Private Vs. Public Online Security

Private Vs. Public Online Security

This was an interesting article I came across during some blog research. In one of my other classes: Government Policy towards Business, we discussed the management and the operational actives involved with online security. Two groups had a a debate in class, and they argued weather our online security should be run by a private of public entity. It's rather interesting to hear both points, because they were both fairly convincing. Private companies have been responsible in the past for firewalls, anti spam, and the security of people's computers and information. They have experience in the field, and hold much less of a threat to hackers as opposed to a government run security. I read in an article Hackers breached the security networks of top US defense contractors. This sounded extremely dangerous and ridiculous.  Not much classified information was accessed because it was locked down on a private network; however, it's possible that some details on future weapons systems as well as weapons in use today in Iraq and Afghanistan were compromised.  Industry  receives the initial respect for the complete launch and maintenance of the online-networked world, so if anything they deserve the responsibility to 'secure' it. Another main point that industry had was that government is much too wide spread to be completely focused that this subject and deliver the attention it requires. I do think publicly run online security would be detrimental to an already well established field to date.

 http://www.newser.com/story/119629/hackers-breach-security-of-us-defense-contractors.html

 

 

In our last class, we discussed Amanda Todd's suicide and the internet vigilantism the hacking group 'Anonymous' took to find out the identity of her perpetrator. The group released the name of one British Colombian to the public, who they believe pushed Amanda Todd to commit suicide. Recently, it has come to light that this man was not the perpetrator, after his name has been released. This brings to question whether what the hacktivism group is even right. Obviously they had good intentions in bringing the name of the terrible person that tormented this young teen. However, they did not even give the right name. I understand these groups are trying to do the something good for their community, but they are violating the community's privacy rights. Not only is this illegal, but it can also be dangerous. What if someone that was close to Amanda decided to take the law into their own hands, and harm this man that 'Anonymous' identified. Then later it comes out that he wasn't involved at all. A completely innocent man could have been harmed for no reason, other than because these internet vigilantes thought they could provide justice themselves. This is why i believe criminal justice should be kept in the hands of the police and the judicial system. Here is the article I took this information from http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/10/19/f-doxing-tracking-online-identity-anonymity.html.

Onling Gaming: Starcraft

Online Gaming: Starcraft

When talking about online security I couldn't help but to think about online gaming. There are a ridiculous amount of people in the world connected through an online world. This world almost always is dependent upon goal oriented behavior. For example, any role playing game allows you to explore different areas of a map, and upgrade your character and progress to other challenges. In my case I wanted to talk about Starcraft for PC. This game is extremely old, and when it was first released there was an enormous amount of 'hacking'. Initially, I had no intention of hacking but constantly, when trying to sneak into an enemy base, I was being greeted by an army, it got frustrating. I downloaded a few hacks very easily from an online source which was accompanied with a read-me file. I was able to stack buildings, see the entire map, change my name, spam opponents screens, etc. It actually became more fun then playing. I downloaded an ANTI-hack which allowed me to detect if an opponent was hacking and drop there connection to the internet. I was also allowed to see opponents IP address's and computer profiles. So obviously during a game with pleanty of hackers, things might get a little carried away. For example, beating someone who was hacking, and they rage quit, start spamming you and messaging you your IP address and what not. It got so ridiculous people stopped playing Starcraft until the next version came out but it showed how incredibly easy it was to access peoples information.

Facebook Messages on Timeline

Recently Facebook users were unhappy to find their personal messages had been published for all of their friends. 900 million users around the world, 18 million in Canada had their personal messages between each other published to their "Timelines". Facebook maintains that these are not personal messages but I believe that is just a cover up. I personally observed numerous messages that I had not been intended for the public eye that were on my "Timeline". I believe that this is just a glimpse into what could happen if our personal information was leaked. This is not your social insurance number, home address, or credit information it is information you have sent to another member of Facebook with the idea that your message was private. Privacy on Facebook is a reoccurring debate due to its hierarchy of social media and the vast amounts of personal information people freely share over the Facebook servers.  This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to information leaking on Facebook which will be addresses in numerous blogs this semester. 

http://business.financialpost.com/2012/09/24/facebook-privacy-glitch-social-network-says-reports-of-private-messages-on-timelines-false/

I was just looking through a few media sources, trying to find something interesting to blog about when i found this article on CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/10/technology/security/google-chrome-hacker-prize/index.html. Google offered $60,000 to any hacker who could find security issues with their Google Chrome browser. Its interesting to see a company as established as Google, relying on hackers to try out their security systems, but i guess it worked because one hacker actually found problems with the browser and  received the $60,000 prize. I find it very interesting they just host a hacking competition for anyone that's able to hack, in order to find out problems with their servers. The hacker that won the prize is a teenage boy that goes by the online name "Pinkie Pie", and this wasn't even the first time he has taken Google's prize money. In 2010, him and another hacker took home another sum of money for finding holes in the Chrome browser back then. I think Google should just put him on their payroll, then they wouldn't have to hold any more of these competitions.

David