Standards & DEC thoughts

Landy and Mastrobattista (2008) define standards as “… technical specifications that are designed to promote interchange, communication and commonality in products.” Standards are essential to everyday work and there are many reasons for a company to choose to participate in standards. Landy and Mastrobattista (2008) offer excellent reasons for companies to abide by standards, such as becoming an early adopter in the field (Catching the Wave), becoming a leader in the field (Leader’s Wave), providing input into the creation of the standard (Steering the Technology), and getting an early jump on the competition with marketing (Market Insights).

The big question is why industries spend money, energy and time in pursuit of agreeing upon standards that takes months and years to document when the technology is typically outdated six months after its release. The Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) answers this question and illustrates why their company takes a lead in developing and documenting standards in their industry even if the technology is outdated by the time they finish the process. The DEC believes that participation in the standardization process and using the information gathered provides the company with a valuable business advantage in product planning and sales (Hurd, 1998). They receive a competitive edge over their opponents by participating in standards which could lead to thousands of dollars or more.

References

Hurd, John. (1998). Why does digital participate in standards? Computer, 31(6) 95-103.

Landy, G., and Mastrobattista, A. (2008). The IT / Digital Legal Companion: A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT, Internet, Media and IP Law. Syngress: Burlington. ISBN-13: 978-1597492560

Knowledge, Culture, & Enforcement pose copyright system challenges

Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis (2008) provide examples of individuals prosecuted for copyright infringement. Some rightly accused; others wrongly. Our copyright system faces many challenges ahead as technology continues to advance. We have already seen evidence of the challenges in past technological advancements.

First, the knowledge of our copyright system in the general public is extremely weak. The Copyright Clearance Center (2012) offers a perfect example of someone who violates the copyright law without realizing it. Students receive very little education on copyright law in school. Some state mandate lessons on the topic, but teachers are either poorly informed about the law or breeze through the topic. The lack of formal education on the subject creates a society that feels as if they can take and use any intellectual property without consequences.

Secondly due to the lack of education and knowledge, a culture is bred where it is socially all right to steal music, videos, and other intellectual property. The file share platforms are a prime example of a culture that accepts breaking copyright law. Many people realize its illegal to take music and videos without paying the artists or recording companies, but they do it any way. Friends don't tell other friends not to do, because its socially accepted.

Lastly, the copyright system faces the challenge of enforcing the law against violators. Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis (2008) illustrate just how difficult it is to track down copyright violators involving music theft. Companies could start to trace violators through file sharing site records, but there are so many ways to rip music and videos from sites that it is almost impossible to track them down. Smart users could also bounce off multiple access points and servers if they were trying not to get caught. Additionally, the original copyright laws were not written to address issues like mp3 and mp4 file theft. Fines reach outrageous amounts, and questions arise about intellectual property rights.

Thus many challenges lay ahead for current copyright laws to either address or adapt to. Many cases decided in court have helped shape the current copyright system, but there is still a long road ahead for the system to catch up to. Also, technology is growing very rapidly too which again causes another issue with copyright.

References

Abelon, H., Ledeen, K., and Lewis, H. (2008). Blown to bits: Your life, liberty, and happiness after the digital explosion. Addison-Wesley: NJ. ISBN-13: 978-0137135592

Copyright Clearance Center. (2012). Copyright basics video. Copyright. Retrieved January 26, 2012 from http://www.copyright.com/content/cc3/en/toolbar/education/resources/copyright_basics1.html.

Accountability

When I hear information accountability, I consider two concepts: clean data and data security. Information accountability entails data to be consistent, accurate, reliable and valid. An example of dirty data would be a demographic record of an employee where in one system he is called William, another lists him as Bill, and yet another has him as Will. Yes, the systems are technically correct, but they are not consistent. The lack of consistency could cause search issues and merging data issues. Also, the data needs to be kept up to date. An old phone number or address does not provide much usefulness.

Of course the more publicized issue of information accountability involves data security. Breaches make huge headlines and gains more response from readers. Tomorrow is even National Data Privacy Day (January 28th). Marsan (2012) just finished an article on the 15 worst Internet privacy scandals. Number 6, the "webcamgate," actually happened to a school district close to ours.

During one of regional district technology coordinator meetings, we invited that particular tech coordinator to speak about the event. The event happened during his first month of employment at the district. The district participates in a 1 to 1 program (ie every student receives a district issued laptop). This specific student had lost two previous laptops. His third laptop was reported stolen, so the technician turned on the webcam to see if they could locate the reported stolen laptop. The laptop even though reported stolen was not stolen. The pictures were of the student taking an unidentified substance. These pictures started the press releases and the trouble for the district. The article says that the district had thousands of images, but these images were taken from the security software on the laptops and were really never viewed by anyone. The district did not have policies for their procedures, so the district struggled to defend their actions. After hearing the coordinator take, many of us reviewed our current policies and updated them.

Marsan, C. (2012). 15 worst Internet privacy scandals of all time. Network World. Retrieved January 27, 2012 from http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/012612-privacy-scandals-255357.html?page=1.

Mobility Risks & Opportunities

With every technology, there exist advantages and disadvantages. Users and/or companies must weigh both before making a decision on whether to incorporate the technology into their daily routines. Mobility is no different. However, mobility takes many forms in technology. Mobility can represent devices like laptops, netbooks, tablets, and phones or media such as CDs, DVDs, flash drives, and memory cards (i.e. SD cards).

First, let's review some risks of mobility. Due to mobility, devices and media can be loss or stolen. If this occurs, there are tools that can read all the information on a device or media. I use Hiren's Boot CD (or USB stick) on a regular basis. It contains tools to crack OS passwords, BIOs passwords, retrieve data from encrypted hard drives, and retrieve data from corrupted hard drives. It's amazing how easy it truly is. Due to tools like this, data breaches especially from lost devices or media is a major threat. Additionally, mobile devices need to connect to a wireless connection to receive Internet. Tools like Karma can act like a secure access point, but in reality it is a computer logging every key stroke of a victim computer. There are definitely many risks to mobility; however, a well informed user can take precautions to compensate for these risks and minimize the hazards to mobility.

Now on the other hand, mobility offers a multitude of opportunities. There is a reason that phones have gained popularity, and tablets are climbing the charts - mobility. Society does not want to wait or be locked down to a specific location to access information or to communicate. Also, at one point in time it was a necessity to memorize facts. Now mobile technology allows us to instantly look up these facts, offering us the option of answering or entertaining more complex and higher order thoughts and ideas. Moreover where once we discovered knowledge at specific times of the day, we are now plugged into an endless source of knowledge 24/7/365. We work, learn, and communicate more than ever. The amount of data that we create is increasing exponentially due to the fact that our devices allow us to be mobile and create any time we want. Furthermore, mobility has gained popularity enough to drive the cost of production down, allowing more users to have access to these mobile devices.

As you can see, there are risks to mobility; however, a well educated user minimizes the risks. Thus, the opportunities and potential of mobile devices and media outweigh the risks. Hence, the growth of mobile devices and media results in a continuous expansion in the opportunities that the devices and media present.

References

Fogie, S. (2006). Wireless karma. InformIt. Retrieved on January 2, 2012 from http://www.informit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=security&seqNum=185.

Hiren. (2011). Hiren's boot CD. Hiren. Retrieved on January 2, 2012 from http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd.

Landy, G., and Mastrobattista, A. (2008). The IT / Digital Legal Companion: A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT, Internet, Media and IP Law. Syngress: Burlington. ISBN-13: 978-1597492560

Social Engineering

One topic of interest in web privacy involves social engineering SPAM. With more users creating visible profiles for social media, web 2.0, and other web devices, social engineering becomes a real threat to identity theft. With thousands of web bots and web spiders crawling social media and other sites, SPAMers can collect a plethora of information about an individual. For instance, an unprotected Facebook account can provide the individual's email address, birth date, hometown, siblings, parents, relationship status, favorite music, favorite movies and much more. An intelligent SPAMer could collect this information in a database and sell it to telemarketers or worse yet email SPAM to collect usernames and passwords. With the properly written program, a SPAMer could collect a lot of valuable content that could lead to bank accounts, confidential material, and much more.

Unfortunately, many users are not educated enough to identify a SPAM email from a real email. Thus, they email the SPAMer usernames and passwords. Many accounts from financial to email have been hacked using this method. As the number of users grow on the Internet, the number of opportunities increase to exploit the user's private information.

To help combat SPAM, many entities integrate a SPAM filter in their network to block SPAM from reaching their end users. Almost all SPAM filters require an annual maintenance agreement that supplies the entities with frequent upgrades to combat all the new SPAM techniques that pop up every day. In order to ward off the SPAM attacks, SPAM filter companies must create complex algorithms to determine if emails or texts are SPAM or a legitimate message. A research question that has both academic and practitioner merit involves discovering and creating the most effective algorithm for capturing SPAM messages. What is the best way to prevent SPAM from reaching the end users of a network?

Reference

Social Engineering: Security Through Education. Retrieved on January 2, 2012 from http://www.social-engineer.org/.

3 Giants

From the beginning of time, large entities have shaped our view of the world and controlled information that we receive. Media play a huge role in how we view the world. Newspaper, radio, and television offered a portal to view worldwide events. The writers and producers controlled the way the viewers hear and see the world. With this power, media can shape the public opinion.

Many saw the power behind the Internet and its capabilities of becoming the most powerful network in the world. With its control comes great influential power. AOL Time Warner, Apple and Google wanted control of the medium. The question became how the Internet can be controlled most efficiently. AOL Time Warner attempted to influence subscribers and the media placed on the Internet. Apple tried another route by controlling the devices that subscribers used to surf the Internet. Google’s approach consisted of controlling the master switch.

Lessons can be learned from each entity. AOL Time Warner had a great start up plan by offering x number of hours free to surf the net. The free CDs in the mail not only popularized the AOL name, but enticed users to remain with the company after the free hours expired. This loss leader approach to economics proved very influential and at the time allowed AOL to rise to the top (Anderson, 2010).

Apple’s launch of the iPod, iPhone, and iPad has revolutionized the shape of the Internet and how it’s used. The devices have also altered the music, video, and phone culture throughout the world. Now with powerful devices inhand, users can download albums, videos, and software from the Internet like never before experienced. Apple doesn’t control the Internet per se, but they do control how they surf. For instance, the Apple devices do not allow flash to play on any sites. This has caused adobe to stop developing the flash player for mobile devices (Winokur,2011).

Google controls which sites we view. Google has the power to blacklist and whitelist sites that appear in their search engine. Moreover, Google can bump sites up higher on the list of results through monetary gifts from the site's webmaster. Google can shape our opinion and view of the world by allowing only certain sites through their search engine. Google is also collecting more and more information behind each user through all of their services from google docs to gmail.

Each entity took a different approach to controlling the Internet and each succeeded to some extent. The way we connect to the Internet, use devices to surf the net, and the content we view on the net have been greatly influenced by these three entities. The best lesson that these three companies have taught us is understand what you are doing. Notice every decision we make has a consequence. There will always be pluses and minuses in everything we do. AOL was a great way to connect to the Internet, but they tried to limit the reaches of the Internet. Apple devices are excellent devices, but they do limit your viewing capabilities. Finally, Google is a great search engine, but there are also other engines that provide good services.

References

Anderson, C. (2010). Free: How today's smartest business profit by giving something for nothing. New York, NY: Hyperion.

Winokur, D. (2011). Flash to focus on PC browsing and mobile apps; Adobe to more aggressively contribute to HTML5. Retrieved at http://blogs.adobe.com/conversations/2011/11/flash-focus.html on February 17, 2011.

Wu, T. (2011). The master switch: The rise and fall of information empires. New York, NY: Knopf.

naive views, inaccuracy, and re-identification challenges

People face many privacy challenges and decisions every day, most of the time without knowing it. Privacy has slowly changed over time and this slow metamorphosis has gone unnoticed by many. Most people do not make connections with their decisions and how it affects their privacy. As quoted in Blown to Bits, West (1967) defines privacy as the claim of people to determine for themselves the extent in which information about them is conveyed to others. This definition leaves a lot to interpretation. Even the Merriam-Webster definition, freedom from unauthorized intrusion, leaves much to interpretation. Additionally, societal values have shifted over the years due to the ease of access of information. Hence, privacy has shifted and continues to shift.

In current times, privacy faces three distinct challenges. First and foremost, simple or naïve views of people add to the issue of keeping information private. Government, corporations, and businesses collect millions of informational bits on everyone. RFID, microphones, facial recognition, online activity, and much more record every second of our day. RFID tags reside on car tires, credit cards, tags in clothes, shoes, smart passes, phones, driver licenses, food packaging, and much more. Cell phones provide an easy privacy invader to unexpecting owners. Cell phones incorporate GPS technology to track your movement, a microphone that could be turned on at any time, personal information like contacts that could be downloaded off the phone, and apps that record everything you do on your phone. Surveillance cameras at ATMs, red lights, convenience stores, and a plethora of other locations capture your movement and can identify you through sophisticated facial recognition software. Additionally, every time people accept online privacy policies to open new accounts to the latest social media or web 2.0 sites, they give up their information that they list on the site. Also, cookies track people’s surfing habits. Let’s not forget about privacy destruction of malware. Even computers not plugged into the Internet can leak information through the Van Eck phreaking method (TechTarget, 2001). Furthermore to scare people more, conversations can be tapped from afar by simply observing the vibrations of your windows while you’re in the car or at home (Szczys, 2010).

The bleak picture painted above leads us to believe that nothing is sacred anymore. However, an informed person can take steps to keep their privacy intact. First, a person must realize that RFID tags can only be read within 15 feet. If they really want to prevent their information from being read, they can always line their wallets with aluminum foil and purchase a RFID detector to find and remove the RFID chips. With cell phones, users should always keep their phones locked with a pass code, turn Bluetooth off when not in use (Bluetooth worm can steal the users information), and if they really want their information private, users can remove the battery when the phone is not in use. Although it’s nearly impossible today to avoid surveillance cameras, there are several steps a person can take to avoid drawing attention to them, like not acting suspicious to looking straight ahead. Additionally, people can keep information private by not posting every detail of their lives online that they do not want others to know. In addition, cookies can be deleted on regular basis or turned off completing by adjusting user settings. In essence, people need to make intelligent decisions about their everyday tasks. Furthermore, people need to realize by ignoring these privacy issues does not make them go away. They need to learn and adapt to the new emerging technology.

The second challenge to privacy entails inaccuracy in collected information. Amazon does an excellent job of tracking our purchases and trying to suggest new items that we may be interested in purchases. For instance, I purchase many gifts on Amazon because of the convenience of shopping online. However, Amazon thinks that I have purchased these items for myself and I often receive email from Amazon letting me know when similar products are on sale. The same issue will occur if you purchase gifts and use a store’s convenience card. Now you are tagged as liking the gift you purchased when it may not interest you personally.

A potential method of combating this privacy issue is contacting the vendor. In most cases, you can have the item removed from the list that is associated with you. This process is easier with some vendors than it is with others. Some allow you to email or fill out a web form; whereas, others make you jump through multiple hoops to remove the association with a gift and your list.

The third challenge and probably the most damaging involve re-identification of associated information. Many vendors collect and sell or post personal collected information on the web. Typically, the information is de-indentified. However, if several de-identified lists of information are combined in one database, chances are that several people can be identified through triangulation methods. The AOL information release and the MIT students who identify 8,000 of 11,000 victims are just mere examples of how you can be identified with the information available on the Internet (Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis, 2011). As you can imagine, this challenge poses more complicated measures to avoid being re-identified.

The three privacy challenges of naïve views, inaccurate collection, and re-identification create real issues for people who try to live a private life. The challenges can be over come through taking special measures. Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis (2008) explain the situation the best when they ask, “… how can we make ourselves less vulnerable to the downsides of living in such an exposed world?” (p. 22). On the other hand you can take the opposite view like Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy proclaims, “You have zero privacy anyway! Get over it!” (Landy and Mastrobattista,2008, p. 453). Mainly, keep yourself informed, make a decision on your privacy, and stick to your privacy plan.

References

Abelson, H., Ledeen, K., and Lewis, H. (2008). Blown toBits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion. Addison-Wesley: NJ.

Landy, G., and Mastrobattista, A. (2008). The IT / DigitalLegal Companion: A Comprehensive Business Guide to Software, IT, Internet, Media and IP Law. Syngress: Burlington.

Merriam-Webster. (2012). Privacy. Retrieved February 24, 2012 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/privacy.

Szczys, M. (2010). Laser mic makes eavesdropping remarkably simple. Retrieved February 24, 2012 from http://hackaday.com/2010/09/25/laser-mic-makes-eavesdropping-remarkably-simple/.

TechTarget (2001). Van Eck Phreaking. Retrieved February 24,2012 from http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/van-Eck-phreaking