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

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