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"Derek Lowe and his Iranian-born wife were appalled by the violence that came in the wake of Iran's disputed presidential election, and by the Tehran government's attempts to censor news of the upheavals. And so they joined the protest, as best they could from their home in Acton. They decided to become members of the legion of Internet activists fighting the Iranian government's aggressive attempts at post-election censorship. Armed with their computers and Internet access, they are helping Iranian protesters get the words and images out of their country for the world to see."

This article is about HSBC's pplans to keep outsorucing clerical jobs in diferent countries. This has many owrkers upset because they feel this is eliminating their jobs and putting caps on their wages. THe social and ethical issues involved are Equality of Access and Policies and Standards. There are impacts on the Bank as well. There is the economic impact, they are saving alot of money for setting up call centers they save about $20,000 - $30,000 per job it moved into the call center. There is a psycological impact the bank has to deal with and that is of their unhappy workeres in their base country. Finally there is a global impact, with more call centers the bank may be able to gain new customers in those countries. THe relevant stakeholders besides the banks are, the workers of HSBC bank, customers of the bank, politicians and media, other countries where centers are set up. This includes, India, China, Malaysia, Phillipines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. The primary IT System are the call centers. This involves the use of WANs and LANs. There are also vairous ways in which call centers can be set up. They can use cloud computing or even be created virtually through the development of software as a service. The employee would only have to susbscirbe to a software that would allow them to work in the center, this makes it easier to receive updates as well.

This article is regarding the use of Electronic Health Records, and digitalizing medical documents for the "betterment" of the medical staff, and the ease of use that databases provide as a solution to the IT issues that these facilities face. Many health care policy makers within the government, including President Obama, are advocating for the major shift in the use of electronic health records, and digitalizing patient information. However, only a small percentage of medical treatment offices have done so (approximately 17%). Basically, electronic health records document personal information of the patients, for example name, address, age, and medical issues that they face, making it much more easier for doctors and medical staff members to get into the use of e-prescriptions, providing treatment electronically. However, as information becomes digitalized, often times, major issues such as reliability of the IT equipment becomes and important aspect of the scenario. Major companies such as Dell and IBM are in the run to provide electronic health record databases for medical facilities to use. To these major stakeholders, these databases, when set-up properly, are basically a tool for health care providers to use; they can reduce costs and improve the type of care that is provided for patients. They also have the patient's entire medical history, and other medications, along with lab tests that if properly connected to databases, can ease the treatment guidelines. Thus the benefits include less trivial tests, reduced health related errors, and better care with less costs for patients. The IT systems that are provided, including faster networks with improved wireless connections and more financially affordable computers are what will basically be used within the medical facilities running on electronic health records with digitalized information. Also, there will be more space for these new machines to be placed in, since all

continued... the paper documents are now going to be taking no physical space; entirely stored digitally. However these devices do not provide the solution of reliability that staff members may face when on the wireless networks and/or dealing with digital data. One solution that the article provides is the new Internet-based service model, known as cloud computing, in which much of the computing firepower and data reside in remote data centers, which doctors, nurses and staff would use via the Web browsers on their personal computers. Through cloud-computing, there is a more reliable and efficient way for medical staff members to document data without having system failures, and also if they ever plan on outsourcing, they can easily work with the database online.

The emergence of Business process outsourcing has transfigured the ways in which companies in developed nations, expand their services globally to businesses in developing nations. Although the cost for labor to support the extension of company engagement in third world countries is acknowledged as being relatively low (a beneficial advantage to most established business corporations), it has come to the attention of the participants (Businesses of developed countries) that it is of major importance to fully recognize the boundaries of business practices, culture, and level of intellectuality and experience within the hired portion of developing nation populace. Companies of information technology services, such as Dell, have come to form heightened concern about such global barriers, having attempted to transition call center labor in India and then deciding upon the withdrawal of such communication employment (due to the lack of consideration of business and cultural differences that impact business results). Based upon the data provided by NASSCOM (Indian software and services trade association), the conclusions drawn positively indicate that Business offshore processing has an overwhelming potential to grow in the next couple of years; although there is much room needed for consistent business growth (developing businesses, such as BPO in India, must rise at least 30 percent), the progression lies mainly upon the driving increase of skillful and educated information technology workers within India. The stakeholders, Information technology businesses in developed nations, surely stand by their statement supporting the increased use of qualified employers in the business environment of developing nations' companies (considered to also be additional stakeholders), for this will lower the cost involved in the off shoring process. The main social and ethical considerations lie upon reliability of developing nations'

My entire post was not posted on diigo, so here is the continuation: business functions, as developed countries' companies increasingly form reliance and trust upon the promise of the elevating skilled labor class, for it is a major component that supports the foundation of software and hardware services and networks on a globally connected basis. The reliability built within the business partnerships and bonds established in two differing cultural environments, is founded upon the agreement of mutual advancement and progress in regards to the establishment of skill by developing nations' employees. Although, the system of globalization and cultural diversity surface the obstacle of continuous intellectual and business development for developing nations, it is the gesture of surpassing cultural and business ideology that will truly trial both stakeholders involved.

WikiLeaks has led to several problems related to privacy and security of government data. The legal debate weighs whether the posting of this data is against Constitutional laws, but many others in the Government fear the magnitude of this problem. Some people ask, what would the founding fathers have done....but the world of the internet is a whole other ball field. The latest on the WikiLeaks threats claim that Assange still has more documents which were uploaded onto the website. However, the files are encrypted. Many people have access to these files, but because they are in cipher text, they cannot be read. As soon as Assange, or anyone who has access to the information publishes the Public Key, the encrypted documents will be decoded, using the same software that Assange used to encrypt it. If these documents have material in them that could threaten national security, then the USFG will have a stronger case against Assange on the basis of a privacy breach. Because of the high security, and the reliability of the encryption software, these documents have little value at the moment. The Obama Administration is clearly keeping an eye on the situation, because they wish to protect the privacy of the documents, but also because they want to find a way to take down the documents before they create damage. However, there is an extreme level of difficulty in decrypting the data, which is protected by a mathematical algorithm specific to the software that Assange initially used. The intersection of the privacy of the Government and the reliable security that Assange used comes to show that the IT world is constantly expanding, beyond the prediction of one business, or even the Government. But these Assange and the USFG aren't the only ones involved. Many people around the world are trying to attain access to these documents, primarily in the US in order to understand national secrets that have been held back from the public. The internet as a form of media has transfo

continued.....transformed the notion of what is private and what isn't, and clearly now more than ever privacy needs to be secured. Maybe the USFG should look into some high security protocols such as encryption, and their data files wouldn't be intercepted and posted on the internet.

This article is about the idea of putting all existing medical records into electronic form. This would cut the costs needed for storage of such information, this would also increase how fast a medical official can access the records of a sick patient. However, as listed in Strand 1, there are many positive and negative social/ethical issues. One such issue is security. By making the records digitized and put into the hospital database, people without the proper authorization would not be able to gain access to the data. This can also coincide with authenticity. The information that relates to the patient should be accessible by the patient. The patient would need to be able to get through the encryption of the data. Another social/ethical issue would be the equality of access, this would allow only certain people the ability to look at the data. Even with these positive social/ethical issues there are some negative issue. One negative issue would be integrity. There are people who can hack the encryption of this data and tamper with it. This would cause the data to be different in other places and a breach in security. This would be a great help to organizing data. Using a paper file system, the doctor would have to go through a lot of papers and cabinets to find the patient's medical history. By using a paper file cabinet documents are more likely to go missing or get mixed up with another patient's records. However, by using a database this data is much more organized. There is a smaller chance of losing the patient's data, by using back-ups the data could be easily restored. There is also a much smaller change or mixing up multiple patient's data. If the wrong data was use for the wrong person, the person may not have the correct medical treatment they need. With databases the information is much more organized. The patient's data can be found very fast, compared to a paper file system (this could take more than an hour depending on the amount of patients).

Continued...The hardware involved with creating databases in the health industry would be a DBMS Engine. This is also known as a Database Managing System. This takes the logical request from DBMS subsystems and converts them to physical equivalents. This also requires interactive processing. This replaces batch processing. This allows users to interact with data through terminals and view values online in real time. By having real time the doctors can give the patients what they need at the moment the patient needs it. The stakeholders in this specific case would be the hospitals adapting the database managing system and the patients whose information is stored in this database. If the database is tampered and there are not back-ups the patient would not have his/her medical history. This could cause the patient to be on a delay for an operation that is extremely important to their life. This could also place a lawsuit on the hospital.

This article discusses the drawbacks of using digital technology as a mode of acquiring knowledge. Although many believe that the emergence of digital technology allows individuals to increase their knowledge through the use of navigation devices and laptops, studies show how our intellectual capacity of storing and memorizing information is suddenly decreasing due to our dependancy on such devices.

Within our current society, individuals are very dependent on their digital devices in order to provide them with knowledge. However, studies prove that the more reliant we become on this technology our ability to calculate, process, and store information decreases. We resort to our laptops, cellphones, and navigational system devices in order to find out how to get to a certain location or to quickly gain some information about a certain topic. This article investigates the social and ethical concerns involving people and machines: individuals are able to access knowledge, gain answers to their questions, and fulfill their curiosity using digital devices. This is beneficial in the way that we able to expand our knowledge on a variety of separate topics in a generally fast and efficient way. However a drawback that is triggered through the continuous use of this technology is the dependancy on using it as the only mode of gaining information. Traditional means of reading a newspaper or book have been abandoned and many individuals have resorted to search engines on the internet. This alternately limits our in-depth knowledge on a focused subject. The stake holders in this case are taxi driver who would usually memorize highways and routes to various places within a city have adopted to using their GPS as a easy guide to reach their destination. Additionally students, parents, and many organizations also often just use their digital devices such as the GPS, cellphones and their laptops to get quick answers. This article explores the use of IT in the process of teaching and learning. We are using our digital devices to learn from online forums and research from search engines like google. Individuals immediately turn to technology to search up the answer to a question that they have. Additionally it concerns the idea of mapping virtual globes through the use of GPS, taxi cab drivers are able to locate the destination that the passenger wants to arrive at.

"BlackBerry-maker ready to launch hotly-anticipated tablet device, sources tell the Wall Street Journal." About their new tablet device that is similar to Apple's iPad.

The requirements for ITGS are that it has Social and Ethical Significance and IT Systems. The Social and Ethical Significance that is included to this article are home and leisure and reliability because this product will be used by the people for the people. It is something that people will enjoy when used. This will create more ways to faster and easier way of keeping up with social networking, digital entertainment and many others. The reliability of this product will be compared to the iPad. For instance the 7in Blackberry is known as the BlackPad and is now a trademark by Blackberry. It weighs almost the same as an iPad and will be on AT&T or Verizon or only on AT&T and Verizon. The IT systems required for this product is a network provider which will be between AT&T and Verizon, wireless internet, internal memory, flash (is expected soon) and many others that are normal as regular phones and Apple's iPad. The stakeholder will be the people buying the BlackPad and the people learning how to adjust to this new generation of phones.

People's face book accounts are being hacked by others alarming all the users about their security.

I agree with you on the issue of security and problems with hackers in this day and age. However, there is something that you may not have thought about. What happens when people create fake Facebook accounts in the name of other people? They have the power to not only use someone else's identity, and enter their friends group, but also create much damage for the person. It is harder to hack a person's account than to just create an account with anyone's desired name. It's a scary thing to know that there many be another Carmen in the world, that looks exactly like you, even taking up your likes/dislikes, and doing everything as if they were you, when it is clearly not. That is an entirely new issue of privacy, and authenticity. An email, user ID, and picture of you is all they need. Anything is possible, whether it's hacking, people not hiring or accepting you into their college because of your Facebook, or having someone take your identity. The internet isn't so safe anymore now is it?

This is really Carmen's bookmark. I inadvertently took control of it. Sorry, but I was trying to see if I could cache. It worked, but I ended up owning it. Ooops!

In this article Walt Augustinowicz has shown and proved many people in the public how they can be pick pocketed with out a single finger being laid upon them. They can have their credit cards, debit cards, and passports information stolen quite easily with a simply passing by of the scanner. With this advanced technology that makes paying for things easier, also makes it easier for others to pay for their things using the same card. The card number, the expiration date, the type of card, and even the person's name can be found out. This can show how the social/ethical issue involved is thus privacy - security is another possible issue. The IT system is the RFID tags/microchips. The stakeholders are the people whose information is getting stolen and the people who are stealing the information - people who make the RFID tags/microchips are also possible stakeholders. The area of impact is politics and government - but also can be business and employment. People's private information is at stake and electronic pickpockets can easily steal the information and order products.

This article talks about the security concerns related to RFID technology. RFID technology is susceptible to theft because it broadcasts radio frequencies about the information embedded in the card. This makes it very easy for thieves in possession of a card reader. A person with intent to steal information could just walk past a card carrier with a card reader and pick up the theft victim's credit card numbers, expiration dates and sometimes even the card owner's name. 20% of the card information that was stolen in an experiment has RFID chips. RFID technology increases the chance of identity theft, even passports have RFID implemented in them, this makes them very vulnerable. Passports carry very sensitive information and anyone with a RFID card scanner could wake pass a passport carrier and gain his or her personal information. The stakeholders in this issue include the card carrier or passport carrier whose security is endangered, the information thief who is gaining unauthorized access to a person's personal information and the businesses such as Visa or MasterCard whose reliability is being endangered. This is a security issue that has hampered the positive buzz surrounding RFID technology and its convenience.

This article is about how companies use outsourcing and offshoring as a way to reduce costs and as a method for cheap labor. One of the articles' main points about outsourcing is that the decision to outsource is often in the interest of the company to reduce costs, divert or energy-saving measures aimed at making the skills of a particular company or for the more efficient use of labor, capital, technologies and resources. One problem that arises from outsourcing is that it takes much-needed jobs from the U.S. economy. It is not too different from offshoring, because both are beneficial for companies and used to cut costs. When a company chooses to offshore, it means that it does its business in another country. This 'other' country is usually a developing country because rates tend to be much cheaper there, which is exactly how businesses save money. One of the main issues, again, lies within the U.S. economy. Since US businesses are leaving to do business in other countries, the US economy is suffering quite a blow because less companies are becoming dependent on it. This is a big problem and could lead to an even bigger one for the business because third world countries cannot always be trusted. Even though they are saving so much more money by offshoring, the business they now perform is unreliable and could possibly be affected my many more problems. The main stakeholders in this issue are the businesses who are offshoring and outsourcing, the US government, and the countries the businesses now rely on. Also, depending on the company, people in America tend to suffer as well because since the main issue that arises is reliability, the users or owners of the product may not have the same service. For example, if Time Warner decides to station in India, the workers there may be inexperienced and the company will not be able to do anything about it. This means that when the users of Time Warner call their main number, someone in India will pick up. The probl

Purchasing songs, apps, movies, and etc on ITunes requires each user to have an ITunes account. Upon signing up for the account, a valid credit or paypal account must be entered to pay for any purchased items. These purchases are made using a SSL (secure socket layer) connection so that when the user sends their information to ITunes to set up an account, log in, or purchase an item, the information they are sending is encrypted.The sender is given a public key to show that he or she was the one sending the message and ITunes will get the private key. The data is encrypted using a code that will translate the data into a message incomprehensible to others if not decrypted using a private key. Once it has reached the ITunes database after being sent over the network, the private key will decode the message and proceed with the transaction.  However, the problem lies within the process of setting up an account. Many customers' itunes accounts are being hacked into and sold online to other people in China. Hackers are still able to find and intercept customers' information, such as their passwords or credit card number, and use it to sell to other people. Passwords may be too weak in some cases or authentication by the itunes store may be too weak. The issue of security is therefore involved as sensitive information can be accessed by others. The customers are affected since they are being charged for items that they are not purchasing. The company, Apple, is also affected negatively since their customers may not feel safe buying from them anymore and therefore losing business. Then there are the hackers who are benefiting in such a situation, profiting off of other people illegally.

According to Alexander Vo, an associate professor in preventive medicine and community health, telemedicine is a helpful measure to be taken in order to help patients from a remote location. However, he says that problems have arose when telemedicine was used in relation to diaster relief. One example given is the earthquake in Haiti, when many technologies were donated by companies in order to promote the use of telemedicine for immediate disaster relief. Vo says that this technology was not used, especially within the first few weeks, because the locations were staffed with enough doctors. Further, even if the technology could be used, the doctors were not trained to use it, and there was no time to train them at that moment.Only after the voluntary doctors went back to their home towns could they be of any use in regard to telemedicine. The patients in need of special care could then connect with the doctors in the remote areas, however, there could be problems if the internet was down, or if the necessary hardware was destroyed due to the diaster. Even though the egagement in telemedicine was not the best for Haiti, it was seen to be of great help for a hurricane in Texas recently. Vo explains that telemedicine was successful because it was already established within the communities. The technology was available throughout the affected areas, and could be put to use immediately. The use of cell phones was also crucial, because many of the patients had pre-established access to doctors who could help diagnose and alleviate the problems of the patients in affected areas. Because the protocols were established prior to the disasters, the care was planed out to be available to the most amount of patients. Plans in advance can also taken into account the problem of damaged internet service, cables, and networks, and determine what the best plan of action is given the situation. Thus, the relief would allow the affected area to be back on track quickly, and efficientl

This article starts out with a scenario about a professional online poker player figuring out that he was actually playing against a bot, which is designed to beat its opponents against all odds. There area of impact of this article can be arts entertatinment and leisure because the players do play for money and compete with one another online. This is from the point of view from the players however it can be also seen as business and employment because bots are being sold on line to do this specific task and to win earnings for whoever has paid for them. The Social and ethical issues here can be Security when looking at it from the point of view of the poker site owner, they are supposed to try and root out any bots to make online playing fair for everyone else. People and Machines can also be applied here because the bots are taking something that is meant for recreation by humans and extending their faculties but to the extent of not playing by the rules and playing an unfair game with some one else. The stakeholders of this issue are the online poker players, the people who own the poker playing website and the people who sell and use the poker bots. The IT system referred to in the article are the bots.

I found this article really interesting because I had not thought about it at all. This is an important case to pay attention to because of the fact that machines are taking over another aspect of the human life. Not only are machines capable of replacing jobs, such as the repetitive ones in factories, but they are also able to take away the fun in gambling. They are also bending the rules and creating an unfair environment for gamblers on the Internet.

This article piqued my interest because it made me think about my own article in a broader way. My article talked about the issue of artificial intelligence talking menial and low skill jobs from people. This article attracted me because it show AI used in another way to make money for people. It takes what is mentioned in my article and extends it to another dimension. People are using these bots to actually make money by competing against human competitors but this is occurring to players unsuspecting players, technically this is using advanced technology to steal.

This article is primarily concerned with the announcement of two companies, Tieto and Siemens, joining in an outsourcing contract. According to the article this is done in order to increase the business benefits. In the perspective of business, the move is more profitable, and allows both companies to expand globally in term of the audience. The two companies are well known, especially for certain groups of people, so by joining some aspects of their business, they will be able to join their individual audiences. By the companies working together and using employers from both businesses then they will be able to generate a larger acceptance and recognition. Globalization makes this possible, and optimizes the profit and efficiency of both companies. However, it can lead to problems involving the jobs of the people who work at either of the two companies. Tieto, specifically, is using forty of the workers from Nokia Siemens. This means that jobs will be lost from the people who work at the original company. Instead of giving the jobs to people at the headquarters, the jobs will go to the people off site. This will benefit the companies, as it is the most beneficial business scenario, but will take a toll on the lives of the unemployed. However, the amount of jobs that are being added in one company and taken away in the other company is very small in comparison to a much larger company that needs to expand greatly. The use of VOIP and the internet itself allows the smooth interaction between the two companies and with the growth of IT, more and more methods will be introduced for the companies to interact without leaving their respective office. Because Nokia and Tieto have been partners for several years, they have been utlizing these methods of communication that are different from having everything on site and going to meetings in person. Yet, they have decided that the partnership, using outsourcing, is the best possible way for both companies to grow. Thus, outs

Intel is a company that develops processing technologies such as chips that are put into computer hardware. However recently they have decided to outsource certain necessary business operation to India instead of in the US. Additionally Intel has agreed with an investment banker named Morgan Chase, to invest about 1 billion of the company's money into this plan. Intel already has many of it's workers in India however wants to expand the business by increasing its workers within the company. Workers will be needed to help expand the company a long with workers both qualified and graduates due to the increased opportunities and positions. The reasoning as to why Intel continues to offshore work to India is because they are able to find high quality workers and can get work done at cheaper/lower costs. The organization affected mainly is Intel who is able to make a profit through investing in the workforce in India. Additionally the people who are in India that are given the jobs are able to benefit because more jobs are becoming available. The negative side to this is that, they are not paid as much as Intel workers in the US. Additionally another stakeholder is the U.S government itself that frowns upon the idea of offshoring jobs due to the knowledge that by doing this, job oppertunities available to Americans will decrease. The social and ethical issues and impacts of these are related to globalization and its impacts on both the country (India) and the United States. Although workers are given jobs the pay that they receive is not as much as a worker in the U.S would. This is done for the economic benefit of the country Intel itself, allowing them to create a greater profit by off shoring jobs to India. However those who are highly qualified and trained are able to find a job at Intel that matches their level of training. Thus they become employed if they need money. A positive impact to globalization is getting rid of the digital divide in a sense because fr

"We tend to think of hacking as bad, and hackers as evil. But as well as the ones wearing white hats, ie the ones who are on our side and checking out vulnerabilities that others might exploit, there are the techno-geeks who are all dressed up and with nowhere to go. Until now. On the 11th March, the UK's Home Office, Cabinet Office and Ministry of Justice opened their doors to 10 technical experts from http://www.rewiredstate.com who used data.gov.uk and the web to develop tools and services that help people."

In this article it talks about how the organization known as "The Youth Olympic Games" were hosting their games in August. But they have done something different this year. Unlike what they have done every year, purchasing their items all the time and selling them or giving them away for free; they have now would have an third-world country who has the equipment do their job if they were to buy it. By that I mean they would used a system called "cloud services", and the group in charge of working would be Asia and they would have the data of everyone who is watching, performing and workers of the organization. Therefore these are the stakeholders in with this program that because they are having someone else from a different country; without knowing if they are someone who wants to steal their identity has full access. The IT system in this "cloud services" would be cloud computing since someone that may be from home, or sitting in an office has control over the organization and the data. The issue in this would be security, that because the people that are using "cloud services" are in Asia; therefore they are in a different having control in the U.S. The scenarios in this would be the fact that everyone identity would be stolen since the controls would be in Asia and they wouldn't be tracked since they are in a different country. They also couldn't be charged since they were given permission to have access to the data.

During 2005, political organizations advocated for strict laws implementing data security enforcement, as rising concerns stemmed out of alarming statistical studies and research, revealing identity theft, credit card frauds and hacking as emerging and terrorizing practices overtaking much of the internet realm. This article introduces the beginning of the rise in public awareness, as technology strongly began to redirect the business world into another more digital phase. It was during that year, the primary stakeholders, also known as the businesses ( participants of e-commerce that stored, verified and utilized private consumer data), vocalized their needs clarifying their desire for the creation of constraints in regards to the consequences or negative implications of passing certain bills (for data security). The past exemplifies the various influences the introduction of data security measures, passed by the government legislatures, had upon newly initiated businesses; among the most significant implications discussed were: the need to build a secure database for reliable storage of clientele digital data with the utilization of particular software as well as improving business organizational structure in order to maximize the rate of security notifications towards consumers based on a foundation of rigid security standards. Far from the adaptation to such implications, the political crisis of establishing solid ground for a new set of security data policies and standards became an overwhelming process for politicians, congress members in conjunction with consumer and data privacy groups that rivaled in attaining the responsibilities of passing the needed laws. The politicians (stakeholders, holding the role of administering governmental legislation to stabilize data security breaches), came into opposition with the concerns of many members of advocacy groups (stakeholders, holding the responsibility of supervising and publicly navigating the direction of th

continuation: the adjusted standards enforced by politicians). The problem of adhering to the instruction of newly created laws motioning businesses to appoint data security officers, draft policies, to comply with policies and procedures involving giving access to files in business databases for the Federal Trade Commission to check comes into collision with what most online businesses want to go through the process of doing. However, with the issue of security surfacing future consumer problems, as security breaches become major forces threatening the safe entering of digitally encrypted information (such as credit card codes), many companies become increasingly aware of the needed adherence to the strict security data laws, in order to continue profiting financially in order to keep the rate of consumer trust and payment increasing.