Security Trumps Trust on the Internet

By Enrique E. Batista J. Ph. D.

The second Tuesday of every February is the «International Internet Safety Day», which in 2026 focuses on «Digital Security to Educate in Times of AI. It should not be one more of those days that are commemorated daily. Cybersecurity is a serious and priority issue in daily life, in the comings and goings of each person.

There are many risks in the digitalized world. No one is exempt from the serious dangers that exist. These risks are broad and governments and large companies are not far away, despite the heavy investments they make in computer security. But adults and, especially, children and young people who, with programmed unconsciousness, in a thoughtless and automated manner, submerge themselves in the whirlpools of the murky and stormy waters of cybernavigation, also have a constant threat to their safety.

The risk is permanent. The threat arises from the moment you turn on your computer, cell phone, or when you open email. Threats with viruses and malware, identity hijacking, theft of personal data and money, ransomware, phishing, sexual and other harassment, and blocking of services (known as DoS), among many others, are known. Exposure to high risks of cyberbullying, hate speech, conspiracy theories, child sex trafficking, racial discrimination, privacy violations, child recruitment, and exposure to extremist ideologies occur daily. (https://shorturl.at/U4Hck).

Sure beats trust. The Internet was built as a network to facilitate communication and the exchange of information between human beings. It was conceived for recreation, for learning, for solidarity and creative exchanges. It was created as a network of universal value, without any owner; an open and libertarian network where everyone could exchange useful information for the exercise of citizenship, to access or disseminate valuable resources and build interactive environments that facilitate the globalization of freedom, creation and equal access to digital resources. It was built to promote high-level education, improve access to health services, protect the environment and create academic, pedagogical and scientific networks.

Alongside these important purposes mentioned, initiatives to use this global network for various purposes, some tainted with perversity, swarmed like a plague out of control. The Internet was not created for deception, nor was it created as a universal digital hub for a variety of legal and illegal businesses. The Internet was conceived as a place of trust for everyone; It was designed as a space with an abundance of safe digital environments for everyone. Conviction that has been disfigured by some with particular interests, leading with crooked communication strategies to the vast majority surfing the Internet unpreparedly, full of innocent trust, unaware of the extensive security risks that are run when using the very wide variety of available resources.

Opportunity is painted bald. But such a powerful and easily accessible resource created in many the initiative to appropriate the Internet and configure it to their liking and convenience as a global network of ventures of the most varied nature. The Internet, which in its initial conception should have been a safe meeting place for everyone, a space with resources so that children and students of all educational levels could access such a powerful resource freely, far from the now abundant risks that threaten their physical and mental integrity. The Internet is no longer a safe place for any human being. Malicious evil, and surely all the capital sins, prey on defenseless cyber surfers, who have now become prey and easy merchandise for large technology companies and others not so large. Abusers, cheaters and mind hijackers, profilers of every human for their convenience, and assailants of personal identity abound on the Internet.

Trust is given, but security is built. It is necessary to remember this maxim, because many, with deliberate ignorance or not, omit the warnings and rules to ensure security in the digitalized world. If security is not built, for many there will be the hijacking of their minds as a confiscating action of the will that leads to the pathological need to always be connected.

There is no worse blind than the one who does not want to see. Cybersecurity is a requirement for a good life, to be free. Care must be exercised to recognize that digital blindness is induced by those who, with effective strategies, as diverse as the improperly named “social engineering», they shape people’s motivation and prevent them from overcoming the blind belief, induced in the minds of the overwhelming and growing number of victims, that they are in the best of all worlds, that there are no risks, that everyone is adequately protected or can easily protect themselves with one or another digital application.

A warned war does not kill a soldier and, if it does, it is because of carelessness. Anticipation, precautions and prevention are key to avoiding danger and damage. Given the overwhelming experiences and evidence of the negative effects of omitting basic cybersecurity rules, it should not be the case that carelessness, deliberate omission and the immunity complex continue to cause harm to many, especially children and young people. In the war for cyberspace control of minds and wills, the initiative and advantage belong to the other, better-armed soldiers. Carelessness or ignorance will kill many.

Prevention is better than cure. Instead of certainty and truth being superior to submission, human nuclei have been created where submission, subordination and blind obedience run contrary to the libertarian principles that guided the Internet from its beginnings as a social, cultural and universal good that requires to be appropriated and protected by all, far from the control of those who, through various improper means, control minds, economies, governments and, with it, the kidnapping of the intelligence of infants, children and young people. All of them are led to avoid the truth, to deny it, to hide it, to not be supportive, to the fact that, as in the “syndrome from Stockholm», an alliance and defense of the violator is created. They are also induced to avoid learning and caring on the Internet, and to avoid the personal and collective security that must always be present to prevent the wounds that are increasingly present and threatening in the cyberspace world. Thus, as the wise adage orders: «Prevention is better than cure».

Ignorance is bold. Deliberate brutalization enriches others. It is necessary to increase with conviction that of that so good, and so free, they don’t give that much. The ignorance is boldand the cultivation of that ignorance, by controllers of websites, platforms, social networks and applications, is a fundamental part of their business and control for the benefits of a few.

If cybersecurity standards are not learned and applied, “it will dawn and we will see» y «turn off and let’s go».

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