GT101: LEARNING AND INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY
TU107: COMPUTING ESSENTIALS

MEETING 6
CHAPTER 16: PRIVACY, SECURITY AND ETHICS

Prepared by:
ITC team – AOU, Kuwait branch
Based on the content of GT101 smart book @McGraw-Hill Education
LEARNING OUTCOMES
• Identify the most significant concerns for effective implementation of
computer technology.
• Discuss the primary privacy issues of accuracy, property, and access.
• Describe the impact of large databases, private networks, the Internet,
and the web on privacy.
• Discuss online identity and the major laws on privacy.
• Discuss cybercrimes types including creation of malicious programs.
• Discuss computer ethics including copyright law, software piracy and
digital rights management.
PEOPLE

• As we have discussed, information systems consist of people,

procedures, software, hardware, data, and the Internet.
• Thischapter focuses on people. While most everyone agrees that
technology has had a very positive impact on people, it is important to
recognize the negative, or potentially negative, impacts as well.
PEOPLE

• Effective implementation of computer technology involves maximizing

positive effects while minimizing negative effects.
• The most significant concerns are privacy, security and ethics.
• Privacy – What are the threats to personal privacy and how can we
protect our selves?
• Security – How can access to sensitive information be controlled and
how can we secure hardware and software?
• Ethics – How do the actions of individual users and companies affect
society?
PRIVACY

• Technology makes it possible to collect and use date of all kinds, including
information about people.
• The Web sites you visit, the stores where you shop ….
• Privacy concerns the collection and use of data about individuals.
• Three primary privacy issues:
- Accuracy: relates to the responsibility of those who collect data to ensure
that the data is correct.
- Property: relates to who owns data.
- Access: relates to the responsibility of those who have data to control and
able to use that data.
PRIVACY: LARGE DATABASES
• Large organizations are constantly compiling information about us. Everyday, data is
gathered about us and stored in large databases. This ever-growing volume of data
is often called big data.
• A vast industry of data gatherers known as information resellers or information
brokers now exists that collects, analyzes, and sells such personal data.
• Information resellers create electronic profiles, or highly detailed and personalized
descriptions of individuals.
• These profiles can reveal more than you might wish and this can raise many
important issues, including:
 Collecting public, but personally identifying information
 Spreading information without personal consent
 Spreading inaccurate information
PRIVACY: PRIVATE NETWORKS

• Many organizations monitor employee email and computer files using

special software called employee-monitoring software.
• These programs record everything you do on the computer.
PRIVACY: INTERNET & WEB
• Most people do not concern about privacy when sending e-mail on the Internet
or browse the web.
• As long as they use their own computers and have the choice to reveal their
personal information, they think that little can be done to invade their personal
privacy.
• Experts call this the illusion of anonymity.
• When you browse the web, your browser stores critical information onto your
hard disk. This information, which contains records about your Internet activities,
includes:
- History files, which include the locations, or addresses, of sites that you have recently visited.
- Temporary Internet files, also known as the browser cache, contain web page content and
instructions for displaying this content.
PRIVACY: INTERNET & WEB
• Another way your web activity can be monitored is with cookies.
• Cookies are small data files that are deposited on your hard disk from
websites you have visited.
• Cookies are harmless in themselves, but they can store information about
you, your preferences, and your browsing habits.
• Types of cookies:
 First-party: generated (and then read) only by the website you are currently visiting.
 A third-party cookie (tracking cookie): is usually generated by an advertising company
that is affiliated with the website you are currently visiting. These cookies are used by
the advertising company to keep track of your web activity as you move from one site
to the next.
PRIVACY: INTERNET & WEB
Several other threats could potentially violate your privacy such as:
1. Web bugs, which are invisible images or HTML code hidden within a web
page or e-mail message, can be used to transmit information without
your knowledge.
2. Spyware are programs designed to secretly record and report an
individual’s activities on the Internet.
- They run in the background and are invisible to the average user.
- Computer monitoring software is the most invasive and dangerous type of spyware.
- Keystroke logger is a type of computer monitoring software that records every
activity and keystroke made on your computer system, including credit card
numbers, passwords, and e-mail messages.
PRIVACY: INTERNET & WEB

• Best defenses against spyware are:

- exercise caution when visiting new websites
- be careful when downloading software from an unknown source.
- use antispyware or spy removal programs, which are designed to detect
and remove various types of privacy threats (e.g. Ad-Aware).
PRIVACY: ONLINE IDENTITY

• Another aspect of Internet privacy comes from online identity, the

information that people voluntarily post about themselves online.
• There are any number of cases of people who have lost their jobs on
the basis of posts on social networking sites.
SECURITY

• Weare all concerned with our personal security (e.g. lock our doors).
What about computer security?
• Computer hackers are the persons who try to gain unauthorized access
to our computers or other computers that contain information about us.
• Security involves protecting individuals and organizations from theft and
danger.
• Computer security specifically focuses on protecting information,
hardware, and software from unauthorized use, as well as preventing or
limiting the damage from intrusions, sabotage, and natural disasters.
SECURITY: CYBERCRIMES
• Cybercrime or computer crime is any criminal offense that involves a computer and a network.

Examples of Cybercrimes
SECURITY: CYBERCRIMES

• Malicious Programs (malware) are specifically designed to damage or disrupt a

computer system.
• A cracker is a computer criminal who creates and distributes malicious
programs.
• The three most common types of malware are:
1. Viruses are destructive programs attach themselves to programs and databases that can alter or
delete files.
2. Worms are programs that replicate themselves causing computers and networks operations
slowed or stopped. Worms can carry a virus.
3. Trojan horses are programs that appear to be harmless; however, they contain malicious
programs like viruses. Trojan horses usually appear as free computer programs that can be
downloaded from the Internet.
SECURITY: CYBERCRIMES

• Virusesand worms can find their way into PCs through e-mail
attachments and programs downloaded from the Internet.
• Zombie is a computer infected by a malware that allows it to be
remotely controlled for malicious purposes.
•A collection of zombie computers is known as a botnet, or robot
network.
• Antivirusprograms such as Symantec and McAfee provide services
that keep track and alert users about virus threats.
ETHICS

• The essential element that controls how computers are used is ethics.
• Ethics are standards of moral conduct.
• Computer ethics are guidelines for the morally acceptable use of
computers in our society.
ETHICS: COPYRIGHT & DRM

• Copyright is a legal concept that gives content creators the right to

control use and distribution of their work.
• Material that can be copyrighted include paintings, books, music, films
and video games.
• Some users choose to make unauthorized copies of digital media which
violates copyright.
• Software piracy is an unauthorized copying or distribution of software.
• To prevent copyright violations, corporations often use digital rights
management (DRM).