Growing number of Japanese say they fear crimes on Internet

Now this really confuses me. Aren't Japan's streets the safest in the world?

 

In cyberspace no one can hear you scream
I think people would feel safer if they called cyberspace, cyberstreet or cyberneighborhood or even cyberJapan.
It's the space that is threatening. anyone or any THING could be lurking there...even Ricardo Montalban (The Wrath of Khan - Star Trek 2)

 

one thing i noticed living in japan, japanese are scared of anything and everything.

 

Some jackass in Nigeria tried to steal my laptop computer off of ebay with a fraudulent paypal payment. He then tried to rip-off each and every person who bid on it, by emailing them pretending to be me.

I'll take care of him next week. I'm actually going to Nigeria because I got an email saying that my relative that I've never met just died in a plane crash and left me a lot of money in his will. All I have to do is bring my credit card, and "cha-ching"!

 

aye, and theres a few crimes not too far away with some of those oh so obviously fake pictures & profiles in the friends gallery.

 

...in Japan who are scared of online auctions especially is common sense, similar to exploring any other new big, interesting but scary, and potentially very rewarding world. START SMALL. Don't start off by bidding on purchasing a Rolex, for example - personally something I would never do anyway. And something cool for the online scaredy cats of Japan....I don't know all the details but it seems you can make an Internet purchase and settle payment at a Lawson in cash which would relieve some anxiety for many. But people should know that as long as the company is trusted like amazon.co.jp when you put your cc# on that site there is less risk of that number being stolen than taking that cc to town to buy the same thing at a physical store (or so I heard)

 

The Japanese simply need to be educated about how to use the internet and how to avoid scams. I do my best to educate my students as well...and many people come to me with e-mails in English from mysterious banks they have never heard of asking them to provide them with account information.

We who use the internet a lot and are bombarded in English media about how to avoid scams pretty much have the "cyber smarts" to know as if it were common sense. Sadly, Japanese mass media would rather concentrate on food, food, and more food and where to buy the best udon rather than on educating and protecting people from the increasing number of scams and rip offs out there. Fortunately for those who go to English classes, they can at least learn a lot more than just English!

 

"I got an email saying that my relative that I've never met just died in a plane crash."

I'm sorry, you must be mistaken. I've had the same e-mail 5 times, including one from Yassar Arafat's wife telling me the same thing.

Honestly, I didn't know I had so many relatives die in plane crashes. It's pretty shocking.

No doubt I'll see you on the same flight to Nigeria next week as I've got a cool 75 billion sitting in The Nigerian Development Bank with my name on it.

All I gotta do is sign a few forms, apparently.

My contact in Nigeria is a Mr. LuvTu ScamYu.

 

If you remain guilible, and such, then it's natural that people might "fear" crimes online.

But, if you stay safe (anti-virus stuff, anti-spyware stuff, don't buy stuff online from sites you don't trust or aren't mainstream, don't give out personal information online as much as possible etc...), then there's nothing to fear about.
Sure, we should always be aware of cybercrime and whatnot, but there shouldn't be paranoia regarding the Internet saying "Oh my God I'm never gonna go online again!".

 

You know who else ripped me off online? Bill Gates! The SOB sent me an email saying that he'd send me a check for $200 for every person I forward the email to. The deadbeat never paid me!

 

You guys need to get a decent spam mail blocking program.

"Mr. LuvTu ScamYu"

Heh.

"You know who else ripped me off online? Bill Gates!"

Heh - Bill Gates has ripped off everyone who's ever bought a Windows operating system.

 

60.2% said they fear the streets are getting more dangerous??? hahaha. damn! if they can't handle the clearly dangerous streets in Japan, I pity them if they ever do travel abroad... they'd be a nervous wreck!!!!

 

I made a sarcastic comment about the failure for us gaijins to get into the rankings, which the mods quite rightly pulled.

However, I have since found the original survey, and discovered that in fact 85% of those surveyed said public safety has worsened in the last 10 years, and 55% of them fingered foreigner crime as the cause! Perhaps the Gaijin Hanzai mag is just reflecting public opinion?

See http://whatjapanthinks.com/2007/02/19/japan-going-... for a translation.

 

Maybe it's just some Japanese are just plain guilible and don't think for themselves.
Which may explain the odd paranoia about the Internet revealed in this survey, "OMG the Internet is so dangerous! Never go online again!", and odd paranoia regarding foreigners "OMG non-Japanese people are evil" type mentality that I see among some people.