Top Internet Threats: Censorship to Warrantless Surveillance - 4 views

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  #1 Meenatchi on 08 Sep 09

   

  Article Summary:
  
  http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/wireds-top-inte/
  
  The article talks about several Internet threats comprising government surveillance and the loss of users' privacy through Internet advertising. Government monitoring of the Internet include the practice of wiretapping internet traffic. This practice began in the United States. Furthermore, the privacy of Internet users is breached by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) employed mostly by Internet Service Providers. This technology can monitor a user's every online move as it filters and ultimately controls the Internet traffic that passes through the ISP's pipes. Online advertising services then pay ISPs for the information gathered by DPI about the users to allow behavioral advertising.
  
  Ethical Questions and Problems:
  
  1) Are methods such as wiretapping in the name of national security ethical? Such practices spy on unsuspecting individuals who may not even be committing a crime. Hence, it deprives them of their rights to surf the Internet freely. However, this is a problem of individual rights versus national security. This then brings us to the question of whether the loss of a little privacy online for a greater good should be allowed.
  
  2) Is the data collection about users and the provision of such data to advertising companies ethical? Technologies such as DPI invade the privacy of Internet users and collect information about them without their knowledge. Thus is it right to collect these data and use them for advertising purposes?

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Article Summary: <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/wireds-top-inte/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/wireds-top-inte/</a> <br /> <br /> The article talks about several Internet threats comprising government surveillance and the loss of users' privacy through Internet advertising. Government monitoring of the Internet include the practice of wiretapping internet traffic. This practice began in the United States. Furthermore, the privacy of Internet users is breached by Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) employed mostly by Internet Service Providers. This technology can monitor a user's every online move as it filters and ultimately controls the Internet traffic that passes through the ISP's pipes. Online advertising services then pay ISPs for the information gathered by DPI about the users to allow behavioral advertising. <br /> <br /> Ethical Questions and Problems: <br /> <br /> 1) Are methods such as wiretapping in the name of national security ethical? Such practices spy on unsuspecting individuals who may not even be committing a crime. Hence, it deprives them of their rights to surf the Internet freely. However, this is a problem of individual rights versus national security. This then brings us to the question of whether the loss of a little privacy online for a greater good should be allowed. <br /> <br /> 2) Is the data collection about users and the provision of such data to advertising companies ethical? Technologies such as DPI invade the privacy of Internet users and collect information about them without their knowledge. Thus is it right to collect these data and use them for advertising purposes?</div>

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