3 enlightening cases of internet privacy.

3 enlightening cases of internet privacy.

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Target Vs Teenager and Father:

This was a case of a retail store ; Target, whose at every point they gather information of the customer to be able to package and direct adverts to the potential customers of their products. An enlightening case to me was that of the teenager that was being sent e-mails related to baby products and her father complaint about it. Meaning that the buying behavior of he teenager had being used against her , though her father did not know such email was sent to her daughter at the initial stage but am such he should few months down the lane as his teenager delivers .

I imagined if the father had pressurized the teenager at this time, he would probably had gotten truth about his daughter pregnancy, this is ordinarily a secret i presume the teenager would want to keep from her father but internet revealed it.

Details available  at http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/could-target-sell-its-pregnancy-prediction-score/

Another case is that of Ade vs Kidspeace: here, Ade an employee of Kidspeace found on her wife Myspace account sexually inclined message from his supervisor to his wife. This might work against Onwusho (the supervisor) and even Ade`s wife at the case is also internet privacy related. Details at https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=17491912573109612082&q=facebook+OR+twitter+OR+linkedin+OR+myspace&hl=en&num=100&as_sdt=2006&as_ylo=2010&as_yhi=2012

Case of leaked(hacked)  nude pictures of Ms Jennifer Lawrence (America actress) leaked  and discussed by „“The Wrap“. The pictures  was taken for her personal consumption and not public consumption and to me she has the right to privacy but forgetting the fact or not taken into account that we are in an internet world where hacking is an everyday routine. The pictures were leaked and caused a lot of uproar for the actress as some treat the case like sexual crime. http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/02/06/fifty-shades-shocker-dakota-johnson-jamie-dornan-are-actors-play-make-believe-characters/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/09/01/jennifer-lawrence-nude-photo-leak-isnt-a-scandal-its-a-sex-crime/

This to me has violated the article 12 of  the universal of human right because Jennifer`s pictures were interfered (a bridge in privacy). http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

This is also a case related to the fact that your words or actions might be used against you either now or in the future.

On a final note, i agree with the  conclusion of the supervisor that internet allows surveillance of others without them knowing and also the statement in one of the MIT reviews  that internet  provides free services in exchange for personal information(privacy bargain) and this could be the worst deal ever.

3 Common Mistakes That Ordinary Computer Users Make In Terms of Security and Privacy in a Networked World.

To me internet has positively impact individuals, businesses and public sector since its invention but it has also brought evil impact most caused by crackers either for show of supremacy, economic gain or for distortion of flows.

The reasons why most of computer users fall victim of crackers circumstances are discussed below:

Low Priority on Privacy and Security of Computers

Computer users are usually excited when they get a computer system that is "up and running" for them in terms of hardware, software and connection to internet(network) without taking into account the security and privacy of the system. Example is the case of Bill McBuff and Tiger Leap Program of Estonia.

(https://beta.wikiversity.org/wiki/Security_and_Privacy_in_a_Networked_World/PIBKAC)

.In both cases cases they dealt only with hardware & software dealers and network providers without seeing security and privacy as priority and they ended up not having palatable experience as users.

Hackers came initially with the intention of playing pranks for fun, example was the use of Netbus software written by hacker and a Swedish programmer Carl-Fredrik Neikter in early  1998 with the aim of remote administration but Netbus was used by crackers to plant child pornography on the work computer of a law scholar at Lund University in 1999 and he lost his research position to this case.

In the cases cited above, training on security and privacy of computer users might have saved the mess. Pre-installation of anti-virus also would have been proper as most anti-virus programs prevent,detect and remove Netbus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBus

Underestimation of Economic  Importance of Malware

Some malwares are used directly or indirectly to make millions of dollars daily by sending spam and scam schemes,  DDoS attacks, also used in cyber war and political attacks.

A company like Damballa has creativity made a fortune from the threats in the networked world. See 

http://blog.damballa.com/?p=330) for details.

Many individuals, businesses and even governments have got their fingers burnt to malware attack(s).

A typical example was the Estonia`s cyber attack of 2007 which affected government and corporate companies most especially banks. This was believed by some security experts as DDoS attack, though it was reported to have minimal economic impact but at the same time was a wake up call for Estonia on cyber security. 

Georgia and Kyrgyzstan were victims also in 2008 and 2009 respectively, the response and the economic impact was more than that of Estonia.

Addiction to Less Secured Browsers and Passwords

This is also  one of the common mistakes made by computer users,  a typical case is illustrated in Microsoft Mono culture in Korea where window browser(internet explorer) with active X and this led  to a massive internet attack of 80,000 Korean crippled  in July 2014. It was pointed out in http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html that active X provided easy route for cyber criminals spreading Malware for DDoS attacks and the reasonable solution is upgrade of security software since Koreans are addicted to MS.

Using weak passwords for protection of computers is one of the Windows generation problems, this was attributed to early Microsoft windows 95 and being one user systems without passwords later window 2000, and XP offered better password system but users were already addicted to Windows 95 and 98.

In summary, though there is no 100% security anywhere the do`s and don'ts highlighted by CERT(http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/home_networks.html) is a preventive tools for computer users.

Using the words of Confucius, "Education breeds confidence, confidence breeds hope and hope breeds peace", for peace or something related to peace in a networked world, security and privacy education  and training is a great tool for computer users.

Broomsticks, Hackers and Crypto.

What an era to be tagged broomstick, an era that i describe as simple when broomsticks at the door was a respected symbol to denote absence of the inhabitants and others understand and honor the privacy of the home.(Less security, respected privacy).

Example of BROOMSTICKs approach was being used by post office, For instance "A" sends a  mail to "B" and to confirm that "B" receives the mail, a paper receipt is being signed traditionally  by "B" confirming the receipt of the mail,  this is still in used today both for physical and electronic mail delivery using digital signature device most especially in post office.


Digital signature is an example of the modern day security measure, instead of the example described above, "A" exchanging mails with "B" is much more secured, "A" a will send mails using his private key to encrypt the messages and the mail is only readable by "B" provided he has the public key of "A" but there is need for another party "C" to provide certification. To verify the message sent by "A", "B" software uses "C" public key to check the signature, if the signature is de-encrypted successfully, "B" is assured that the signature was created using "A" private key. This has saved the stress, time and resources of carrying out transactions in private and public sector alike  in today`s world even cross-border transactions(CRYPTOGRAPHY) in banking, post services, enterprises and everywhere.

A  key issue on  the subject is the effect of technology on society. Advent of technology brought good and bad to a simple world, hence, today there is mass access for example to computers and technologies less security and privacy. This is due to the presence of privacy intruder but innovator and game changers called HACKERS. Prior this course, hackers and criminals to me are interchangeable. This notion though not completely erased even in the minds of majority, but its becoming clear to me that hackers are game changing and innovating dynamic fan of technology because bulk of the technological based businesses emanated from hacking activities by individuals, groups or organisations e.g. is Peter Samson and club(Tech Model Railroad Club) of MIT in the book titled  "Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution "by Stephen Levy where a hack is attributed to innovation, style and technical virtuosity.

My question is that looking at hacking from the perspective above, why then  is security and privacy an issue or better but is hacking criminal?