Are you truly safe online?
Introduction:
In modern-day society, the reality of the world is that we are moving in a digital direction. We are heading in this direction fast and have been for some time now. Just last week I was mortified to find out that my own mother had set up an Instagram account. This worried me as I know that my mother doesn’t know how to stay safe online. But is anyone truly safe online?
Being online has its obvious benefits. You are connected with your friends and family no matter where you are in the world, all you need now is a connection. With Elon musks Starlink, soon, all you will need for an internet connection is a clear view of the sky… However, being online has its hidden drawbacks to your own safety and privacy.
Ethics:
I believe you are entitled to privacy as a basic human right. EU laws under GDPR would agree that online, you are entitled to privacy. Unfortunately, online, your life isn’t always private despite the best efforts of companies who store data. Many people have no idea how much data is truly stored about them. Google alone stores an incredible amount of data that you probably consented to without realising the extent to which google knows your every single move. This Forbes article mentions that one reporter downloaded all their personal data that google stored about them, 2GB worth, which equated to over 1.5 million word documents. If this data was released to the public, everyone would know; where you live, where you work and even every place you’ve ever searched on google maps. Scary!
With this much data being collected about every individual that ‘consents’, there comes risks that this data could fall into the wrong hands, in turn, your privacy is being exposed. With this said, what are the risks of being online?
Data breaches:
Wide-scale data breaches are one way that you can be harmed from storing data online. Have you ever been caught in a data breach? If you regularly receive spam emails then chances are you have! By no means does this mean that you have been using ‘dodgy’ websites contrary to popular belief. Some highly respected companies have been compromised including eBay, Adobe, Yahoo and many more! Using the website, HaveIBeenPwned you can see if your email has been caught in any data breaches. To this day I still receive spam email as a result of these data breaches!
Data breaches have the potential to be harmful due to the fact that sensitive information could be stolen. Commonly, emails and passwords are stolen and sold on the dark web. 65% of all data breaches will result in identity theft. This is where the hacker will pretend to be someone else for their own gain. For example, stealing money out of someone else's bank account using their details.
Data breaches are inevitable. 30,000 websites are breached every day. This poses the question of how you can protect yourself from being on the receiving end of a data breach. Unfortunately, there is no way to completely avoid data breaches without removing the use of the internet from your life. Most websites will require data in order to be effective. What you can do is use a complex password and change them frequently as well as never using the same password for different websites. The implications of merely having an account set up with a website that gets breached can be catastrophic leading to people losing even more than just their privacy.
Targeted hacking:
While data breaches are done at a large scale, those who don’t adequately protect themselves online are at risk of a targeted hack on an individual level. From phishing hacks to clickjacking to even just guessing simple passwords, hackers have a plethora of methods to access your personal information. Once they have access to a victims personal account, their online privacy becomes non-existent.
Some notable hacks that highlight the possibilities of hacking are, first, the hack in 2014 dubbed ‘Celebgate’. Here, 100’s of celebrities famously had their explicit images stolen from their iCloud. A complete invasion of privacy with life long consequences. Ethically this is wrong. This is well established however, some hackers claim to ‘hack for good’ by exposing ‘bad people’. The case of the Panama papers is one where hackers exposed millionaires offshore financial records proving they were avoiding tax.
This sparks the debate of whether no matter what your circumstance, you are entitled to privacy online as a basic human right. Do you lose this human right when you are breaking the law?
Online abuse:
By simply having an online presence, such as Instagram, the door opens for online trolls and generally nasty people to come and abuse you. Behind every profile is a person, yet the malicious abuse that celebrities and your average Joe alike can receive is vile. So much so that in too many cases, it has lead to suicide. It has to end.
There are preventative measures for these problems such as limiting the number of people that can view your account. In other words, making yourself ‘private’. However, once something is posted online, technology has the capability to replicate that image or data, which can be stored forever. Once a picture is posted online, removing all traces of that image can be impossible. Khloe Kardashian is a perfect example of this. Just weeks ago a photo was accidentally posted of her in a bikini unedited. Her lawyers then worked tirelessly to remove the photo from the internet, yet failed.
Some would argue the best remedy is to avoid social media in its entirety. A plethora of studies have shown social media can be harmful mentally yet having an online profile is well and truly the norm in society. Action needs to be taken, which it is, but not at a fast enough rate. Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson allowed for Anti-bullying charity Cybersmile to take over his social media to help prevent online bullying. The way society uses digital media needs to change fundamentally in order to save and improve lives.
Reflection
Studying Information Technology Management for Business includes lots of ‘tech talk’. I’ve always enjoyed tech and I think that building my skill set and knowledge in all things tech can only benefit my career as well as being genuinely enjoyable. I can often be guilty of only focusing on theory and hypothetical situations rather than studying what is really happening in the world around us. Digital society jumped out immediately at me for being the perfect blend of ‘tech’ and the real world. As someone who is arguably addicted to mobile phones and social media, the thought of studying this in more depth could only benefit me. As per the topic of this essay, I have always felt a level of paranoia around data security and staying safe online which was another predominant reason I wanted to learn more about the subject.
My experience within the digital society module has been surprisingly beneficial to me. Not in the sense that I didn’t expect to learn about the digital society to a high standard, but this course offered me more than that. Writing these blog-style posts as opposed to an academic essay suited me very well. Initially, I was sceptical but quickly came to realise that I was able to show off my personality through writing style and word choices rather than trying to sound like (for lack of a better term) a robot. This made me feel a lot more comfortable writing the tasks as well as developing a true understanding of what I was talking about as opposed to jumping through hoops to meet the criteria for an academic essay.
Another aspect of the course I have nothing but overwhelming, positive feelings towards is the nature of how the course was delivered. Digitial society was designed to be delivered online. This was extremely important in my decision-making process after seeing the shortcomings of other modules delivering classes that were designed for in-person, online. The delivery of the content on Medium was easy to digest yet just as informative, if not more than an online lecture which was panic recorded weeks before our start date. For this, I feel thankful and would recommend all other modules to take inspiration from the creative design of this module.
A topic I particularly found interesting which if I had to write this blog again but on a different topic, it would be smart cities. Smart cities to me have always felt like a buzzword. But taking the opportunity to actually learn about smart cities and the future of what they could look like peaked my interest more than I thought it would. I feel that all topics we did cover, I was ‘aware’ of before studying in more detail, however, I never necessarily had an understanding. After successfully completing this module I do now feel I have an in-depth understanding of the digital world around us! Big thank you to the digital society team for pulling this all together!
