CIS 451: Internet Societal Issues Dr. Ralph D. Westfall June, 2012.
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Transcript of CIS 451: Internet Societal Issues Dr. Ralph D. Westfall June, 2012.
CIS 451: Internet Societal Issues
Dr. Ralph D. WestfallJune, 2012
Internet is "New Territory" universal communications never
existed before the Internet old rules may not fit new
technologies how make new/revised rules? who makes the rules? two options:
self regulation by Internet community governmental: Federal and state laws
Social Networking Security people post all kinds of information
about themseleves on Facebook, etc. some of it could be used to harm them
PleaseRobMe.com gets your travel plans and puts them on the Internet so thieves can know you're not home Source: KTLA News
Job Search Internet Effects Potential employers Google your name
"Would I want my mom … to see this?" Use privacy settings on social sites Untag your name from problem images Consider an alias for some things you do Post positive stuff with your real name
e.g., helpful answers in forums Source:
Undo … Damage Your Facebook Profile
The Dialectical Internet "For every action, there is an equal
and opposite reaction." Newton's Third Law of Motion
the Internet often works the same way if some person or group uses the
Internet to promote an agenda, others may use it to work against that agenda or promote a conflicting agenda
in other words, self regulation
The Internet and Juries Internet use by jurors for research
may cause convictions to be overturned Social networking among jurors is trying
judges' patience Social Networking Threatens Another Jury
Verdict Courts finally catching up to texting
jurors (“Twitter instructions” by judges)
Phony Degrees get any degree—bachelors, masters
or doctorate—for a few $1000 email ad for a phony degree wife's former boss bought BA, MA &
EdD based on "life experience," not classes
Wired News article Degree Mills book Novelty Degrees at bogusphd.com
Phony Degrees - 2 high ranking Federal government e
mployees with phony degrees (CBS)
use of phony degrees is illegal in only four states Oregon, North Dakota, New Jersey and
Illinois Oregon list of invalid degrees (scroll)
California warning (scroll down on right)
"Phishing" spam that looks like it's from a
bank some people deal with has an image with text on it, rather
than text that can be evaluated by spam filters
clicking on link leads to a web site that looks like a bank website (but IP address doesn't contain bank name)
example (click on link too)
Bob, You've Been Phished video by Cal Poly students
won $1000 prize in a national contest but had to pay the source of the
background music around $200 for unauthorized use
transcript
Phishing Gets Cleverer recent eBay Phishing email
mouseovering the learn more link on right shows a valid eBay URL
mouseover Respond Now button (image) to see URL of a non-eBay web site
Social Network Hacking Facebook hack service smells fishy
$100 charge may be a ripoff “Fusking” PhotoBucket and Other P
ictures Sharing Sites viewing private pictures with common
filenames
Miss Bimbo.com (archived) virtual fashion game/community
about a female character "Become the most famous and beautiful bimbo in the world."
Controversies option to buy breast implants for Miss B over-emphasis on attractiveness negative impacts on players self esteem?
Denial of Service Attacks "attempt to make a computer
resource unavailable to its intended users" (Wikipedia)
"saturating the target (victim) machine with external communications requests" Cal Poly attacked January 2009
against the law in many countries
Spam unsolicited e-mail
not SPAM lunchmeat > Home millions of e-mail addresses on CDs anti-spam websites
Spam domain blacklist Fight Spam on the Internet Spam Cop spam2congress.com
Technological Spam Solutions filters blacklists and whitelists
block banned vs. block all except friends challenge/response
non-whitelist senders must solve a captcha
eStamps increase the resource requirements for
sending each email send eStamp charges to charities
Spam and DOS Attacks DOS against spammers
Spammers targeted with DDoS attack Spam Slayer: Bringing Spammers to T
heir Knees SpamItBack criticism of DOS attack approach
Spammers launch denial of service attacks against antispam sites
Anonymity products to prevent invasions of
your privacy when surfing website Anonymous Surfing used to have a SCAN YOUR PC NOW
button on left side of page that printed a lot of information from your machine as a demonstration
Anonymity - 2 web sites for sending anonymous e-
mail Advicebox (out of business now) Where to Send Anonymous Email (sites)
note warning on top left of page anonymity helps people who want to
engage in "sanctioned behavior" not all anonymous use is antisocial
e.g., people seeking suicide counseling
Location Privacy "Cell phone companies know where
you are every time you make a call. GPS devices keep a record of the routes you take around town. Social networking services alert friends when you’re nearby. " Source:
Will your cell phone give you away?
Location Privacy - 2 "no clear standard for how law
enforcement agencies should get access to these records"
"combined with … tools like Google Maps, it’s not some vast technical feat to … follow you around on the map.”
Source: Will your cell phone give you ...
Gambling offshore gambling not subject to
US laws implications for:
compulsive gamblers? "point shaving" by college athletes?
Cal State Fullerton Pay-Pal & credit card companies
stopped working with online casinos
Pornography laws vary by country, and by US
community hard to prosecute offshore vendors
make it illegal to receive it? freedom of speech? censorship? market for child and violent
pornography leads to exploitation believed to cause harmful behavior
Pornography Statistics spending/second = $3,075.64 25% of total search engine
requests 20% of men, 13% of women admit
accessing pornography at work 28% of porn site visitors are
womenSource: TopTenREVIEWS
Spyware, Adware, Etc. (Malware) in software
installed on the computer usually with consent of user (disclosure
often hidden in EULA) adware runs ads in exchange for free
services spyware tracks surfing to target ads adware and spyware definitions Spybot Search and Destroy freeware
More Malware Google searches web's dark side
Google found that 10% of sample of 4.5 MM pages could do "drive by downloads"
Another 700,000 had other security risks Malware often based on ads on owner's
pages rather than owner-created content Bad Bunny! Energizer USB battery
charger blamed for "backdoor" Trojan virus
Malware "Social Engineering" Phone calls to (elderly?) Internet users
initially based on behavior, not technology claim they're from "Microsoft Support" say your computer is "infected" tell you to run built-in Microsoft
diagnostics that generate harmless error messages
then tell you to go to a web site to download software to fix problems
Porn Sites and "Malware" 98% of porn sites downloaded
spyware or adware [dead link] 15% installed software that dialed
"premium rate" porn phone numbers
5% installed browser hijackers e.g., click CWS link can change home page, add porn
links to Favorites
Porn Sites and "Malware" 98% of porn sites downloaded
spyware or adware [dead link] 15% installed software that dialed
"premium rate" porn phone numbers
5% installed browser hijackers e.g., click CWS link can change home page, add porn
links to Favorites
StopBadware Coalition Operated by Harvard Law School
and Oxford University Consumer Reports is an advisor
Sponsors include Google, Verisign, Sun Microsystems, AOL
Identified RealPlayer as badware because of "inadequate disclosure of advertising behavior"
Bounties on Malware Authors Microsoft offers $250,000 for the h
ead of Conficker's author counterattack on people who exploit
security flaws in Microsoft software Microsoft has offered rewards before
and paid off on one another software company also
offered a reward
Bomb Making Sites freedom of speech?
or yelling "Fire!" in crowded theater? courts have upheld right to sell
bomb books such as "Anarchist's Cookbook" author changed his mind later
do sites lead to more Unabombers, more violence like bombing of Oklahoma City Federal Building?
Hate Groups Internet makes it easier for people
at extreme fringes to find like-minded people
Internet is a convenient tool for spreading lies and propaganda
other sites created to counter lies problem: harder to stop a lie than to
spread it
Spoofing Email Addresses sending email as from someone
else's email address extremely easy for anyone who has
a server most spam has spoofed addresses students from class taught by
author elsewhere spoofed an email from an attractive woman in the class to him
Spoofing Caller ID calling cards and devices make
this easy e.g., calls from: traditional fake phone #
555-555-5555 mathematical pi 314-159-2653 "mark of the beast" 666-666-6666
Rumors, Half-Truths, Etc. urban legends
About.com Urban Legends computer virus hoaxes
Vmyths.com
"Truth" Sites Investigate and evaluate things on
the Internet and in other media Snopes.com: "Internet reference
source for urban legends, folklore, myths, rumors, and misinformation"
25 Hottest Urban Legends TruthOrFiction.com FactCheck.org (political issues)
Commercial Product Slander "Aspartame causes multiple
sclerosis" Nancy Markle letter, another letter,
victim? response from
Multiple Sclerosis Foundation doctor Harvard Law school paper
Internet Hoaxes: Public Regulation and Private Remedies
Fraud possible with on-line auction sites (
E-Bay) know anybody who has lost money?
how much? very low capital requirements to start
an e-business, legitimate or otherwise out-of-area fraud hard to deal with not much different from mail order? Internet ScamBusters
Bad Business Bureau Sites different from the Better Business
Bureaus publicly report complaints and horror
stories to force action sample sites
Rip-off Report.com concerns about its founder
Google search on "bad business bureau"
Financial Fraud Internet Fraud (web page from the
Securities and Exchange Commission) stock tips publicized by spam, bulletin
boards/chat rooms, online newsletters scroll down on above link to see
"pump and dump," pyramid, "risk free," off-shore frauds
Religious Proselytizing person searching for "religion A,"
gets an ad about how great "religion B" is actual case search engine stopped selling ads to
"religion B" issues:
freedom of speech and religion? right of a business to determine its
own marketing policies?
Domestic Political Issues Yahoo cancelled labor union "
cyberpicketing" ads Google refused
anti-war ads (subsequently reinstated)
guns and ammunition ads other "anti" ads opposing people,
organizations or issues
More Domestic Political "Google bombing" uses drives
traffic to other pages by links and keywords
US president examples previous Google search on failure more recent at Google and Yahoo
after media attention, search algorithms get changed
Election Campaigns A New Campaign Tactic: Manipulati
ng Google Data
International Political Issues Yahoo helped Chinese government pros
ecute a journalist? Shi Tao sentenced to 10 years in prison information claimed to be a "state secret,"
but others say it was widely known Yahoo's role in this has not been revealed
Chinese government blocked Wikipedia three times
International Political - 2 MSN helps censors
human rights, democracy, and freedom of speech considered to be profanity?
Google censors itself for China news service doesn't display results from
Web sites blocked by Chinese authorities Cisco wanted to help 'Great Firewall' o
f China also sells Policenet to track dissidents
"Google Fraud" How The Google AdWords Scam W
as Done
Fake Sites on Search Engines Security researcher Jim Stickley
created a phony site for a real credit union redirected visitors to real site
phony site got #2 ranking on Yahoo and #1 on Bing ahead of even the credit union's real site
Commercial Advertising pharmacists want to ban ads for
unlicensed pharmaceutical dealers
Intellectual Property material can be copyrighted, but so
very easy to steal (1 mouse click) images, text, software Software and Information Industry Ass
ociation prosecutes owners of servers or BBSs that distribute pirated software
also has a CORPORATE ANTI-PIRACY REWARD PROGRAM (up to $50,000)
Personal Computer Security DSL and cable connections make
personal computers vulnerable Zone Alarm is a free personal
computer firewall I used to have it installed at home numerous hits from unrelated addresses unfortunately Zone Alarm itself can
cause problems on some computers
Web Site or Viewer Hijacking copy site with high search engine rank
email from business that hijacked my page
use it as a front end to a completely different kind of site often pornographic
recycling abandoned domain names for "stealth porn sites"
Web Site Vandalism hack in to a commercial website
and add different content frequently politically motivated
Greatest Hacks of All Time
Domain Name Abuses register www.somebigcompany.com
demand that somebigcompany pay you for its own name
courts usually rule for the companies unofficial websites for politicians (put
up by opponents), movie stars, etc. e.g., www.bobdole.com (candidate in '96) pro or con?
Internet Sales Taxes? web vendors claim need to be exempt
"don't kill goose that is laying golden egg" states are losing revenues
national politicians have endorsed temporary tax free status for e-commerce
but revenue loss projected at $45 billion by 2006 (another study says $3.2 billion) [dead links]
Workaholism with the Internet, can continue
working at home, after work and on weekends handling e-mail, writing reports,
financial analysis, etc. impacts on family life?
Telecommuting Internet makes it possible to work
at home instead of driving to work benefits
child care? elder care? commuting cost savings
disadvantages isolation, reduced chances for
promotion
The "Digital Divide" Internet offers many benefits, but
what about people who: can't afford a computer don't have the skills to use a computer
will these people be left behind in the "new economy?" should the government take a more
active role in helping these people?
Internet Impacts on Users Internet addiction
test yourself loneliness increases with Internet
use? Internet helps social ties? free greeting cards (increase social
activity?)
Other Issues? can you think of any other societal
issues recently created by the Internet?
Exercise outline a debate position on one of
the following propositions (pro or con):1. "The Internet is making this a better
world."2. "Self-regulation is not enough: the
government needs to take a more active role in regulating spam.“
• or some other kind of abuse
Exercise - 2 find a web site spreading rumors, lies,
half truths, propaganda, or etc. find another site designed to counter
the content of this type of site evaluate the effectiveness of the 2nd
site in countering sites such as the 1st write a one page outline summarizing
findings
Exercise 3 whois sometimes shows domain
name owners for politicians, celebrities, etc. privacy services now hold most of them check information that is available for
barackobama.com write a one page outline summarizing
the ethical questions raised by people using other person's names in a domain
THE ENDTHE END
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THE END THE END