Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Securing our Online Identities

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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.

Digital Footprints

In 2016, it could officially be said that our online identities are just as important to maintain as our physical identities.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. Unfortunately, these digital footprints are available for anyone to use at their discretion.

In the past...
Events from history show that critical news was controlled information from the public. The barrier of privacy may have been to thick especially in the case of the catastrophic event of Chernobyl located in the USSR.

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...
After the devastating attack on 9/11, online security was considered a governmental priority and the NSA dug into citizens private information with intentions to find terrorists. 

You can watch Edward Snowden defend his actions here.

Nearly a decade later, Edward Snowden was an employee for the NSA in located in Hawaii. During his employment Edward found the NSA was still 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.

Another example from my facebook profile.
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

In the simplest terms I believe that  we have the right to have our online identities protected from all unauthorized viewers. 

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