Buying on Audiogon

Quite a depressing viewpoint Schubert.

May I ask if you have had a bad experience that would lead to such?
Like stolen identity, credit card hacks etc.
No details obviously but just curious as to what has led to such a downbeat attitude on the internet as a whole.
Thanks

Not so much depressing as perceptive, prudent, and vigilant.

Treating the WHOLE internet as just a space where there is nothing but evil intent is depressing in my view.

Of course there are plenty of sharks out there who if they turned their talents to something productive to society would lift all of civilization up and one must be wary and careful and perform your own due diligence.

That is no reason imho to have a Debbie downer on the complete system.

Just saying.

I don’t understand why exposing one’s IP address to sites that are visited would be any more risky than exposing it to unknown proxy servers in unknown foreign countries.

Also, one’s IP address as well as the encrypted data that is used for communications with many and perhaps most major sites these days is exposed to the servers of the ISP and various other servers on the Internet regardless of which approach is used. And virtually all communications involving financial or other sensitive data are encrypted; even viewing pages at this very forum is accomplished with encrypted data in recent times.

Best regards,
-- Al

Don't let it get you down, but vigilant is to oblivious as prepared is to prey.
You can be at risk walking to your car in a parking lot.
Wishing it weren't so doesn't change the fact....