircava, Latvia

The Vircavas vidusskola is situated 10 km outside of jelgava in the small village of Vircava. The school uses the old so calld cavalier house, a part of the old castle of Vircava. It's a baroque building from 1780 and it's the only part that was not destroyed.

The school is quite well equiped and works as partner in international projects for many years. The second picture shows Guna Pupede, the teacher for informatics and Psychologie with some of her students (June 2006).

Picture: © Peter Mazohl
Address & Contact: Guna Pupede, Vircavas vidusskola , LV 3020 Vircava, Yelgava, Lettland

Second Latvian school joins!

A second Latvian school joined our project. They used the opportunity to discuss internet communication and safety by means of our blog. Here you have two pictures of Rota Barite, teacher at the DIKĻU Pamatslola in Latvia.

This photograph shows the students at work (J.NEIKENA DIKĻU PAMATSLOLA (in DIKĻU PAGASTS, VALMIERAS RAJONS, LATVIJA).

Who we are

We are students from Austria (BG Babenbergerring in Wiener Neustadt), Latvia (Vircava High school / Jelgava) and some guys from Verona (Scuola Media ‘Don Milani’- Istituto comprensivo 14, Verona/Italia) running a Blog to discuss problems concerning the internet.
If you want to write us don't hesitate to use our email address: Mister Netiquette (E-mail: mister.netiquette AT gmx DOT net).
Here we are in our standard working situation:

If you are interested to participate at our blog then write us, send us your text (we will post it) or feel free to leave a comment.

Responsible for this BLOG: Mr. Netiquette, BG Babenbergerring, Wiener Neustadt (Austria)

What about content?

Internet content is totally uncensored. Because of this, children surfing the Web can be exposed to sexual, malicious, racist and violent content in e-mail messages, chats and forums.
You may find political content that's incorrect (e.g. published by totalitary states) - but even the Senat of the United States does it - they publish "sugarcoated" content.
And what about Wikipedia? Are you shure that every information found there is correct?
Don't believe what you read. Preserve a critical sense for information - or do you believe everything you read in daily newspaper?

Here you have an interesting example: faked diaries of an artist.

How do you prefere to communicate?

by Lucas Bonanni

I think chatting is better than E-mail writing, smileys are super to view the emotions of the writer. Smileys are very important for Emotions There are some very popular programs for example: ICQ, MSN-Messenger, or even Skype.
I use this programs every day, because I have many freetime to write with friends. Since I had a personal computer I use these chat-programs, almost every friend of me also runs a chat program. In this programs you can also use Webcams.

SMS

Today we are discussing 0900-sms numbers used (in Austria) in TV shows to catch the opinion of the audience. To send a sms to a 0900 number is usually more expensive than sending a normal sms. A lot of young people are not aware of this fact. The higher rate is usually not displayed either so that it is very hard to find out the exact rate at all.

However we think that people are responsible for their own use of a cell phone and should act accordingly. Maybe it would be a good idea to warn young people - maybe even in school - so they are made aware of the risk they are taking.

Think about it - it's your money!

Handy rip-off

By Maximilian Morgenbessser

Nowadays there is a really big problem. I´m talking about handy rip-off. Many TV-shows – and of course the publisher of these shows – earn quite a lot of money because of votings. Who has to pay this? Teenagers and people who like watching TV are the victims of this. Mostly they have to pay very expensive tariffs. Hower, it is evil because so people´s emotions are used in order to earn money dubiously.
Mostly teenagers who have only little money have to pay this. There is the beginning of this problem. These people – the evil ones – take money from others who have just little money. As a result, many angry or worried parents shout at their children. But why? As some people want to earn more and more money, a lot of other people has to suffer.

Here is a nice example:

At the show “Starmania” 600.000 young people voted for their favourite singers. The tariff was 0.50 €. So the ORF (official Austrian TV-Station) earns 300.000 €.

Emoticons

by Charlotte Hoffmann

I think that smileys are very important to show your feelings and emotions and if you don't know how to explain it. If you use a smiley your writing partner will exactly know your facial expression. But if you use the wrong smiley there could be many misunderstandings between the both conversation partners.
I sure that smileys make a chat more personally. A text with a lot of smileys will look more colourful and funnier. There were a lot of different smileys which show different feelings as sadness, happiness, confusion, surprise, depression and so on. Using smileys make it easier to show your feelings and your partner will understand you without a declaration.

Faked identity

Oh that’s really bad – I’m lacking for a new girl friend!
OK, no problem. There is this much frequented chat room – no problem, there is an interesting girl: Fitting age, similar interests – seems to be a fortune. She gives me a description: 16 years old, blond, student of a high school.
We chatted for some weeks. Unbelievable! She likes the same music, she prefers the same films in cinema – I think I have to meet her.
4 weeks later we have our first date. I almost did not recognize her – only the newspaper she had in her hand showed me who she was: About 25 years old, anything else than blond, without work and interested in some guy to pay for her. I had to run away, to flee immediately.

OK, last time for an internet relationship, I will try it the conventional way – Saturday evening I will go out – to town to have some fun with real people.

Spamer annoy Webuser

By Silvia Taschner

By sending Spam-mails spammer reach the opposite of advertising.
Whether sender of illegal advertisings know what they do, or not? User don’t look at the products of offer, they rather cancel these and/or put the senders on their “black lists”. So these scores of mails don’t reach the desired effect.
But the greatest anger causes the time you have to employ to delete this mails. And because nearly more than 70% are irritated of spam-mails they also don’t look what is standing in this mail.

So maybe more or less wise and expedient advertisings weren’t read just because so many Spamer are sending cruft.

Security

Internet security will be a topic of increasing importance. Steeling data by malware, phishing secret bancing data and take money from the user's account, steeling bandwith by millions of spammails etc.
It would be important to find a method to send e-mails that can non be faked. And to inform people about danger of the use of internet. Many problems are house made - Is your virus scanner up to date?

Hackers and other criminals ...

Ba Nathalie Riedl

Hackers are not cool. They delete important data files or put a virus on your computer. They are able to crack passwords, so they can get access to your computer. Then they delete or change or put a virus on your data files. Some hackers also get into national computers, for exampel into military or a bank computers. There they delete an account or steal the money. In military computers they spy for another land. The damages which can result from hacking isenormous.
I think that hacking is foul, because not everybody is able to protect his computer as well as it is necessary. It is unfair to other people, because some think that their computer is safe and then a hacker comes and deletes everything. Maybe they have fun, but I am of the opinion that it is criminal to interfere with other people’s possessions. It makes one feel vulnerable and insecure. The internet should be a window into the world wide net and not an opportunity for gangsters to enter ones private world. It is all the more dangerous when hackers obtain bank or credit-card codes in order to steal people’s money. Therefore a lot of security measures have been undertaken but it is still not enough because the hackers are always one step ahead. The only advice one can give is that one should be very cautious when opening e-mails from adresses one does not know and that your anti virus programme should always
be the newest one.

Forum

I think that the forums are a very good invention. You can discuss with many different people from other countries about a subject which you are very interested in. I think it is always cool to read other opinions or explanations. And when you are in a forum you always have a chance to get to know some nice people. It is good for yourself because you normally write in English and so you always have a chance to learn some new words.

Copyright Violation

By Simon Nikolas
On the one hand I think it is good to gather information from the internet and use it in presentations or something like that, but on the other hand shouldn’t people gather information from the internet and sell it as their own. It is difficult to say what is allowed and what is not. If somebody takes information from the internet he should write from whom he had taken it. I also think that it is good to use information from the internet because of that it is written in there. But all in all it remains as difficult question.

Spamming

By Katharina Weber
E-Mail-Spamming has become a very common form of advertising today and is also considered as the most widely spread variant of spamming. There are many forms of spamming: You can find undesired ads, messages and posts all over the internet in forums, guest books and so on. I do not really care about spam in my e-mail-folder, I just delete it. Worrying about that wouldn’t really pay off.

But there is one form of spam that really drives me crazy: the sending of chain letters via e-mail and the sending of dubious messages in instant messaging programs such as ICQ. The reason why I hate that is simple: e-mail ads are sent to you by a computer from any firm. Chain letters and other undesired messages come to you from friends, and knowing that people are so silly to really believe what is written in such chain letters and messages gets me on my nerves. I really do not know why somebody sends such crap to his friends. Mostly such messages contain dubious threats, and you can only avert them by sending the message to all the people in your address book. Chain letters don’t have any sense beyond annoying people. Everyone who finds such crap in his e-mail folder should delete it. That is my opinion.

Another thing I don’t understand is why people post messages in guest books and forums that neither fit to the task nor does the person who posts them have any relationship to the other people in the forum. From my point of view, it does not make much sense to write into a guest book of a person who you do not have any relation to. All in all, people should care more about the things they do and not just send stupid messages to their friends.

Hacking

By Maximilian Morgenbesser

Of course, I´m sure that hacking should be forbidden. However, it´s nearly impossible to do this because of the huge knowledge of those people. Nowadays more and more people have computers and lots of them don´t care about the savety of their computers. So they are an easy prey.
However, it´s a moral dilemma, if people don´t mind doing damage on other people. I mean, how would you feel if this happens to you. The only word that describes hackers is “criminal”. In my opinion, this is an offense against your privacy. These days there is a privacy of correspondence written in the law. So the state tries to save our privacy. However, hackers don´t respect this privacy. That´s why I´m of the opinion that hacking is criminal.
On the other hand, it isn´t just an offense against your privacy but it´s also a kind of theft. If a server is hacked, hackers are able to steal thousands of dollars so hackers can be said to be thiefs, robbers and – above all – criminals.

PHISHING

by Clemens Burgstaller (BgBab)

Phishing is a kind of internet criminality. The criminals try to find out some of your personal things like credit card codes or passwords for internet pages. For example Phishers pretend to be Bankers and they say (in e-mail's) that they have to make a data update, and that you should affirm your personal data on a homepage. Some people tell, without their knowledge them their account numbers or other things like that. So are Phishers able to take money from their accounts and it is "legal". The government tries to reduce the Phishing mails by new laws.

Have a look here

Phishing ist eine Internetbetrugsmethode. Die Kriminellen versuchen persönliche Informationen wie Kreditkartencodes oder Internetpasswörter. Einige Phisher geben vor, Bankangestellte zu sein und sie behaupten (in E-Mails), dass sie eine Datenaktualisierung durchzuführen haben. Sie verlangen, dass man seine persönlichen Daten auf einer Homepage bestätigen soll. Manche Leute geben dann, ohne es zu wissen, ihre Kontonummern oder ähnliche Dinge preis. Die Phisher können dann in einer „legalen" Weise Geld von diesen Konten beheben. Die Regierung versucht die Anzahl der Phishingmails zu reduzieren, indem sie neue Gesetzte gegen das Phishing erlassen.

Spamming – sending of undesired advertising

By Alina Scherz

The word Spam comes from a cheap canned meat from the USA and it means the sending of undesired advertising. You often get Spam per E-Mail or by SMS. They find out your E-Mail address because you have to state your E-Mail address, if you want to take part in a forum or if you create an own home page. There are also Spam filters, but you always get some undesired advertising. There is also undesirable advertising in the internet which is called “pop-up”. A good internet program gives you a possibility to block the “pop-ups”.

Smilies

By Marlena Baran

If you want to express your emotions in the Internet and you don't find any words for it, you can use Smileys, also called Emoticons.
You can use Emoticons with sad, angry or happy expressions for instance. The most famous Smiley is: :-)
It's an important method to communicate easier with the partner, because you can understand ambiguous word phrases.
Smileys are used in several programmes, like ICQ, MSN Messenger or Instant Messenger.
Nowadays there are hundreds of different Smileys, like Japenese ones. Smileys were invented on 19th September 1982 by the student Scott E. Fahlman. Emoticons/Smileys are also useful for short messages on mobile telephones.
All in all Smileys are a great invention!

Smileys

by ??

I think smileys are very helpful, because when you don't know what you should write, you can make one of the smileys. Smileys also make more emotions. Smileys are often used in emails, chats and boards. On September 1982, Scott Fahlmann (now he is a Scientist in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University) invented the smileys. Smileys make the text more funny and personally. The program PLATO IV was the first program that use smileys. Here is an example:

confident/happy :-)>

Smileys

by Annika Cremer

I think smile's are very useful, if you want to show your feelings and don't know how you should write it. They are also very practically to write a text, which is more personally and funnier. For example you would become rather write a bad looking smiley if you are angry, as you would say it. And if you write an email, there are more smileys for emotions than words, because it is easier to show your feelings with pictures or smileys than describe it in words.

Chatting

by Ivo Jedlicka

I think chatting is a nice action, which you can do in your free time. You can learn a lot of things, but you can also have a lot of fun. On the Internet, there exist a few chatting programs and also nice chatting sites. I love chatting since I have internet on my computer. I write with my friends on the Msn Messanger and on Icq. I also do webcam conversations with some people. I do my homework with friends and I also help them. Nearly everyone of my friends are chatting. They all love it, because you can write messages in a short time.