Podcast on Copyright

Copyright

Online Privacy

This article discusses Internet privacy. It talks about how the Internet isn’t really free like most people think it is but more of an exchange of information. When we visit sites such as Facebook and Google they are gathering information from us as we are surfing the sites. There is a newly released privacy add-on for Firefox and Chrome that allows you to instantly check your privacy settings across Facebook, Google and other sites. It allows you to fix privacy settings and notifies you when the policies have changed so you can update your privacy. The article also mentions that Congress and the executive branch have been talking more about online privacy in the past couple of years, which may mean some changes for the future.

The article is a good example of online privacy and highlights the fact that our privacy settings may not always be as private as we think they are. With changing policies and updates we don’t always realize when privacy policies have changed. I thought I had my Facebook as private as it could be but recently I noticed that people I’m not friends with have been liking my photos. It wasn’t until then that I realized that the privacy settings must have changed and my photos were no longer private. The Privacyfix add-on discussed in the article is supposed to notify you when things like this change and highlights parts of the settings we may want to look at.

It seems that these days it is getting harder and harder to control what information gets revealed about ourselves on the Internet. We still have some control but there are the things such as cookies and spy ware that are gathering information about what we do on the Internet that we don’t have control over. In the future I can only imagine it is going to get worse with new technologies, programs and even hackers and attacks. Privacy on the web is hardly privacy at all.

It is hard to stay private when all the different applications on the Internet are gathering information from us, even apps we no longer use or our friends apps. Also the fact that sites like Facebook are sharing our information with other websites automatically. There is privacy on the web, its just becoming harder to control.

Conflict and Warfare in the Digital Age

In Cyber attack on Saudi Firm, U.S. Sees Iran Firing Back

This article is a great example of cyber war and the use of computers to cause conflict. Hackers unleashed a computer virus on the world’s most valuable oil company, Saudi Aramco. It erased data on three-quarters of Aramco’s corporate PC’s replacing it all with an image of a burning American flag (creepy).  The US intelligence found the perpetrator to be Iran. The hackers called themselves the “Cutting Sword of Justice.” The company was forced to shut down its internal corporate network. The virus was called Shamoon, and it had a kill switch set to attack at the exact time the computers were wiped of memory. The erasing mechanism was named Wiper, which is the same name given to an erasing component of a virus that had attacked Iran in May. This lead to suspicions that this attack was a retaliation by Iran.

In this attack, the hackers got into the system somehow and disrupted it. This article reminded me a lot of what we discussed in class. In this attack it seems they were doing it for revenge/retaliation. The hackers sent an image of a flaming American flag and also sent a list back of all the computers that were hacked. This was sort of a bragging list; the Iranians proving to themselves that they could accomplish it and they did. I don’t think that conflict in the digital age is anywhere near over; if anything it is only going to get worse. Right now we don’t know of any ways to stop it.

Americans believe that Iran was also responsible for the attacks that disrupted the online baking sites Capitol One and BB&T. This is all a wake up call and the reality it that other countries do have the technology and skills to attack our computer systems. If Iran is capable of these attacks Americans can only fear that China and Russia are working on attacks as well. If America fights Iran back it could lead to a cyber war that we might not be ready for. In fact I don’t think any country is ready for any sort of cyber war. But at the rate we’re going it seems that it is inevitable if we don’t change something about the way we protect our computers.

These cyber attacks may mean that we do need to start from fresh with the Internet.  We need more secure and private systems that no other country can hack into. Even though it would be a lot of work it may be more beneficial to start over. This is only the beginning of cyber attacks; with time other countries may be able to develop even more destructive viruses. America can’t afford for any of our computer systems to be attacked.