So you are connected to the internet. You happily got yourself hooked up to that snazzy, zippy cable modem that is “always-on.” Never a busy signal. Fast enough to give you wind-burn. But you don’t have your PC firewalled.

Please do us all a favor and slit your wrists now and get it over with.

According to online sources, the number of worldwide internet users grew from 474.3 million in 2001 to 590 million in 2002, which is an increase of 24.4 percent Five hundred ninety million!. (That’s a lot of bandwidth-consumin’ goin’ on out there!)

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that in that 590 million bodies there are a small percentage that are involved in “inappropriate” internet behavior. This runs the gamut from spam to pornography to fraud to malicious/unauthorized computer intrusion to theft of data, to computer sabotage to you name it.

Let’s assume for the sake of argument that the percentage of online criminals is as small as one percent of the total. (This is a much smaller number than the real-world flesh-and-blood mundane criminal population. From the US Department of Justice comes the following: “If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated one of every 20 persons (5.1 percent) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.”)

Umm. Hello? That is potentially 5.9 Million internet criminals out there waiting to take advantage of your carelessness and inattention. Are there really that many active internet criminals out there? No one knows, but I would not bet against a number in that neighborhood. Even if that number is high by a factor of ten, you are looking at more than a half million internet predators out there looking for their next victim. You!

Just for the sake of argument, let’s limit our comments to US-based internet users.

The latest estimate I saw placed the number of US internet users in the 90 Million range. Once again lets say that 1 percent are involved in some sort of “unacceptable practice.” That suggests that there are as many as 900,000 US based frauds, spammers, scammers and other forms of computer criminal out there, just looking for an opportunity to make your life “exciting.”

Let’s just cut to the chase. Even if you are only using a dialup, you need to be using a firewall such as Zone Alarm Pro. (In my humble opinion, the best currently available.) If you are one of the millions of new cable or DSL (high bandwidth) users, you MUST install a firewall. Not just for your protection, but for the protection of all the rest of the internet. The firewall will greatly reduce your exposure, if not eliminate it altogether. While firewalls can be defeated, usually it is only by planting a “Trojan” on your network (by you opening an attachment on an email) that allows the criminal in through a “back door.”

If we could convince all cable and DSL internet customers to install effective firewalls, the internet would be much more secure against abuse, and those intent on committing Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks would have far fewer resources to access. The resource they want is YOUR computer. Don’t give it to them!

For a sobering example of DDOS, visit http://grc.com/dos/drdos.htm.

So what are the elements of an affective internet/computer security plan? Okay. One more time. Get a firewall. Do it now. First thing. Then, learn how to use it. Pay the lousy 30 Bucks or whatever it costs. The potential savings in heartburn and even trashed hardware is a lot higher. Spend the miserable few bucks now. Save yourself the trouble of slitting your wrists later. Please.

The other elements of an effective security plan are less effective in this connected world if you don’t have that first element in place. Get it. Use it.

Future articles will cover specific elements of an effective (internet) computer security plan. Keep paying attention. It’s still important.