In computer news this week:

Lead: The need for total revision of the internet

The modern Internet, or the World Wide Web as we know it, is totally out of control.

The WWW began in 1989 with one web site, then there were 50, and today if you go to the leading search engine google.com you will see that it searches 3.3 BILLION web pages, and that's far from all of them.

Crime is rampant on the internet. All kinds of crime. People have been kidnapped and killed by people they first met in chat rooms. People have had their identity stolen on the internet.

Some people have actually fallen for hoaxes that you think nobody would be dumb enough to fall for, like the Nigerian letter asking you to let them deposit millions of dollars in your bank account - just send them your bank account number ...

Internet criminals are constantly trying to trick people into revealing their identity and credit card information through emails called "spoofing" - emails that look like they actually came from Ebay or Earthlink or some other company you deal with asking you to verify your credit card information, and bringing you to authentic looking sites to do so. Then you find out that these sites that looked just like Ebay or Earthlink that you typed your personal and credit card information into - as the email directed you to - actually weren't Ebay or Earthlink sites, and Ebay and Earthlink says "sorry - you're supposed to be aware of things like that - it's not our fault. " And criminals use the information you emailed them to ruin your credit.

You get an email from a friend that you eagerly open, and find it contains a computer viruses that crashes your computer and causes you to lose time and money.

You're surfing the web, and suddenly your computer is taken over by adware that loads itself on your computer without your permission, takes over your computer and internet browser, and brings you into internet popup ad hell.

And the biggest crime of all - the wave of spam that now outnumbers legitimate email, and fills your mailbox daily with deliberately deceptive ads for useless products and low interest mortgage financing.

And can you complain to the manager? No - there is no manager of the internet. Just some international consortiums designed to provide direction. The closest thing to a governing agency on the Internet - ICANN - the internet corporation for assigned names and numbers - stays out of all frays, and it controversial itself.

The original single official registrar for internet web sites - Network Solutions - had its monopoly justifiably broken up, so now there are hundreds of legitimate registrars that allow spammers to register websites with obvious phoney information, so that noone can find the actual owners of the sites.

To be safe on the internet today, not only do you need antivirus software, anti-adware software, firewall software to keep hackers out, anti-objectional site software for your children, but you have to be a security expert and know what all the scams are, so when they come in in email form that gets right through your anti-virus software and your anti-adware software and your firewalls - you have to know that the legitimate email from Ebay asking you to update your credit card information is phoney - even though it looks perfectly legitimate.

It's too much for humans - and computers to handle - and the whole system has to be revised.

For Raw Bytes, This is Frank Delaney

POB 222 Spangle, Wa 99031 (509)245-3736 624-7230