Week 15: Thoughts on Digital Security
(Readings
at bottom)
This
week’s readings concerned themselves with cybersecurity with two main themes:
the importance of cybersecurity in this day and age, and what we can do
personally to protect ourselves from cyber-attacks. The first three readings
were about this first main theme. The main point I took from “Privacy and
Security in the Internet Age” was that the government and the people as a whole
need to promote access and privacy when it comes to the Internet, especially
concerning developing countries. I do agree with this point, but it also seemed
like a big idea that I can’t do much about. I don’t have any idea about how
security works online other than that there are some encryption codes. The best
we could do as individual citizens I suppose is elect representatives that
support increased security with easier access and privacy with regards to developing
countries. I’m currently majoring in Computer Science, so there is a
possibility that I end up working for a security company to help develop these
solutions to privacy and access with security, but at the moment, I feel a bit
helpless in this regard, though spreading awareness of the issue can also have
a big impact, so maybe that’s what we can all do.
I generally don’t follow politics
too closely, so reading about the politicization of cybersecurity was pretty
interesting, since I wasn’t aware of some of the problems in the government
regarding proper internet security. I think it speaks of the larger problem
that almost everything is becoming politicized, that every issue has only
Democratic or Republican stances. It seems like issues of cybersecurity should
be important for both parties, but yet important issues are prevented from
properly being examined because of the steadfastness of both parties, with
neither willing to compromise on any issue. With issues as complex as
cybersecurity, it also appears that the US government isn’t putting the proper people
in the proper positions with dealing with it, especially considering how
important it is becoming as the nation as a whole is getting more digital. The
government would also be the prime target of foreign governments, so extra
caution is needed to secure that digital information, so I think Congress
especially needs to start re-examining their positions on cybersecurity and try
to come to a compromise and move forward in properly securing government
accounts against foreign attacks.
The article “The Privacy Problem
with Digital Assistants” reminded me of a story that I found on Reddit. I may
have already mentioned this in a previous blog, but the article about how new ‘robotic
assistants’ only points out how they are coming ever more into our lives. The
story is about how someone’s phone was listening to conversations in the
household and tailored ads on Facebook to the topics about which the
conversation was. This shows how these voice recognition tools are already
silently coming into our daily lives and adjusting what we see online as a
result. The fact that this information can gets stored for upwards of 18 months
is also surprising for me. I see this as both a positive and negative. It is
negative in that it does feel like a bit of an invasion of privacy, but on the
other hand, I never really felt an effect from it. Yes, advertisers might have
access to what I search online and can tailor ads for me, but I’d see ads
regardless. Also, it doesn’t really matter to me what some person in the
company headquarters sees regarding my search history, since it doesn’t affect
me as far as I’m aware. Yes, perhaps I am not looking deeply enough into what
it truly out there from me, and it might seem a bit ignorant right now, but I don’t
see a direct effect of this ‘loss of privacy.’ I agree that privacy is
important, but I also think that proper access and conventionality is needed,
and that can come at a cost of privacy.
When reading the two articles on how
I, personally, can keep myself safer online, I noticed that I already do some
of them. In general on social media I stay away from revealing too much
personal information and I don’t take online quizzes to “figure out what type
of cheese I am.” I do have a system for passwords that I started using at the
beginning of the school year, but I don’t use a passwords manager as of right
now. After reading this article, I am strongly considering getting one in order
to keep my passwords more secure. I am consoled a bit in knowing that I doubt
that someone will be interested in what I am doing online. I talked to an
ethical hacker a couple years ago and I asked what I could do in order to keep
myself safer online with my information, and his answer was that hackers are
lazy and they tend to go after the low hanging fruit. He said that as long as I
have my security preferences updated and I don’t do anything stupid, I should
be fine. Therefore I’m not too worried about a security breach on my accounts,
since I generally keep updated on keeping my accounts properly secure.
Essentially if you make hackers work to get to your information, they will
likely turn to someone who is easier to get at. Regardless, I do want to go
through and clean up my documents and downloads, since I think that it will
help me stay organized and keep better track of what I am doing online.
I like your idea that the best we can do as citizens to help cybersecurity is to elect representatives and officials who are educated on the topic. I too wasn't aware that cybersecurity has become such a political issue in our country, especially recently. I wish there was more education, in our government and schools, particularly for younger kids, about cyber safety and digital citizenship.
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