Legal and Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Computers
Legal issues:
Legal issues are the legal questions which is the foundation of a case. It also can be the point on which the evidence is accepted, and this outcome is depended on the court's explanation of the law.
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Ethical issues:
Ethical issue is a problem or situation that needs a person or organization to choose between if it is right (ethical) or wrong (unethical).
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File-sharing, Music & video downloading
There are different soft wares that tones of people can access easily for file-sharing, but sharing files can have some risks. For example, when you are connected to those soft wares or programs, you might allow others to get your private files that you never intended to share. You might download files that are protected by the copyright laws, and might download viruses. Sharing files can violate the copyright law even though it is not a physical object. It is illegal to download or share copyrighted materials, like music or videos without the owner's permission.
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Identity theft
Identity theft is when someone pretends to be someone else, to use their information for money and other benefits. This is a huge crime, and can fine the thief over billion dollars. The thieves can easily obtain the victim's personally identifiable information. The victims would take years to recover their credit and rebuild their lives, and if the thief uses the victim's information to commit an illegal act, the victim can be arrested for not doing anything illegal. Two places that the thieves get the victim's information are the mailbox, and the trash can.
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Spyware
Spyware is software that is downloaded to a person's computer to hack in to their information, and it can be downloaded going to a website called Drive-by Downloads, or it can be downloaded without anyone noticing while installing another program. It can be used to get internet surfing habits and personal information about the user, and it also crash computers, and slow down performance. Spyware is one of the ways the identity thieves can get the victim's information. (Spy-bot, Spy Sweeper, and Ad-Aware can remove these).
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Malware
Malware is software that has programming designed to destroy deny operations. This kind of software consists of computer viruses, worms, Trojans, spyware, and adware. Especially on computers that don't have adequate security software, criminals can create websites, and desirable downloads to make the victim link to the link so that the victim can download malware.
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Phishing
Phishing is a hacking program that can get informations of the victim's email, credit cards, passwords, usernames, and a lot of other information. Phishing also sends official-looking messages that the victim would not be familiar with, so when the victim opens it, the victim would get viruses or hacked. They also send instant messages that seem to be coming from friends that require personal information.
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Keystroke logging
Keystroke logging is another form of spyware, and the user won't be able to detect them. They are available as software or hardware versions. They would be able to store everything the user types without the user knowing. Nothing can detect a hardware keystroke logging, which can get usernames and their passwords as the user logs in to their device.
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Packet sniffer
A packet is a slice of data which is made so that the performance of the internet would be high as possible. So, sending information on a network means sending packets of the data. By using the packet sniffer, you would be able to see these packets (bits of information) entering and leaving from the user's device. Packet sniffer can "plug" in to the computer's network and can listen to the conversations on the computer.
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Questions
- What are one of the risks you could have by going to file sharing softwares?
- List all of the softwares/programs that can get your information
- what kind of software has viruses, worms, etc.?
ANSWERS
Bibliography
- USLegal, Legal Issue Law and Definition, https://definitions.uslegal.com/l/legal-issue/, 2016.
- BusinessDictionary, ethical issue, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/ethical-issue.html, 2018.
- University of Washington, Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing and Copyright Infringement: Are You Vulnerable?,https://www.washington.edu/students/gencat/policy/p2pshare.html , 2008.
- Stephanie Raccine, Off the page creations, Legal Issues and the Internet, https://www.offthepagecreations.com/legal_issues_internet.php, 2018.
- Jafar Khan, Legal and Ethical Issues Related to the Use of Computers, https://prezi.com/q4_hg3kqjnm0/legal-and-ethical-issues-related-to-the-use-of-computers/, 2011.
- Mike Mullins, Be aware of the threat of hidden keystroke-logging devices, https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/it-security/be-aware-of-the-threat-of-hidden-keystroke-logging-devices-86829/, 2007.
- Sura Soft, Packet Sniffing, http://www.surasoft.com/articles/packetsniffing.php, 2005.
- Paul Salmon, salesforce.com Adds an Intelligence Engine to the Service Cloud, https://technicallyeasy.net/internet/file-sharing/, 2015.
- Daniel Wesley, The Definitive Guide To Understanding Identity Theft, https://www.creditloan.com/identity-theft/, 2017.
- EUROPOL, Spyware: a data stealer ready to invade your privacy, https://www.europol.europa.eu/activities-services/public-awareness-and-prevention-guides/spyware-data-stealer-ready-to-invade-your-privacy, 2018.
- Economy Sci & Tech, Malware that can empty bank Accounts, https://financialtribune.com/articles/economy-sci-tech/75163/malware-that-can-empty-bank-accounts, 2017.
- Real business, With phishing attacks soaring, how can we minimise the risk?, https://realbusiness.co.uk/tech-and-innovation/2017/08/22/phishing-attacks-soaring-can-minimise-risk/, 2017.
- Stanford Computer Science, The ethics (or not) of massive government surveillance, https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs201/projects/ethics-of-surveillance/tech_keystrokelogging.html, 2008.
- Ali Bajwa, Packet Sniffers, http://chillelife.com/packet-sniffers/, 2017.