Saturday, March 12, 2016

Be Ware of What You Post (Revision 2)

Found on my Facebook Profile
In my Information Systems class this semester, we had a unit that covered cyber security. The assignment was to choose a partner from class and use social media to find every possible piece of information you could to exploit them. Things such as NameAgeBirthday, Hobbies.

Just from my pictures found on facebook what can you infer? I graduated highschool, I studied at BYU, I served a LDS mission and I am now married.


Our Society

When filling out profiles, we choose to disclose personal information to the public. We choose our settings as private for only friends, trusting that they would not harm you.  Our culture today is to spend just as much time in reality as a virtual reality. We store all of our information online. We text our friends, we skype our family, we scan the web. Technology and digital communication is a part of who we are today.
Check out this little video clip I made as I scrolled through my facebook feed! 
(PS this video only took me 20 minutes to make!)
In the past..
With all of this information online, who gets access to it? Your natural response would be the owner or those who put the information in. However the rights to privacy bend when there is a threat to society.

Let's look at an example..

Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant that exploded in the USSR in April 26, 1986. The devastating accident poured harmful radiation into the air, killing hundreds and affecting others with sickness for the rest of their lives. The effects of the accident was not published to the public until after the damage to locals were done. Was keeping this information hidden from the public part of the right of privacy to information for the company? Even if it is at the risk of others?

Another example..
The terrorist attack of 9/11 threw the American society in panic. The only way to protect America was preventing any future attempts to terrorism. This terror gave permission to the NSA (National Security Agency) to secretly take any information found through the use of technology in attempts to prevent any future attacks.

Edward Snowden was an employee for the NSA in located in Hawaii. During his employment Edward found the NSA running secret programs to record phone calls and extract information from everyone in the United States. Not just those suspected for terrorism. Infuriated with the invasion of the rights of privacy, Edward Snowden posted the NSA's secret plans on the internet and fled to Russia to escape.


During a TED conference, Edward Snowden appeared as a speaker through skype to tell his story. He explained his reasoning behind his actions and how he was only thinking of basic human rights to privacy.

Whether Edward's motivation was ethical or not he did however bring the Congress to react to the problem. According to the article "Reigning in the NSA" by The New York Review, the technique the NSA used never really worked to bring down terrorist attacks and so in consequence, Congress revoked the NSA's privilege of scanning and collecting data.

Conclusion
Edward Snowden was trying to protect our rights to privacy through technology. Unfortunately there are hundreds of ways that people can gain information online to extort, exploit and to harm. My partner from my information systems class was able to find enough that could potentially harm me if used with bad intentions.

 Our information online should be protected from anyone who is not authorized to see it. However we must fight for the right to have this privilege taken away when the safety of our country is in danger.

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