Internet SecuritySecurity is crucial to any thriving society such as the one we Americans live in today. Imagine if there were no law enforcement in New York. No one except criminals would dare take to the streets. People would live in fear every day. No one would work and no one would be able to enjoy nature and the outdoors. We all barricaded ourselves inside, only daring to venture out into this dangerous world when we absolutely needed to. Everything would be different. Thinking of the Internet as a society or global community can also apply this notion of the importance of security. Imagine if everyone had access to every file on every individual and every company's computers. It would be like if all stores in a town were open to the public 24/7, with all merchandise available for free, along with citizens' homes, credit cards, heirlooms, etc. . It would be anarchy, it would be disastrous. In today's America, citizens generally feel safe. We feel safe not only from our neighbors, but also from attacks from foreign countries. We have the most advanced military defense systems and have proven our power in recent years, such as during the Persian Gulf War. For a time, many of us may have even felt like America was invulnerable. On September 11, 2001, we learned otherwise. We learned that America has security flaws. We have witnessed the horrors that criminals could inflict on us as a nation. Likewise, over the past twenty years, the Internet has attracted a wide variety of criminals who commit new types of crimes. Moreover, everyone is in danger, the rich and the poor, m...... middle of paper ......5(4), 161-185. Popular Printed News Source: Bansal, Parveen. (2001, November). Hole in the wall update. The Banker, 151, 81. Electronic scientific journal article: Schultza, Eugene E, Proctorb, Robert W., Lienb, Mei-Ching and Salvendy, Gavriel. (October 2001). IT and security. Retrieved December 8, 2001, from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science%3f_ob=JournalURL&_cdi=5870&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=0&md5=7ad5f679d398b70e02e99cc968692ddaReliable Online Video/Audio Multimedia: The Morning Show: Internet Security. Retrieved December 10, 2001, from http://search.npr.org/cf/cmn/cmnpd01fm.cfm%3fPrgDate=2%2F16%2F2000&PrgID=3Trusted website: National Institute of Standards and Technology. (January 19, 2001). Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) fact sheet. Retrieved December 8, 2001 from http://csrc.nist.gov/encryption/aes/aesfact.html