Group items tagged

Scenario : At least 22.1 million people that are current or former US government workers since 2001's information was hacked and possibly breached into by hackers who stole the Office of Personal Management (OPM) data. It is believed that China stole this information to increase their collection of data of intelligence on US government employees, according to the article. Social / Ethical Issues : China and hackers now have personal information about millions of Americans which is a big ethical issue because no one knows how they are going to use that information and no one knows how much information they actually got. Also, China could use their newly-gained information against government workers unless the workers release personal government information about the US. This could possibly be a huge problem for the US if China basically uses espionage against US government employees and for their own personal gain. IT systems and things the hackers were able to breach: fingerprints databases social security numbers job assignments performance evaluations records on family members and close friends who were listed on job applications for security purposes financial and health records computer user names and passwords Stakeholders: China - Given that they stole information from the United States government intelligence, their relationship between the US and China will weaken. United States government and citizens- US gov't will now have less trust in China and also have a weakened relationship with China. The United States will most likely also take new security measures to make sure their information is more secure, and United States government workers will now be very hesitant to give out their information.

Situation : Lots of other popular musicians are trying to make it harder to pirate music online because they believe that the The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a law that governs intellectual property on the Internet, is too lose and needs to be reformed. Social and Ethical Significance: Influence on regular people who are law abiding citizens: This does not have that much of an impact to these people although it is important to consider that they are law abiding most likely because they believe that the musicians deserve to make money from the music they produce, so they are happy that people are speaking out. On the contrary, some people just follow the law and will not be affected by this article. Influence on regular people who are not law abiding citizens with pirating: This is important to these people because as the issue and pressure on the government is brought up more and more by popular musicians, laws may have to be passed and these people will not be able to pirate music any more. Then again, there are always loopholes to this, but at least big musicians are speaking out to raise awareness. Musicians : This is an important step for musicians trying to protect their industry. As technology increases more and more, so does the rising threat of pirating and the many loopholes people are finding with new apps. So, if enough musicians put more and more pressure on the government to change laws, then they may see action in the future with laws preventing piracy. Stakeholders: Musicians - They are trying to make as much money as possible, as they rightfully should, so their finances and career depend on their popularity and music being bought abiding by the law. Non-law abiding citizens - If these people can't buy music illegally, then they will have to follow the law and buy music/support the musician the right way.

Situation: Ad blockers are becoming increasingly common, and as a result, businesses are rapidly losing revenue each year. Social and ethical significance: As is ubiquitous in the corporate world, businesses and consumers have differing needs and interests regarding their usage of the internet. Consumers want to avoid paying subscription fees and other charges for every single task they partake in on the web, while businesses still need to profit somehow. The response to this over the decades has largely been the rise of web advertisements, which come in many different forms. For a large portion of the internet's history, the vast majority of its users have grudgingly accepted the need for advertisements, seeing how they generally benefit consumers as well as businesses when it allows consumers to avoid paying extra. However, in recent years, ad blockers have become increasingly popular, which provide web users with the ability to hide every ad they see, which of course deprives the owners of the websites they browse from attaining the revenues they would otherwise receive. Naturally, this is a conundrum. Web activities need to be affordable for the average consumer, and businesses need to profit, which is the entire purpose of corporations in mixed economies. Solving this problem will force businesses to devise ways of making advertisements more palatable and less intrusive, and it may eventually result in an outright of ban of ad blockers. The latter possibility would nevertheless cause a huge uproar due to a perceived assault on freedom and individual liberties. It is therefore a solution which would be preferably avoided--ideally, the solution will simply make consumers less apt to even use an ad blocker in the first place without eliminating the presence of advertisements altogether. IT Systems: Advertisements in the forms of videos, pictures, animations, etc. as well as ad blockers in the form of browser extensions and software applications--including mobil

Situation : In the United States right now, we are in the process of choosing a new president. For those who do not know, the election process in the US consists of two conflicting opinions of two different parties (Democrats and Republicans.) The Republicans basically believe in lower taxes and less government intervention, while the Democrats believe in raising taxes and more government action. Based on the article, the current state of the US electoral process shows that electronic voting machines guarantee a Republican victory in 2016. Social / Ethical Concerns : Influence on Politiicans - The article claims (this article is VERY pro democratic and VERY pro Hilary Clinton) that the candidate who has the most votes won't in fact win. Rather, the article claims that unless Hilary wins each major swing state by 10% more than the Republican or the corruption of politics with online voting does not end, she will not win. Security issues - The machines may be easy to hack into with the right knowledge and tools, and a hacker could easily sway the country's votes. Influence on People - The best candidate with the most votes from the electoral college should win, so this is a major social and ethical concern because of the idea that America is all about the people deciding the future of the country, and if the right candidate isn't chosen, it could affect our future for generations to come. IT systems flaws: -sometimes the voters don't click on the right candidate and they are mad because the computer won't let them click on the candidate they actually want -machines can malfunction and freeze -some of the voting places are in major favor of one candidate and they may sway the votes after the tallied online -electronic voting machine may not even be present and paper ballots may be used (it's not fair to have some people with paper ballots and some with online voting ballots) -electricity dependency may cause a computer to shut down if there is a loss of power

In New Zealand, numerous security and privacy issues of their e-voting system couldn't be addressed in time for the elections so they scrapped the plan. 2 stakeholders: The people running for elections and the people voting. The turnout of the elections would decide which person running would end up as the local president/prime minister which would also affect the people who voted during the elections. 2 social/ethical issues: If the issues with the e-voting systems weren't fixed by the time of the election, there could have been risks of hacking into the system and purposely altering the votes to go the way of one of the people running in the election. If it wasn't purposeful, there may have been accidents occurring with the system which would cause some votes to be miscounted or counted as invalid which would make it unfair. Possible solution: To help with the security risks, they can implement firewalls and password protection to prevent hackers from accessing the voting system.

Summary of the article: With technology, criminals and terrorists can use media to send threats, images and can even broadcast their crimes. 2 stakeholders: The criminals who use media and the viewers who end up watching their broadcasting. 2 social/ethical issues: With this technology, it is easier for terrorists to create a propaganda and they can easily spread fear by broadcasting their killings. For example, ISIS' videos include the killing of journalists, aid workers, government soldiers, etc. They would post this on the internet uncensored so anyone can watch everything that happened and may be unethical to certain cultures. We probably can't stop them from continuing to post these videos but there should be at least a program or a person who would censor the more gruesome parts. In the example of Mohamed Merah used in the beginning of the article, he used a Go Pro camera, his laptop and a USB drive to create a video documentary of his killings.

Chinese police have arrested hackers after the US government supplied them with a list of cybercrime suspects, the Washington Post reports. The hackers are believed to have stolen research and development information from several US firms. The arrests came shortly before Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the US for talks - partly about cyber security.

One of the articles for network threats

An article relating to targeted advertising through the use of installed cameras within billboards. These tiny cameras gather details about passer-by - their gender, approximate age and how long they looked at the billboard. Social and ethical significance: 1)Privacy and anonymity - although Quividi claims that the process is completely anonymous, the details of the camera's recordings must be stored in a central database which, if not protected properly, could be susceptible to hackers and other perpetrators of crime. 2) Security - the safety of the data stored in the central database will be in danger if not properly protected. The data will most likely contain details of a person's identity. 3) Surveillance - the cameras must be connected to a network in order to to function to its full capacity. Once again, these cameras could be hacked into and used for surveillance purposes, which leads back to the issue of privacy and anonymity on the street. The general public, who are one of the stakeholders, are deeply involved in this matter as it is their identity that is being scrutinized by a small camera - in most cases the public are unaware that the billboard is identifying who they are and their presumed interests. The company, Quividi, is another stakeholder in this issue as they are responsible for this new technology. The advantages of this kind of "ultra-targeted advertising" is that companies can now know for sure what kind of advertisements to place and where, without the need of analysing the kinds of people that live in the particular area of interest etc; the camera installed in the billboards have the ability to do it themselves. Also, as the billboard is digital, there is no manpower involved in constantly changing the large billboard every other week or so. The main disadvantages to this is of course the invasion of privacy for the public but also the maintenance that would be required to keep the camera clean as well as updated