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One of the main social and ethical issues in this article is surly privacy. Privacy has been a main issue for our society, not only about credit card details, yet also other personal information. As technology is increasing, the less privacy we have as there are more ways in obtaining this information. And in this case, as technology is increasing, hackers are also as there are easier and more ways in order to get the information they want. There are various ways the hacker can get access to these thousands of credit card numbers, here is one step-by-step of one of the ways of how this IT system works: Firstly, the hacker (or hackers) go around lots of banks and put a small video camera pointing to the bank machine keypad. This video camera is well hidden so that people cannot see them. When someone goes to the machine, they put their credit card number and this analogue information converts to digital information and is recorded in the memory in the video camera. After a few hours/days, the hackers remove the video cameras and upload the data in the memory card via a USB cable and save the data on their servers. The hackers then watch the video and record the credit card numbers on a paper/other computer. With this information, they can obtain more personal information such as names, phone numbers, post codes etc with specialized programs. Finally, when they have all the information they have, they post the personal information including the credit card numbers, on the internet. Yet, in order to maintain the hacker anonymous and not being able to be found via the IP address, he uses another proxy server when uploading this information on the internet. There are also other ways to get the credit card information such as: - Intercepting emails containing passwords - Popups infected by viruses - Spyware - Spam - Keyloggers etc. Some possible solutions for this issue is: - When typing your credit card number in the bank machine keypad, hide the keypad coveri

This article compromises the privacy of British citizens, as well as the reliability and integrity of the DNA database. I will focus my comment on the latter. It was a matter of fortune that Button's DNA had been collected due to his arrest for a domestic assault in May 2010. This is because according to the Protection of Freedoms Bill, biometric material can only be retained if the holder consents it formally. This consent "can be withdrawn at any time". There are also strict regulations on the amount of time that a DNA profile can be retained by authorities according to the new Bill. In addition to that, what way is there to ensure the 62 million(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom) British citizens have their DNA profile taken and input in the database? This compromises the integrity and completeness of the DNA database. According to the article itself, "The national database is believed to hold over five million DNA profiles". The new Bill also "requires schools to get parents' consent before processing children's biometric information" (http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2010-11/protectionoffreedoms.html) The full official bill on the regulation of biometric data can be found at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/lbill/2010-2012/0099/lbill_2010-20120099_en_2.htm#pt1-ch1-pb1-l1g1 Hence the sweeping statement "The odds, we were told, were over a billion to one, so we were quite confident we'd got the right man", is certainly misleading, because the database is likely not to include a fraction of the British population. The most disturbing thing is that the responsible chief Richard McNamara states "it was the DNA alone that convicted the man, because we never had any other evidence". Is it really ethical to convict a criminal solely based on a potentially incomplete database? A solution to this problem would be to enforce surveillance systems and active police monitoring in order to obtain more plausible evidence.

This article regards the compromising of the privacy of British citizens, as well as the reliability and integrity of the DNA database. I will focus my comment on the latter.

"The Zhan" you raise some interesting points on the privacy issues of DNA databases. However I think you may have misunderstood the reliability issue of the DNA test. When two DNA samples are found to be the same then it is 99.99% certain that it is in fact the DNA of the suspect and is a very reliable indicator that it was that person. There are forensic issues involved in the collection and contamination of DNA samples from a crime scene but that is another issue. The main social and ethical issue here that you have rightly pointed out is the collection and storage of DNA from people. This article outlines some of these issues from 2008: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7177152.stm Here the issue of innocent peoples data being stored has come because ....."following a change in the law in 2001, all DNA collected by forensics - for whatever purpose - can be stored permanently. " It was promised in the recent election in the UK to destroy old data but it appears to be one of the many U turns that the current government has made: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/8659968/A-Bill-to-curtail-our-liberty.html

Good overview of the issues there Benjon. Intellectual property is not the issue here however so be careful using terminology correctly. You have stated one of the problems can anyone be more specific about that problem and provide a solution?

The article depicts how the personal information of various government organisations have been illegally accessed, furthermore these details have been posted on a vast amount of websites and details such as email passwords etc can be easily cracked using off the shelf software. This means that anyone who has seen the exposed data can easily gain further access to credit card details etc. Furthermore, this puts lives at risk for MI6 agents especially as their cover is supposed to maintain secret, if that sort of information gets into the wrong hands the cover of many agents will be blown and their lives will be at risk.

Scary! After this video I surely don't want to order another pizza. The social and ethical issue here is surely privacy. With only one phone call, people can "wire into the system" and be able to view this type of personal information. Plus, if this is in 2005, nowadays not only we can figure out this information, but also more! Privacy is becoming a great issue as we are seeing that as technology is increasing, the less privacy we have, more people are starting to be able to access people's personal information. Relating to this videos, solutions that could apply could be: 1. When ordering a pizza, instead of calling from your mobile phone or home phone, call from the nearest phone booth to your house an order to somewhere near your house. Yet, don't give any personal information such as home address or mobile phone number. 2. Don't order! Go to the pizzaria and buy your pizza straight from the restaurant. In this way, you surely don't have to give any personal information so that you'll have more privacy than if you called from your phone.

The main social and ethical issues here are mainly security and reliability, it is interesting how the hackers use malware software to obtain the users information. What is more concerning is the fact that it is difficult for the account owner to actually realise any suspicious activity due to the fact the hackers are able to alter the banks database details in order to display a normal online statement. In most cases a up to date anti-virus is recommended however, according to the bbc click investigation most of the security softwares did not pick up the malware software.