Question:
Discuss how the internet has impacted information privacy.
The origin of internet was in the 1960s when the US Federal Government commissioned a research to build a robust communication system using computer systems (Bill Stewart, 2000). The first network thus built was called the ARPANET which was the precursor to modern day internet. It was used for communication across regional military and academic networks. Bolstered by the success of this technology, The National Science Foundation Network provided the initial funding along with several other commercial interests which led to the merger of many such networks, which marked the beginning of the transition to modern internet (Peter, Ian; 2004).
From 1995 to 2015, the Internet has managed a growth rate which has enabled the number of users to grow a hundred- fold (Treese.org. 1995 and Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2012).
The internet captured the imagination of every industry and quickly began to assimilate technology with these fields. Some of them are:
But there is always another side to the coin- everything good also has a bad thing looming over it. All of this development has come with a price. Due to all sorts of personal information being available online due to this digitization and all systems being essentially interconnected to each other, it has become extremely easy for anyone with the technical know- how to extract personal information and other information from the internet without any issues whatsoever.
The internet resources, hardware components and the software components are targeted maliciously in attempts to gain unauthorized control over the network or infrastructure involved in order to cause interruption or access private information. Such attempts include the deployment of computer viruses, which are essentially computer worms capable of replicating themselves automatically, usage of ransom- ware, denial of service attacks, using bot- nets and spyware which gives the deployer information about the activity and typing history of users.
Several countries like USA, UK and India have governments which have laid down specific guidelines which are to be followed by every citizen when performing online transactions or using the internet. But there are no concrete laws which are difficult to bypass. Existing laws are full of loopholes which can be and are exploited.
Internet privacy is the right to have personal privacy with regard to the storing, provision to third parties, repurposing and display of information related to oneself through the internet. Privacy with regards to the internet have been voiced since the beginnings of the internet (E. E. David and R. M. Fano, 1965). Some experts like Steve Rambam, who is a personal investigator who specializes in Internet privacy cases have gone on record to say that internet privacy is a myth and due to the existing state of internet privacy laws, the damage and penetration has been so extensive that it is almost impossible to recover from it. It has also been suggested that privacy is required to protect people from those who are in power, and to prevent the possibility of future abuse of that knowledge (Bruce Schneier, 2006).
There are several cases where it has been seen that companies are hired to observe which site people log on to and then use this information to perform targeted advertising, which is based on an individual’s browsing history.
A similar trend is seen with online ravel based companies which track what prices a person have paid for tickets earlier and then fix prices of tickets accordingly, even if the actual rates are cheaper.
Also directly observed behavior like browsing logs, search tags, social media profiles etc. can be and are used to infer intrusive details of people’s lives such as political views, religious views, race, ethnicity, psychological and behavioral issues, sexual orientation etc. to name a few (Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, D.; Graepel, T., 2013).
HTTP cookies are also a major privacy concern. A HTTP cookie is data stored on a user’s computer to assist in automated access to a website or web features, or other information regarding state required for complex web sites to function optimally. These can also be manipulated to track user browsing habits, search queries etc. Such cookies are used by Google Analytics and are called tracking cookies.
Which are less effective since modern browsers and modern malware detectors can block and detect.
Even though efforts are made to protect identities, and the true identity of a person is not known, a full profile of the member is possible by just using the information available on AOL Search. By just building these records, even without a name to allot it to, the company and learn a huge amount without even knowing their name.
Some solutions are available to users to protect their privacy. One such program is called ‘Rapleaf’ which is a website with a search engine which allows users to keep all their search and browsing history private.
Some search engines anonymise Google searches and are called Privacy- focused search engines.
MetaGer- A German search engine which has all its servers in Germany, which is a benefit since German legislation tends to give more importance to privacy laws.
IxQuick: A Dutch based meta search engine which is also omitted to the protection of privacy. It uses similar features for the safety of its data like MetaGer.
Yacy: It is a community project with a decentralized search engine. It uses a peer-to- peer principle that does not need stationary and centralized servers, thus saving on costs and helping it to achieve its goals of reducing hacking problems.
There are several other search engines like Duck Duck Go and StartPage which follow similar methods and have the same goals.
These and several other concerns are extremely dangerous and need to be addressed by lawmakers as soon as possible. This is of typically paramount importance since it has been made clear over the years that the number of such dangers is increasing and it is getting extremely difficult for normal people to protect against such attacks. One of the major concerns is that of identity theft wherein several innocent people have suffered through no real fault of theirs, except for ignorance.
The situation is worsened by the fact that, while we typically assume such attacks to be more rampant on commercial establishments or large corporate houses, the truth is at individuals are more of a target. In 2007, a report by the Internet Security Threat Report stated that about ninety three percent (93%) of such ‘gateway’ attacks were targeted at individual home users who were unprepared for it. A gateway attack is not a direct attack, but a potential back door to utilize for further exploitation.
According to ( Mediati, N., 2010) and ( Larose, R.; Rifon, N. J., 2007)It is possible to a certain extent to curb these issues by
Another way of protecting your own privacy is to include the use of VPNs. VPN services use encryption technologies to protect your privacy. This is the same technology which protects banks, and large corporations from tracking and other online dangers. These services allow users to privately send and receive messages, keep browsing history private, encrypt all your traffic, and ultimately enabling sessions to remain completely private.
Everything from smartphones to laptops can use VPNs, and once these are established on a device, every browsing session is conducted through the portal provided by the VPN provider which completely blocks any possibility of raking attempts which allows you to safeguard your personal information.
However, this is a very difficult proposition since most people have little or no idea as to how to proceed with these issues. An average user with no experience in technology cannot be expected to understand these issues and take action against such dangers, especially when they are getting more sophisticated every day. Several businesses can afford to hire professionals to take care of such issues, but this option is out of reach of the general public since these services are often very expensive and also require a certain amount of diligence on part of the users all the same.
Hence it becomes a greater responsibility on the part of the governments across the world to ensure that their citizens are protected from this very real risk of cyber- attacks, information theft, identity theft and lack of privacy. There is a need like never before to clamp down on such unethical and unlawful activities which endanger the quality of life and the peace of mind of citizens.
References:
Electronic Frontier Foundation (website)
Electronic Frontier Foundation (website)
The Living Internet, Bill Stewart (ed), January 2000
Treese.org. 1995-11-11
Schneier.com, 2009
Jonathan Strickland, How Stuff Works. 27 June 2014
Internet World Stats. Miniwatts Marketing Group. 30 June 2012
Bruce Schneier (May 18, 2006).
Diffie, Whitfield; Susan Landau (August 2008).
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