Of the eleven activities mentioned in Andriy Slynchuk’s article 11 Illegal Things You Unknowingly Do on the Internet, there are five things that stick out to me more egregious than the others.

The first one is wrong for an adult no matter the occasion, and it surprises me that it is even on a list of things people may not know is illegal: collecting information about children. There is nothing about a child that couldn’t be gleaned by talking to their parents. At least then if you were after information, to understand the kids that your kids hang out with for instance, the information was freely given by someone with authority to give it.

The next is bullying and trolling. Those are activities with built-in malintent and, although people find “trolling” funny, all these activities tear down what little humanity remains between all of us. Along the same lines is faking your identity. Beyond the built-in malintent to deceive others, more and more a person’s online identity is more important than their physical identity. Faking an online identity puts people in the position to break other, more serious, laws with little regard for the ramifications against their pseudo identity.

The last two of my top five are sharing other people’s information and torrent services. These are wrong for the same reasons: people who disregard these laws/regulations don’t possess the authority or responsibility to share the information they are giving out and the people in receipt of it have no authority to do so. Whether relevant to copyright laws or more violent crimes, these final two of my top five are the most insidious, as they seem almost childish, but could result in serious ramifications.