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B. Freedom of Expression/10%/
D. Software Development/10%/
Computer Crime
The availability of information that can be accessed with a computer paired with a lax
attitude toward security means credit card numbers and identities are constantly at
risk. Entering your credit card on a seemingly innocuous website may seem like an
everyday activity, but that site could be a clever scam designed to fraud you out of
your hard-earned money. While the amount and extent of computer crime is
frightening, it's a reality and therefore it's necessary for consumers to protect
themselves by purchasing from trusted retailers or using third-party payment
services to protect their money.
o 2.2 Internet
o 2.7 E-Government
o 3.3 Cryptography
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These formulations all provide good moral reasons for limiting and constraining access to
personal data and providing individuals with control over their data.
2.2 Internet
The Internet, originally conceived in the 1960s and developed in the 1980s as a scientific
network for exchanging information, was not designed for the purpose of separating
information flows (Michener 1999). The World Wide Web of today was not foreseen, and
neither was the possibility of misuse of the Internet. Social network sites emerged for use
within a community of people who knew each other in real life—at first, mostly in
academic settings—rather than being developed for a worldwide community of users
(Ellison 2007). It was assumed that sharing with close friends would not cause any harm,
and privacy and security only appeared on the agenda when the network grew larger. This
means that privacy concerns often had to be dealt with as add-ons rather than by-design.
A major theme in the discussion of Internet privacy revolves around the use of cookies
(Palmer 2005). Cookies are small pieces of data that web sites store on the user's
computer, in order to enable personalization of the site. However, some cookies can be
used to track the user across multiple web sites (tracking cookies), enabling for example
advertisements for a product the user has recently viewed on a totally different site.
Again, it is not always clear what the generated information is used for. Laws requiring
user consent for the use of cookies are not always successful, as the user may simply click
away any requests for consent, merely finding them annoying. Similarly, features of
social network sites embedded in other sites (e.g., “like”-button) may allow the social
network site to identify the sites visited by the user (Krishnamurthy & Wills 2009).
The recent development of cloud computing increases the many privacy concerns (Ruiter
& Warnier 2011). Previously, whereas information would be available from the web, user
data and programs would still be stored locally, preventing program vendors from having
access to the data and usage statistics. In cloud computing, both data and programs are
online (in the cloud), and it is not always clear what the user-generated and system-
generated data are used for. Moreover, as data is located elsewhere in the world, it is not
even always obvious which law is applicable, and which authorities can demand access to
the data. Data gathered by online services and apps such as search engines and games are
of particular concern here. Which data is used and communicated by applications
(browsing history, contact lists, etc.) is not always clear, and even when it is, the only
choice available to the user may be not to use the application. In general, IT services have
more and different privacy issues than IT products (Pieters 2013).
Some special features of Internet privacy (social media and Big Data) are discussed in the
following sections.
2.7 E-Government
Government and public administration have undergone radical transformations as a result
of the availability of advanced IT systems as well. Examples of these changes are
biometric passports, online e-government services, voting systems, a variety of online
citizen participation tools and platforms or online access to recordings of sessions of
parliament and government committee meetings.
Consider the case of voting in elections. Information technology may play a role in
different phases in the voting process, which may have different impact on voter privacy.
Most countries have a requirement that elections are to be held by secret ballot, to prevent
vote buying and coercion. In this case, the voter is supposed to keep her vote
private, even if she would want to reveal it. For information technology used for casting
votes, this is defined as the requirement of receipt-freeness or coercion-resistance
(Delaune, Kremer & Ryan 2006). In polling stations, the authorities see to it that the voter
keeps the vote private, but such surveillance is not possible when voting by mail or
online, and it cannot even be enforced by technological means, as someone can always
watch while the voter votes. In this case, privacy is not only a right but also a duty, and
information technology developments play an important role in the possibilities of the
voter to fulfill this duty, as well as the possibilities of the authorities to verify this. In a
broader sense, e-democracy initiatives may change the way privacy is viewed in the
political process.
3.3 Cryptography
Cryptography has long been used as a means to protect data, dating back to the Caesar
cipher more than two thousand years ago. Modern cryptographic techniques are essential
in any IT system that needs to store (and thus protect) personal data. Note however that
by itself cryptography does not provide any protection against data breaching; only when
applied correctly in a specific context does it become a ‘fence’ around personal data.
Cryptography is a large field, so any description here will be incomplete. We'll focus
instead on some newer cryptographic techniques, in particular homomorphic encryption,
that have the potential to become very important for processing and searching in personal
data.
Various techniques exist for searching through encrypted data (Song et al. 2000), which
provides a form of privacy protection (the data is encrypted) and selective access to
sensitive data. One relatively new technique that can be used for designing privacy-
preserving systems is ‘homomorphic encryption’ (Gentry 2009). Homomorphic
encryption allows a data processor to process encrypted data, i.e., users could send
personal data in encrypted form and get back some useful results—for example,
recommendations of movies that online friends like—in encrypted form. The original user
can then again decrypt the result and use it without revealing any personal data to the data
processor. Homomorphic encryption, for example, could be used to aggregate encrypted
data thereby allowing both privacy protection and useful (anonymized) aggregate
information. The technique is currently still in its infancy; it does not scale yet to the large
amounts of data stored in today's systems. However, if homomorphic encryption could be
made to work more efficiently the results have the potential to be revolutionary, at least
for privacy-preserving systems.
Intellectual Property Rights are the legal rights which creators are entitled to. Creators are the
people who produced intellectual property which are creative works that they have originally
made. With these rights, creators can choose what can legally be done to the work and other
rules that need to be followed. There are a variety of original works that can have property rights.
Some of these include written work, drawings, graphics, and many more. Having these rights are
very important because it allows someone to claim their intellectual ideas as their own. There is a
company called WIPO which are a self-funding agency that has copyrights, patents, trademarks,
industrial designs, and also geographical indications used in e-commerce. This system is around
because they recognize that creative works need to be protected by law and that they are around
to support a creative environment. This company even has a magazine which displays the work
that they have protected and boosts the work of creators worldwide. They also run workshops
and have different forms of training to help innovators improve their skills and become familiar
with new developments. The ability to have an agency support you and your work is a great step
in the world of creativity, and keeping those intellectual property rights is what will continue to
help creators flourish.[1]
Copyright
Copyrights are there to protect individuals' work, such as literature, art and music. Enacted in
1976, Copyrights give the original creator rights over what they created. In the case where the
creator dies, they still retain rights 70 years after their death. So let's say someone buys a C.D. of
a certain artist. Even though it is now their property, the artist still holds rights over the songs.
Often times with trying to prevent piracy, many things will have digital watermarks, a slight
change to content that most cannot see but identifies copyright holder.
Trademark Symbols
Trademarks are words, phrases, symbols, designs, or a combination of these that are used as
an identifier in order to help consumers identify and distinguish one product/service from another
one which might be similar. This is also referred to as their "logo". Trademarks are usually
registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPO) and use the letter R enveloped in
a circle next to the logo to signify this. Trademarks which are claimed but unregistered are
allowed to use the print tm alongside they're logo to represent that a claim has been made so as
to deter others from using it. The purpose of a trademark is to protect the logo from being used
by competitors who may want to "knock off" a more reputable company, though trademarks also
protect domain names as well. Many companies want to set up a website using a domain name
which matches their product so a consumer can instinctively find they're web address, and a
trademark will often safeguard against another company using it. [2]
Patents are similar to Copyrights and Trademarks but protect a person's invention rather than
their literary accomplishments or company logos. Patents are usually granted for a 20 year
period and legally authorize the sole rights of an individual to manufacture or produce that which
s/he invented. Often it is a unique product but it can also be a unique process such as the Born-
Haber Cycle.