RD May issue reflection: "I Hunted Down The Woman Who Stole My Life"

Thieves are common everywhere, especially on the Net. Internet cheats are the most dangerous of all, because they can make use of one's personal stuff like a bank account number or address to take our hard-earned money. In Karen Lodrick's case, the postbox thief made use of her identity to purchase expensive items like Gucci or Prada just to satisfy thier own pleasures. I think its simply horrifying. Imagine if someone were to wake up one day just to find that his or her bank account's balance was zero, and the bank said that he or she had made some large withdrawals from their account. The person might be bewildered and unable to give an explanation, while the thief gets away quickly. And the money doesn't go anywhere but to expensive goods. I think what Karen did was right. She chased the thief but although she did not get her money back, she prevented morepeople from getting cheated.
Nowadays more people have the chance of getting cheated with the advance of technology. The Internet provided a place for them to get account numbers and personal information. With the Internet they can simply create an online advertisement like "You are the 100th winner! Click hereto claim your prize!" or as "Spyware" pop-ups, which end up as viruses hacking at your computer's database. I had a close encounter with such a pop-up once. I had just gotten my computer back then and I did not know about the harmful side of the Internet. So there was a "Spyware" pop-uponce and thinking it might be a good thing I clicked on it and installed it. A few days later my computer was instantly hacked by a virus. It was luckythat I brought my computer to the computer repair center and got it repaired and I'm still using it till now. Of course that incident did teach me a valuable lesson.
The government needs to prevent further cheating and thieving incidents from taking place. However although governments have put in a lot of effort to curb these problems like having the law to deal with these problems, such acts are actually human nature. From prehistoric eras there are already instances where Man stole from his own friends or relatives food for his family. So although such acts cannot be totally prevented, parents and the Government should educate the public on how to prevent such cases from happening and to curb these problems.


Written by:
Grace Lim (06) 3H