Online scams ready for new term

COLUMBIA --- On a single day this week, 332,000 e-mails came into the University of South Carolina Aiken e-mail server addressed to students, faculty and staff. Ninety-seven percent of them were spam.

That volume of junk e-mail is hardly unusual, says Michael Casdorph, the university's director of networks and systems.

"It's really all year round," he said. "It's not just at the beginning of the year."

Nevertheless, the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs warns that the start of the school year brings a flurry of identity theft, phishing, links that unleash viruses, and other online attacks. It's triggered by the beginning of classes, when students in grade schools and colleges are eagerly adding new and old friends to online social-networking sites Facebook and visiting them on MySpace, according to the department.

Mr. Casdorph says the university computers are well-protected from Internet attacks, but instructing the students how to protect themselves when they're not using the campus network isn't part of official university curriculum.

"Right now, it's all informal efforts," he said. "They're really left to their own devices about being careful."

That's when the problems arise, says Consumer Affairs spokeswoman Maria Audas.

"Facebook is Facebook, and no university really has dibs on that," she said. "It's the same for MySpace."

Virus protection and firewalls help, said Ms. Audas, but they don't guard against the social networking traps and identity theft that have "exploded" in recent years during the start of the school year.

Like USC Aiken, the Jasper County School District in the Lowcountry of the state boasts thorough network security.

"It's pretty intense," says district spokesman Bob Huff. "As an administrator, I cannot even get to YouTube or Facebook."

"During the first few weeks of school, career and technology teachers present and review computer safety and ethics to all enrolled in their classes, teaching how to be safe when surfing the Internet at home or in school," said Lucille Kannick, technology teacher at Ridgeland High School.

"The students are advised not to publish personal information online via chat rooms or other informational sites."

While some children may be hearing the warnings for the first time, college students tend to be well-versed in Internet safety.

Most USC Aiken students are savvy enough to know they should not send personal information to strangers, Mr. Casdorph said. The problem is they're so savvy that they have lost some of their skepticism.

"They're almost too comfortable," he said.