Computer Privacy
Computer privacy has become a huge concern as we
increasingly use portable computers and share public computers or Internet
access points for personal and business purposes. Work away from the office
policies have allowed employees to take their portable computers out of the
office. This computer portability along with the availability of public
computers and Internet access points are increasing the risks of computer
privacy which we will discuss.
As computer portability made life convenient, it also
presented certain privacy risks. Students, entrepreneurs and others like me who
perform best when they are not alone excitedly took their computers to public
places like the coffee shops or libraries to work on their projects and then
came the Internet which made computer privacy even worse. With portable
devices, we had to first worry about people around us being able to see our
information as we worked on our projects, and now stolen laptops and data
storage devices are also being publicized as companies store millions of
customer and employee numbers on their portable devices causing computer
privacy concerns.
As the Internet gained global acceptance to connect us all
while we slowly come to understand and accept the computer privacy risks, more
businesses concerned with profit margins feel the need to cut rent and office
costs allowing their employees to telecommute or forcing them to share office
space with their colleagues raising additional computer and desk privacy
concerns. Both telecommuting and office sharing increase the risk of privacy
disclosure especially when telecommuting is from internet enabled coffee shops
and other public places to access company systems and information. Let's not
forget the fact that some employees access their corporate information using
non-company devices especially public computers in airports and other public
places which is even worse because of the complete lack of knowledge about the
security controls of the computers used. In such cases, the privacy of our
credentials to access the business systems is also at risk potentially leading
to unauthorized disclosure and access to company information.
In dealing with laptop privacy, awareness is very important
which means that we have to assume that although most people are trustworthy
and would never look at a stranger’s computer screen, some people might
actually be targeting our information. In fact, I always try my best to avoid
accessing my bank account and other sensitive personal accounts from
non-personal computers because I’m worried about spyware that might collect my
personal information. On the other hand, even if I’m just working on projects
or accessing less sensitive accounts such as my email accounts using my own
computer, I’m still worried about someone noticing my ID and password as I type
them on my computer screen. A couple of solutions for such cases is to sit at a
location where no one can seat behind us and use a device privacy screen
filter. A computer privacy filter actually prevents someone from looking at the
information on your computer screen while you type or view them unless they are
sitting exactly where you are, in front of the computer in order to see what
you see. Screen privacy filters have additional benefits such as glare
reduction and computer screen protection against scratches and fingerprints.
In summary, if you work out of coffee shops, try to secure
the most private spot which does not allow others to sit right behind you.
Always use trusted computers and Internet access points as much as possible,and,
use a computer screen privacy filter to prevent side views. It's not always
possible to use fully trusted computers for variety of reasons, but, we can
always assess the risk level of the devices and locations we use to selectively
access confidential information. And last but not least, avoid placing huge
files containing personal information on your portable devices to reduce the
risk of theft or loss, unless, you protect the computer and its data through
encryption and other means.
By Henry Bagdasarian
Computers Challenge Freedom of Information Act
With the Government's continuing shift to storing
information in computers, the public faces new obstacles when seeking access to
Federal documents, a growing number of legal scholars and lawyers say.
These experts and some public interest groups say the
creation of vast storehouses of electronic data is undermining the original
intent of the Freedom of Information Act, which does not mention computer
records. Their main argument is that a lack of adequate guidelines about
computerized information allows Government officials too much latitude in
responding to requests for information.
Computerization has even raised disputes about what
constitutes a Federal record. That is an issue in a lawsuit three public
interest groups brought under the Freedom of Information Act in January. The
groups obtained a temporary restraining order that prevented the Bush White
House from erasing the Reagan Administration's electronic messages on the
computerized mail system used by the White House and the National Security
Council. Government lawyers argued that those messages ''do not rise'' to the
level of being Government records. 'No Man's Land' of Information
Alan Westin, a computer expert at Columbia University, says
the problem is that the Government's expanded use of computers in the last two
decades has leapfrogged laws intended for a world in which all Federal records
were on paper. Now with data bases, electronically stored information can be
instantaneously sorted and retrieved, or even destroyed, with just a few
strokes on a computer keyboard.
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/18/us/computers-challenge-freedom-of-information-act.html
In brief
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 provides public access to information held by public authorities.
It does this in two ways:
- public authorities are obliged to publish certain information about their activities; and
- members of the public are entitled to request information from public authorities.
The
Act covers any recorded information that is held by a public authority
in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and by UK-wide public
authorities based in Scotland. Information held by Scottish public
authorities is covered by Scotland’s own Freedom of Information
(Scotland) Act 2002.
Public
authorities include government departments, local authorities, the NHS,
state schools and police forces. However, the Act does not necessarily
cover every organisation that receives public money. For example, it
does not cover some charities that receive grants and certain private
sector organisations that perform public functions.
Recorded information includes printed documents, computer files, letters, emails, photographs, and sound or video recordings.
The
Act does not give people access to their own personal data (information
about themselves) such as their health records or credit reference
file. If a member of the public wants to see information that a public
authority holds about them, they should make a subject access request
under the Data Protection Act 1998.
http://ico.org.uk/for_organisations/freedom_of_information/guide/act
Computer Communications and Freedom of Expression
Freedom of information, speech and the press is firmly
rooted in the structures of modern western democratic thought. With limited restrictions, every capitalist
democracy has legal provisions protecting these rights. Even the UN Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted by the general assembly in 1948 declares "Everyone has the right
to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold
opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers" (although as Article
19, it comes after the right to hold property, be married and hold a
nationality, among others). As such,
western ethics heavily favor the nearly unfettered rights to speech, press and
information. Such rights might be
tailored to protect state security from a Lockesian social contract
perspective, but a Kantian categorical outlook surely provides for a society in
which everyone can speak freely is better to one in which no one can speak
freely.
Communism, as a primarily economic system, is much quieter
on the issue of individual human rights. Two conflicting positions on these
freedoms arise with analysis of communist theory. The first is an argument against individual
freedoms. In a communist society, the
individual's best interests are indistinguishable from the society's best
interest. Thus, the idea of an
individual freedom is incompatible with a communist ideology. The only reason to hold individual speech and
information rights would be to better the society, a condition which would
likely be met only in certain instances rather than across time, making the
default a lack of freedom.
On the other hand, the idea of perfect equality in communism
argues for a right of expression and press.
Since each individual is equally important, each should have an equally
valid point of view. Indeed, Marx
defended the right to a freedom of the press, arguing in 1842 that
restrictions, like censorship were instituted by the bourgeois elite. He claimed censorship is a tool of the
powerful to oppress the powerless.
Indeed, many implementations of communism favored a
constitutional democracy, albeit usually with only one party. Before and at the creation of many communist
countries, a desire for freedom from the oppression of the proletariat by the
bourgeois translated into strongly voiced support for individual freedoms for
speech, dissent and information.
Chairman Mao, in encouraging his countrymen to prepare for WWII more
than a decade before he came to power, proclaimed "[the people] should
subject ... the party in power, to severe criticism, and press and impel it to
give up its one-party, one-class dictatorship and act according to the opinions
of the people....The second matter concerns freedom of speech, assembly and
association for the people. Without such freedom, it will be impossible to
carry out the democratic reconstruction of the political system." In 1945, closer yet to his assumption of
power, Mao proclaimed, "Two principles must be observed: (1) say all you
know and say it without reserve; (2) Don't blame the speaker but take his words
as a warning. Unless the principle of
'Don't blame the speaker" is observed genuinely and not falsely, the
result will not be 'Say all you know and say it without reserve." More striking still is the fact that this
latter quote is recorded in "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung,"
more commonly known as the Little Red Book, a veritable bible of Chinese
communism considered infallible during Mao's lifetime.
Thus, on the balance, it seems communist theory is
compatible with freedoms of speech, information and protest, but it is far from
a fundamental right such as it is under democracy and individual-centered
ethics systems like that of Kant and Locke.
Freedom of information should only be granted when communist society as
a whole is likely to benefit. In this
light, it makes much more sense that communist leaders, while still a
persecuted opposition philosophy, would strongly support speech rights and
later reject them when communism becomes the ruling system. At that point, access to oppositional speech and
information is no longer beneficial to the communist state, and thus no longer
needed in communist philosophy.
http://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/communism-computing-china/censorship.html
Controlling Access to the Internet:
The Role of Filtering
Controlling access to the Internet by means of filtering
software has become a
growth industry in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its use has
increased as the mandatory
response to the current plagues of society, namely,
pornography, violence, hate, and
in general, anything seen to be unpleasant or
threatening. Also of potential concern
is the possible limitation of access to Web sites that
discuss drugs, without
distinguishing advocacy from scientific and informed
analysis of addiction. With the
rise of an effective creationist movement dedicated to
the elimination of
evolutionary theory in the curriculum, it is to be
expected that attempts will be made
to limit access to sites presenting such theories, in
certain jurisdictions in the U.S.
The current preferred method of choice to limit access is
to filter content either by
blocking access to specific Web sites, referred to by
their URLs, or by using a large
set of keywords to prevent accessing sites that contain
one or more of these words.
Another more insidious scheme is to encourage or even
require every Web site to
rate its content along a number of dimensions, including
violence, language, sexual
explicitness, and nudity. Then individual browsers can be
programmed to return
references only to those sites that fall below a
pre-specified profile. The dangers for
free speech inherent in such schemes will be discussed.
Efforts to produce
legislation in the U.S. to mandate the use of filtering
or rating programs will be
described, as will some recent court decisions involving
their use in libraries.
Free Speech, Filters, Internet, Libraries, Ethics, United
States
Controlling access to the Internet by means of filtering
software has become a
growth industry in the U.S. and elsewhere. Its use has
increased as the mandatory
response to the current plagues of society, namely,
pornography, violence, hate, andin general, anything seen to be unpleasant or
threatening. On the legislative agenda
is the limitation of access to any Web sites that discuss
drugs, without
distinguishing advocacy from scientific and informed
analysis of addiction.
(Pending Bills, 2000) With the rise of an effective
creationist movement dedicated
to the elimination of evolutionary theory in the
curriculum, it is to be expected that
attempts will be made to limit access to sites presenting
scientific evolutionary
theory, in certain jurisdictions in the U.S.
In this paper, the various strategies incorporated within
current filtering programs
are briefly described as well as the apparent content
issues on the Internet that
motivate their use both in private and public contexts.
Underlying this motivation is
a mixture of political and social pressures to take
action against real and perceived
problematic Internet content. This motivation has
manifested itself in proposed and
enacted legislation and also a number of lawsuits. Some
of these are reviewed and
serve to support the present viewpoint against the
mandatory use of filtering
programs in libraries and community centers among other
public places. My focus
is on the U.S. because the issues of concern are the
subject of legislative actions and
are topics of widespread analysis and debate. In another
paper on filtering,
(Rosenberg, 1999) the focus was placed on how librarians
deal with their
professional responsibility to provide open access to
information as well as their
social responsibility to the members of their community,
young and old alike. The
players are many and varied - concerned individuals and
families, librarians, library
and school boards, state legislators, judges, congressman,
senators, religious groups,
civil liberties groups, Internet advocates, and of course
the media - and their motives
are not always transparent. As with many other issues
that mingle politics and
morality, the story of filtering is both new and somewhat
familiar.
To fully appreciate the magnitude of the problem facing
those who wish to
regulate the World Wide Web, its current size (roughly)
and its growth rate (also
roughly) should be known. Fortunately, recent statistics
are available from the
OCLC (Online Computer Library Center), a research
organization that aims to
“further (the public's) access to the world's information
and reduce information
costs.” OCLC reported results of its June 1999 survey
during September 1999 (June
1999 Web Statistics, 1999). The total number of unique
Web sites was estimated as
almost 3.7 million, with almost 2.23 million being
public, 389,000 private and just
over a million provisional. These numbers are estimated
to vary in accuracy
between +/- 3% to +/- 10%. The public sites were
estimated to contain almost 290
million pages (+/- 35%). The rate of growth of unique
public sites is quite large:
179% between 1997 and 1999. The Web is very large and
getting larger at a high
rate. This growth rate raises many issues of access
because to be accessible by
search engines, pages must be scanned and catalogued as
they come online.
There is, however, no consensus on Web statistics. In a
famous paper published
in Nature, (Lawrence and Lee, 1999), the number of public
Web sites, as of
February 1999, was estimated to be 2.8 million. The
number of indexable pages was
estimated as 800 million, more than two and one-half
times the figure given above.
The results are based on a complete examination of the
first 2,500 random web
servers discovered. In addition, Lawrence and Lee
manually classified the contentof these servers and reported that “about 83% of
servers contain commercial content
(for example, company home pages).” The remaining 17% is
made up of
scientific/education (6%), pornography (1.5%), government
(1.2%), health (2.8%),
personal (2.3%), community (1.4%), religion (.8%), and
societies (2%). Note that
some sites have multiple classifications. No criteria are
given for these categories,
except for scientific/education. Based on this paper,
there are 1.5 million
pornographic pages, although the defining terms are
unknown. Depending on one's
point of view, this is a large number or a small one.
In the next section, various concerns related to the use
of filtering and blocking
strategies will be described and discussed, as well as
the different strategies
employed in their use. In the section on legal and
legislative consideration, the
current state of the law in the U.S. is discussed and a
number of pending bills in the
U.S. Congress designed to mandate filtering in public
libraries and schools are
described. Finally, the position taken in this paper is
summarized and supporters of
free speech and open inquiry are urged to renew their
efforts to defend these
freedoms.
http://www.copacommission.org/papers/rosenberg.pdf
Anonymity on the Internet
|
Anonymity before the Internet
Anonymity
is not something which was invented with the Internet. Anonymity and
pseudonymity has occurred throughout history. For example, William
Shakespeare is probably a pseudonym, and the real name of this famous
author is not known and will probably never be known.
Anonymity has been used for many purposes.
A
well-known person may use a pseudonym to write messages, where the
person does not want people's preconception of the real author color
their perception of the message.
Also
other people may want to hide certain information about themselves in
order to achieve a more unbiased evaluation of their messages. For
example, in history it has been common that women used male pseudonyms,
and for Jews to use pseudonyms in societies where their religion was
persecuted.
Anonymity
is often used to protect the privacy of people, for example when
reporting results of a scientific study, when describing individual
cases.
Many countries even have laws which protect anonymity in certain circumstances. Examples:
A
person may, in many countries, consult a priest, doctor or lawyer and
reveal personal information which is protected. In some cases, for
example confession in catholic churches, the confession booth is
specially designed to allow people to consult a priest, without seeing
him face to face.
The
anonymity in confessional situations is however not always 100 %. If a
person tells a lawyer that he plans a serious crime, some countries
allow or even require that the lawyer tell the police. The decision to
do so is not easy, since people who tell a priest or a psychologist that
they plan a serious crime, may often do this to express their feeling
more than their real intention.
Many
countries have laws protecting the anonymity of tip-offs to newspapers.
It is regarded as important that people can give tips to newspapers
about abuse, even though they are dependent on the organization they are
criticizing and do not dare reveal their real name.
Advertisement in personal sections in newspapers are almost always signed by a pseudonym for obvious reasons.
Is Anonymity Good or Bad?
In
summary, anonymity and pseudonymity can be used for good and bad
purposes. And anonymity can in may cases be desirable for one person and
not desirable for another person. A company may, for example, not like
an employee to divulge information about improper practices within the
company, but society as a whole may find it important that such improper
practices are publicly exposed.
Good purposes of anonymity and pseudonymity:
+ People
dependent on an organization, or afraid of revenge, may divulge serious
misuse, which should be revealed. Anonymous tips can be used as an
information source by newspapers, as well as by police departments,
soliciting tips aimed at catching criminals. Everyone will not regard
such anonymous communication as good. For example, message boards
established outside companies, but for employees of such companies to
vent their opinions on their employer, have sometimes been used in ways
that at least the companies themselves were not happy about [Abelson
2001]. Police use of anonymity is a complex issue, since the police
often will want to know the identity of the tipper in order to get more
information, evaluate the reliability or get the tipper as a witness. Is
it ethical for police to identify the tipper if it has opened up an
anonymous tipping hotline?
+ People
in a country with a repressive political regime may use anonymity (for
example Internet-based anonymity servers in other countries) to avoid
persecution for their political opinions. Note that even in democratic
countries, some people claim, rightly or wrongly, that certain political
opinions are persecuted. [Wallace 1999]
gives an overview of uses of anonymity to protect political speech.
Every country has a limit on which political opinions are allowed, and
there are always people who want to express forbidden opinions, like
racial agitation in most democratic countries.
+ People
may openly discuss personal stuff which would be embarrassing to tell
many people about, such as sexual problems. Research shows that
anonymous participants disclose significantly more information about
themselves [Joinson 2001].
+ People may get more objective evaluation of their messages, by not showing their real name.
+ People
are more equal in anonymous discussions, factors like status, gender,
etc., will not influence the evaluation of what they say.
+ Pseudonymity
can be used to experiment with role playing, for example a man posing
as a woman in order to understand the feelings of people of different
gender.
+ Pseudonymity
can be a tool for timid people to dare establish contacts which can be
of value for them and others, e.g. through contact advertisements.
There has always, however, also been a dark side of anonymity:
– Anonymity
can be used to protect a criminal performing many different crimes, for
example slander, distribution of child pornography, illegal threats,
racial agitation, fraud, intentional damage such as distribution of
computer viruses, etc. The exact set of illegal acts varies from country
to country, but most countries have many laws forbidding certain
"informational" acts, everything from high treason to instigation of
rebellion, etc., to swindling.
– Anonymity
can be used to seek contacts for performing illegal acts, like a
pedophile searching for children to abuse or a swindler searching for
people to rip off.
– Even
when the act is not illegal, anonymity can be used for offensive or
disruptive communication. For example, some people use anonymity in
order to say nasty things about other people.
The border between illegal and legal but offensive use is not very sharp, and varies depending on the law in each country.
Anonymity on the Internet
Even
though anonymity and pseudonymity is not something new with the
Internet, the net has increased the ease for a person to distribute
anonymous and pseudonymous messages. Anonymity on the Internet is almost
never 100 %, there is always a possibility to find the perpetrator,
especially if the same person uses the same way to gain anonymity
multiple times.
In
the simplest case, a person sends an e-mail or writes a Usenet news
article using a falsified name. Most mail and news software allows the
users to specify whichever name they prefer, and makes no check of the
correct identity. Using web-based mail systems like Hotmail, it is even
possible to receive replies and conduct discussions using a pseudonym.
The
security for the anonymous user is not very high in this case. The IP
number (physical address) of the computer used is usually logged, often
also the host name (logical name). Many people connect to the Internet
using a temporary IP number assigned to them for a single session. But
also such numbers are logged by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and
it is possible to find out who used a certain IP number at a certain
time, provided that the ISP assists in the identification. There are
also other well-known methods for breaking anonymity, for example
elements can be included on a web page, which communicates information
without knowledge of the person watching the web page. Some ISPs have a
policy of always assisting such searches for the anonymous users. In
this way they avoid tricky decisions on when to assist and not assist
such searches.
Computer Crime
Identity Theft Laws
Identity
theft is the crime of obtaining the personal or financial information
of another person or a small business for the purpose of assuming that
person's or business' name or identity to make transactions or
purchases, according to Investopedia. Identity theft occurs in many ways
through the use of a computer and is among the fastest growing crimes
in the United States, according to the Department of Justice.
Types of Identity Theft
Identity
theft occurs in different forms, including but not limited to computer
phishing, 419 scams (named after the Nigerian penal code), Internet
auction fraud, magnetic strip skimming and credit card fraud. All
identity theft is an attempt to steal personal information to access
accounts or to open new accounts fraudulently, regardless of the
approach.
Electronic Records Laws
It
is a federal crime in the United States to access electronic records of
another individual without express consent of the owner or executor of
those accounts. This includes medical records, work-place personnel file
records, mortgage or lease records, credit history, tax records, credit
card and bank accounts. Most states offer further protections. In
Texas, for example, it is a crime to knowingly access a computer,
computer network or computer system without the owner’s consent,
according to the Victims Initiative for Counseling, Advocacy and
Restoration of the Southwest.
Forgery
Forgery
is the act of using another person's signature to obtain a benefit.
Forgery can occur electronically with use of a computer. Identity
thieves use another individual's personal information to open new
accounts electronically. When identity thieves open new accounts, they
commit forgery by electronically signing the acceptance and usage
agreement.
Phishing
Phishing
is the use of legitimate-looking but fraudulent email messages to
entice an individual to access an account online. The account holder is
asked to click a link to access her account online. When she inputs her
username and password, the information is transmitted to the identity
thief. Most states have laws against phishing scams, and some come with
stiff penalties. For instance, a criminal convicted of committing a
phishing scam can be fined up to $100,000 per offense in Texas.
Summary
In the industrialized world computers are changing
everything: from education to health, from voting to
making friends or making war.
Developing countries can also fully participate in
cyberspace and make use of opportunities offered by
global networks.
We are living a technological and informational
revolution.
It is therefore important for policy makers, leaders,
teachers, computer professionals and all social
thinkers to get involved in the social and ethical
impacts of this communication technology.
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