Ideagoras sites are places where both representants of different companies and organisations and individuals can gather together in order to exchange ideas and solutions to different kinds of problems. These places are open and basically anyone can join to them.
The biggest advantage for individual users is that they are able to share their knowledge and usually also gain some profit from it. For example, Amazon Mechanical Turk (https://www.mturk.com) advertises itself as a way to work from home and gain money by doing HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks). These HITs are at many times quite easy in a way that it does nor require that much effort but the paycheck is also quite small - beginning from 0.01$.
I think that this kind of thing could actually be a good hobby for people. Many of the HITs are basic things that do not require much special knowledge. For example, people are asked to rewrite some sentences or tell what they thing about some particular sentence (is it positive or negative and so on). There are also some sort of education for people. For example the Mechanical Turk requires people to do "WebReviews Qualification Master Test" in order to do that kind of HITs.
Of course there are also more difficult tasks. In these cases the disadvantage for individuals is that the requester who has made the HIT becomes the owner of the piece of work. For example in Amazon Mechanical Turk the people who answer tho HITs has to accept a Participation Agreement. In this agreement it is said that "As a Provider, the Requester for whom you provide Services is your client, and as such, you agree that the work product of any Services you perform is deemed a "work made for hire" for the benefit of the Requester, and all ownership rights, including worldwide intellectual property rights, will vest with the Requester immediately upon your performance of the Service.". (https://www.mturk.com:443/mturk/conditionsofuse)
So basically this means that if someone really comes up with a superb idea the payment of that can be just a dollar or so and the profit for the company can be counted in millions.
From companies these kind of webpages can be a really good source of information. This does not mean only new innovations and such but also smaller issues. For example, a company could do a user survey of their webpages through this kind of service and ask people to give ideas to improve their webpages, find broken links and so on. Furthermore there are HITs for translations to different languages and so on. Naturally this is an easy and also quite cheap way of gaining this kind of information for the company. I do not think that many companies for example in Finland are using these kind of services so for example a small or medium sized company could really profit from them. It can be really a lot cheaper to pay 0.01$ for "normal people" to do surveys than hire a professional to gather the information.
Personally I am a little bit sceptic for these kind of portals to really share a high-value ideas and innovations but for different kinds of smaller tasks they are a good tool.
Sunday, 2 May 2010
Weekly task 5: Ideagoras:There is always more knowledge outside the company (Jonna Ylikauppila)
In this weekly task I should deeper analyze the pros and cons of the virtual places that offer a gathering place for people,their knowledge& abilities and furthermore a place for companies to search new ideas and solutions.I should likewise give examples and describe how our University could use ideagoras.
Pros and cons for individuals
There will be more and more work available for talented individuals who have come out with their new ideas.
These new ideas can create more jobs when further R&D,marketing,manufacturing etc needs to be done.Of coure it can likewise work other way around and diminish the manpower needed.
You can post your ideas to ideagoras and if somebody gets interested get money out of it,but in that case you likewise have to meet best the challenge criterias
Your innovative idea can open you a career on that specific area you are good at,even international career is possible
You have to compete against other talents
In innocentive database your property rights are protected if the company to whom your idea has been revealed doesn’t want to use it after all.In that case the intellectual property rights will protect you from abuse,the company cannot use that idea if you are not paid for it.
Pros and cons for company
When you have managed to gain the rights to a noble and good idea it may occur that your company is the first company providing that kind of product and you will get a market advantage/competitive advantage out of that.When you are the first one it likewise takes some time from your competitors to develop similar products/substitutes which will give you more time to further develop your product/service.
There is always more intelligent and talented people outside your company and it is possible to find some of them when using Ideagoras type of services.
You can get ideas and opportunities from Ideagoras without need to hire people,even though that is likewise possible to do.
You can get new ideas cheap and you don’t have to spend your time and money to develop that one
You can focus more on answering customers needs with those new innovations
Innocentive helps all sized companies and even non-profit organizations
The new ideas can come all around the world and you are not limited to a certain area or country,thanks to internet
You can more rapidly answer to changing customer needs
How our university could use this?
Our University could use Ideagoras to measure and ensure the satisfaction of the staff and students as well as a tool for further development. This could help our University to create better communication and marketing methods between different partner schools in Finland and worldwide.
By this means the level of the education, cooperation and studying services could be evaluated more efficiently and developed in cooperation with the other schools. Worldwide study using Ideagoras could point out some good and bad ways on carrying out things in our school and we could learn some better or new ways from other schools.
This kind of study could likewise be used to monitor the amount of drop out students in different study areas and be used to detect the reasons for those drop outs.
Pros and cons for individuals
There will be more and more work available for talented individuals who have come out with their new ideas.
These new ideas can create more jobs when further R&D,marketing,manufacturing etc needs to be done.Of coure it can likewise work other way around and diminish the manpower needed.
You can post your ideas to ideagoras and if somebody gets interested get money out of it,but in that case you likewise have to meet best the challenge criterias
Your innovative idea can open you a career on that specific area you are good at,even international career is possible
You have to compete against other talents
In innocentive database your property rights are protected if the company to whom your idea has been revealed doesn’t want to use it after all.In that case the intellectual property rights will protect you from abuse,the company cannot use that idea if you are not paid for it.
Pros and cons for company
When you have managed to gain the rights to a noble and good idea it may occur that your company is the first company providing that kind of product and you will get a market advantage/competitive advantage out of that.When you are the first one it likewise takes some time from your competitors to develop similar products/substitutes which will give you more time to further develop your product/service.
There is always more intelligent and talented people outside your company and it is possible to find some of them when using Ideagoras type of services.
You can get ideas and opportunities from Ideagoras without need to hire people,even though that is likewise possible to do.
You can get new ideas cheap and you don’t have to spend your time and money to develop that one
You can focus more on answering customers needs with those new innovations
Innocentive helps all sized companies and even non-profit organizations
The new ideas can come all around the world and you are not limited to a certain area or country,thanks to internet
You can more rapidly answer to changing customer needs
How our university could use this?
Our University could use Ideagoras to measure and ensure the satisfaction of the staff and students as well as a tool for further development. This could help our University to create better communication and marketing methods between different partner schools in Finland and worldwide.
By this means the level of the education, cooperation and studying services could be evaluated more efficiently and developed in cooperation with the other schools. Worldwide study using Ideagoras could point out some good and bad ways on carrying out things in our school and we could learn some better or new ways from other schools.
This kind of study could likewise be used to monitor the amount of drop out students in different study areas and be used to detect the reasons for those drop outs.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
Weekly task 4 - Privacy Policies
Privacy policy
Privacy policy is a binding legal document that brings out the ways or at least most of the ways the party uses, manages and reveals the information it has been given or it has gathered while you have been surfing its websites. It likewise reveals how the information is gathered. The applicable laws, regulations and contents of this document are various in different countries and that is why you as a customer or partner of the company should be aware of these.
EU has given a Directive on the Protection of Personal Data to give guidelines to its member countries. This directive helps us to better understand what kind of data is possible to collect inside EU, even though the directives aren’t legally binding before the member countries have transposed into their own national laws. The above mentioned law was taken place latest during 1998 in member countries.
Because the data protection laws in EU and US are different, those standards needed to be integrated. In 2001 those standards in US were integrated together with consultation of EU. These standards must be met not only when operating business inside the EU area but also when company is collecting personal data of EU citizen. This principle is mentioned for companies that operate inside the EU or US and store data of their customers and it is called International Safe Harbor.
These principles must provide:
• Notice - Individuals must be informed that their data is being collected and about how it will be used.
• Choice - Individuals must have the ability to opt out of the collection and forward transfer of the data to third parties.
• Onward Transfer - Transfers of data to third parties may only occur to other organizations that follow adequate data protection principles.
• Security - Reasonable efforts must be made to prevent loss of collected information.
• Data Integrity - Data must be relevant and reliable for the purpose it was collected for.
• Access - Individuals must be able to access information held about them, and correct or delete it if it is inaccurate.
• Enforcement - There must be effective means of enforcing these rules.
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles)
These rules are made not only to protect the customers but also the companies. If there is a leak in the security of a company the customers should report that to the company in order to help them to develop their security programs, protocols and to better educate their personnel. When a possible leak takes in place it is good that the company and customer both know what kind of information has been revealed and for what it can be used.
Companies are collecting personal data of their customers for example because they would like to improve their services, give information about their events and in some cases because they would like to personalize their offers to customers. That is likewise one way how they can use that information for marketing and for financial gaining.
Examples of two different privacy policies
We chose the companies H&M and eBay as our examples. H&M is a renowned Swedish fashion company. In addition to fashion for woman, men and children, H&M produce products for shoe fashion and cosmetics. The products from H&M are selling in 2000 stores in over 35 countries. The company uses also the Internet to present the brand and to sell products.
EBay is an American company and employ the world wide biggest auction house. At the beginning of the company the offering was more a consumer-to-consumer market. In recent years the offering changes more and more to a business-to-consumer market. EBay is using by 276 million registered users in 35 nations.
The two companies using the Internet in two different ways: H&M wants to present the brand, give the costumers first impressions about the new collection and communicate the business idea. H&M is not interested in selling the products exclusive over online-shops. The webpage is more an invitation for the costumers to visit the real stores. EBay is only active at the internet: there is no “real” shop for visit. These differences in the companies’ policies are reflected in the privacy policies at the websites:
Contents of the privacy policies
The webpage by H&M can normally used without having an account. But for buying products you have to register yourself at the webpage. The privacy police inform the costumer about which data are necessary and what happened with the data – where the data are saved, how long they are saved and if they will transfer to other third persons. Furthermore they explain why and how they use cookies to improve the website. The private policy is very costumers-orientated, easy to read and you have the feeling that your data are in good hands.
The costumers can also use the eBay webpage without any registration. But then they are not able to buy or sell any products. For becoming a member of the eBay community you have to agree with the private policy and the user’s agreement. If you read the users agreement you will be inform about what you are not allowed to do, e.g. "While using eBay sites, services and tools, you will not:
use our sites, services, or tools if you are not able to form legally binding contracts, are under the age of 18, or are temporarily or indefinitely suspended from using our sites, services, or tools".
The next chapters are about abusing eBay, buyer protection and fees and services. A big point in this case is the liability and indemnity of eBay. With this eBay protect his self because the costumers agree not to make any liability claims against the company. Furthermore eBay controls the course of action if you have a dispute. But that is not all – if you agree with the users agreement you also agree with the following policies:
- Outage policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-outage.html
- Prohibited and restricted items policy -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html
- Discussion Boards usage policy -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-boards.html
- Listing policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-ov.html
- Investigations- http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/report-trading.html
- Real Estate policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/real-estate.html
- Community content policy (covers Reviews, Guides, Blog Entries, Wiki Articles and Member-Created Product Descriptions) -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/member-created-content-ov.html
- eBay Groups guidelines - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/group-guidelines.html
- Rules about intellectual property -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/intellectual-property-ov.html
- eBay Buyer Protection Policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/buyer-protection.html
The private policies of eBay describe how they handle with the personal information of the costumers. Like H&M they inform the costumers about what data are collected and what happen with the data – if they give the data to third persons and where the information is stored. EBay describes why and how they us cookies and explain what cookies are. Furthermore you have to make sure that you don´t use eBay to send spam’s, viruses or phishing attacks. For choosing a password eBay give some helps how to find a suitable and save password.
3. Differences and customer-orientation
There are huge differences in the private policy from H&M and eBay. H&M inform their costumers about the happening of the personal information. If you read the private policy you have the feeling that H&M tries to win the trust of the costumers and make them feel comfortable by giving personal data. The policy is very clear to the costumers because the terms are very short and understandable. In the “normal” private policy eBay tries to make the same like H&M. The company informed the costumers very well about the incident of the personal information. The privacy policy of the H&M is like a part of the web page, it cab be read quickly and it feels like it is part of the site. Thing, what the consumers should and want to read.
But for having an account at eBay you have to agree also with the users agreement. In this agreement eBay protect themselves against everything. The list of things you have to pay attention is endless and we think no costumer wants to read everything. In this case you as costumer have the feeling it doesn´t matter what happened I have no chance against eBay. Maybe this is also a reason why eBay have these strict rules: they want to awe the costumers e.g. in the case of a dispute? Other difficulties for costumers are the huge amount of links to other policies, which you also have to read if you want to agree. The users agreement are in some parts not very understandable for costumers – we think they confused the costumers more than to help them. In the eBay, the privacy policy is long, and looks like more “official” than the H&M’s one.
H&M is close to the consumer in their privacy policy. They explain what is happening and why and how everything is designed to support the consumer. The eBay tells in a very official way about the privacy policy. Even though they also mention how they think a lot about the consumer, they do it in a very different way than the H&M. For these manners the US maybe affects a lot. H&M’s main office is still in Sweden, and they look at things in very European way. But eBay is an American company, and we all know that in the States, everything has to be clear and complicated in order to protect the company from the consumers.
Privacy policy is a binding legal document that brings out the ways or at least most of the ways the party uses, manages and reveals the information it has been given or it has gathered while you have been surfing its websites. It likewise reveals how the information is gathered. The applicable laws, regulations and contents of this document are various in different countries and that is why you as a customer or partner of the company should be aware of these.
EU has given a Directive on the Protection of Personal Data to give guidelines to its member countries. This directive helps us to better understand what kind of data is possible to collect inside EU, even though the directives aren’t legally binding before the member countries have transposed into their own national laws. The above mentioned law was taken place latest during 1998 in member countries.
Because the data protection laws in EU and US are different, those standards needed to be integrated. In 2001 those standards in US were integrated together with consultation of EU. These standards must be met not only when operating business inside the EU area but also when company is collecting personal data of EU citizen. This principle is mentioned for companies that operate inside the EU or US and store data of their customers and it is called International Safe Harbor.
These principles must provide:
• Notice - Individuals must be informed that their data is being collected and about how it will be used.
• Choice - Individuals must have the ability to opt out of the collection and forward transfer of the data to third parties.
• Onward Transfer - Transfers of data to third parties may only occur to other organizations that follow adequate data protection principles.
• Security - Reasonable efforts must be made to prevent loss of collected information.
• Data Integrity - Data must be relevant and reliable for the purpose it was collected for.
• Access - Individuals must be able to access information held about them, and correct or delete it if it is inaccurate.
• Enforcement - There must be effective means of enforcing these rules.
(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles)
These rules are made not only to protect the customers but also the companies. If there is a leak in the security of a company the customers should report that to the company in order to help them to develop their security programs, protocols and to better educate their personnel. When a possible leak takes in place it is good that the company and customer both know what kind of information has been revealed and for what it can be used.
Companies are collecting personal data of their customers for example because they would like to improve their services, give information about their events and in some cases because they would like to personalize their offers to customers. That is likewise one way how they can use that information for marketing and for financial gaining.
Examples of two different privacy policies
We chose the companies H&M and eBay as our examples. H&M is a renowned Swedish fashion company. In addition to fashion for woman, men and children, H&M produce products for shoe fashion and cosmetics. The products from H&M are selling in 2000 stores in over 35 countries. The company uses also the Internet to present the brand and to sell products.
EBay is an American company and employ the world wide biggest auction house. At the beginning of the company the offering was more a consumer-to-consumer market. In recent years the offering changes more and more to a business-to-consumer market. EBay is using by 276 million registered users in 35 nations.
The two companies using the Internet in two different ways: H&M wants to present the brand, give the costumers first impressions about the new collection and communicate the business idea. H&M is not interested in selling the products exclusive over online-shops. The webpage is more an invitation for the costumers to visit the real stores. EBay is only active at the internet: there is no “real” shop for visit. These differences in the companies’ policies are reflected in the privacy policies at the websites:
Contents of the privacy policies
The webpage by H&M can normally used without having an account. But for buying products you have to register yourself at the webpage. The privacy police inform the costumer about which data are necessary and what happened with the data – where the data are saved, how long they are saved and if they will transfer to other third persons. Furthermore they explain why and how they use cookies to improve the website. The private policy is very costumers-orientated, easy to read and you have the feeling that your data are in good hands.
The costumers can also use the eBay webpage without any registration. But then they are not able to buy or sell any products. For becoming a member of the eBay community you have to agree with the private policy and the user’s agreement. If you read the users agreement you will be inform about what you are not allowed to do, e.g. "While using eBay sites, services and tools, you will not:
use our sites, services, or tools if you are not able to form legally binding contracts, are under the age of 18, or are temporarily or indefinitely suspended from using our sites, services, or tools".
The next chapters are about abusing eBay, buyer protection and fees and services. A big point in this case is the liability and indemnity of eBay. With this eBay protect his self because the costumers agree not to make any liability claims against the company. Furthermore eBay controls the course of action if you have a dispute. But that is not all – if you agree with the users agreement you also agree with the following policies:
- Outage policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-outage.html
- Prohibited and restricted items policy -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/items-ov.html
- Discussion Boards usage policy -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/everyone-boards.html
- Listing policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/listing-ov.html
- Investigations- http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/report-trading.html
- Real Estate policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/real-estate.html
- Community content policy (covers Reviews, Guides, Blog Entries, Wiki Articles and Member-Created Product Descriptions) -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/member-created-content-ov.html
- eBay Groups guidelines - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/group-guidelines.html
- Rules about intellectual property -http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/intellectual-property-ov.html
- eBay Buyer Protection Policy - http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/buyer-protection.html
The private policies of eBay describe how they handle with the personal information of the costumers. Like H&M they inform the costumers about what data are collected and what happen with the data – if they give the data to third persons and where the information is stored. EBay describes why and how they us cookies and explain what cookies are. Furthermore you have to make sure that you don´t use eBay to send spam’s, viruses or phishing attacks. For choosing a password eBay give some helps how to find a suitable and save password.
3. Differences and customer-orientation
There are huge differences in the private policy from H&M and eBay. H&M inform their costumers about the happening of the personal information. If you read the private policy you have the feeling that H&M tries to win the trust of the costumers and make them feel comfortable by giving personal data. The policy is very clear to the costumers because the terms are very short and understandable. In the “normal” private policy eBay tries to make the same like H&M. The company informed the costumers very well about the incident of the personal information. The privacy policy of the H&M is like a part of the web page, it cab be read quickly and it feels like it is part of the site. Thing, what the consumers should and want to read.
But for having an account at eBay you have to agree also with the users agreement. In this agreement eBay protect themselves against everything. The list of things you have to pay attention is endless and we think no costumer wants to read everything. In this case you as costumer have the feeling it doesn´t matter what happened I have no chance against eBay. Maybe this is also a reason why eBay have these strict rules: they want to awe the costumers e.g. in the case of a dispute? Other difficulties for costumers are the huge amount of links to other policies, which you also have to read if you want to agree. The users agreement are in some parts not very understandable for costumers – we think they confused the costumers more than to help them. In the eBay, the privacy policy is long, and looks like more “official” than the H&M’s one.
H&M is close to the consumer in their privacy policy. They explain what is happening and why and how everything is designed to support the consumer. The eBay tells in a very official way about the privacy policy. Even though they also mention how they think a lot about the consumer, they do it in a very different way than the H&M. For these manners the US maybe affects a lot. H&M’s main office is still in Sweden, and they look at things in very European way. But eBay is an American company, and we all know that in the States, everything has to be clear and complicated in order to protect the company from the consumers.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Weekly task 3 - the digital divide
A map considering the digital divide from a perspect of amount of computers can be seen here.
The first view
The differences between population groups in a society are also one reason for the digital divide like the differences between industrialized countries and developing countries: If people have a lack of information and computer technology skills they have bad changes for well paid jobs. People with a low-income have less option to buy their own computers or have internet access. It´s like a vicious circle. The governments as well as private organizations of each countries are searching for opportunities to solve this problem.
The organization “One Laptop Per Childs” developed a laptop especially for children in emerging markets and developing countries. In principle this is a really good idea but on the other hand it is important not to forget other problems in these countries like the lack of drinking water or food. Furthermore is the using of computer by children in the industrialized countries disputed because of the high level of playing computer games. The same problems could be become in the developing countries. The governments of industrialized countries want that everybody have access to the internet. For realizing this project a lot of money is necessary and the government gets this money from the citizens by decreasing taxes.
I think it is the job of the government to ensure that everybody have access to the internet. Especially for people who searches for jobs or pupils and students. Today the internet or in general computers are a basic need like water and food. You need to do homeworks, to write your thesis, to search for the next vacations and inform yourself about your possible future employer. Of course you can say it is not fair that the people in big cities pay for the people in rural regions but that is the system: the working people pay for the workless people, young working people pay for the people in pension and so on.
The second view
My view to this issue is that the Digital Divide actually deepens the gap between the poor and rich people. The government should help people to get access to the Internet and the usage of technology. This could also increase the knowledge of the citizens and maybe even increase the civilization of the people, when the knowledge is close and easy to reach.
But still, drying to make the Digital Divide to vanish is not easy. The poorest people, and the ones who are “excluded” from the society can be totally out from the technology. Educating the older people too would be important.
The technology offers a lot of opportunities to everyone, and everyone should be justified to use it. Now the Digital Divide just separates people from each other.
Digital divide in practise
During the lectures we talked a lot of opportunity to shop online and how the digital divide excludes people without access to Internet from opportunities to buy for example flight tickets online. I understand that shopping online can help people to save a lot of money but I do not think that it is the biggest issue considering the digital divide.
The Internet is nowadays a vital source of information and all the information in the net already exists and all anyone needs is a computer to access to it. So from this point of view Internet is a cheap source of information. That is why it is important to develop new ways to make the gap of digital divide between rich and poor countries smaller. Of course the multinational companies are more interested of these kind of projects if they think that in the developing countries there might be some profit coming in. But if we think realistic, these people have some bigger needs than booking flight tickets a bit cheaper.
On the other hand, digital divide is not only a matter of having a computer. For example in China people are tried to be excluded from information that the government does not want people to have. I think that this is also digital dividing.
The first view
The differences between population groups in a society are also one reason for the digital divide like the differences between industrialized countries and developing countries: If people have a lack of information and computer technology skills they have bad changes for well paid jobs. People with a low-income have less option to buy their own computers or have internet access. It´s like a vicious circle. The governments as well as private organizations of each countries are searching for opportunities to solve this problem.
The organization “One Laptop Per Childs” developed a laptop especially for children in emerging markets and developing countries. In principle this is a really good idea but on the other hand it is important not to forget other problems in these countries like the lack of drinking water or food. Furthermore is the using of computer by children in the industrialized countries disputed because of the high level of playing computer games. The same problems could be become in the developing countries. The governments of industrialized countries want that everybody have access to the internet. For realizing this project a lot of money is necessary and the government gets this money from the citizens by decreasing taxes.
I think it is the job of the government to ensure that everybody have access to the internet. Especially for people who searches for jobs or pupils and students. Today the internet or in general computers are a basic need like water and food. You need to do homeworks, to write your thesis, to search for the next vacations and inform yourself about your possible future employer. Of course you can say it is not fair that the people in big cities pay for the people in rural regions but that is the system: the working people pay for the workless people, young working people pay for the people in pension and so on.
The second view
My view to this issue is that the Digital Divide actually deepens the gap between the poor and rich people. The government should help people to get access to the Internet and the usage of technology. This could also increase the knowledge of the citizens and maybe even increase the civilization of the people, when the knowledge is close and easy to reach.
But still, drying to make the Digital Divide to vanish is not easy. The poorest people, and the ones who are “excluded” from the society can be totally out from the technology. Educating the older people too would be important.
The technology offers a lot of opportunities to everyone, and everyone should be justified to use it. Now the Digital Divide just separates people from each other.
Digital divide in practise
During the lectures we talked a lot of opportunity to shop online and how the digital divide excludes people without access to Internet from opportunities to buy for example flight tickets online. I understand that shopping online can help people to save a lot of money but I do not think that it is the biggest issue considering the digital divide.
The Internet is nowadays a vital source of information and all the information in the net already exists and all anyone needs is a computer to access to it. So from this point of view Internet is a cheap source of information. That is why it is important to develop new ways to make the gap of digital divide between rich and poor countries smaller. Of course the multinational companies are more interested of these kind of projects if they think that in the developing countries there might be some profit coming in. But if we think realistic, these people have some bigger needs than booking flight tickets a bit cheaper.
On the other hand, digital divide is not only a matter of having a computer. For example in China people are tried to be excluded from information that the government does not want people to have. I think that this is also digital dividing.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Weekly task 2 - Hackers and viruses
Virus cases
Facebook e-mail as camouflage for Virus attack – 21.03.2010
In March 2010 a lot of Facebook users had problems with a phishing virus. The users got a e-mail with the information that the password have to be renewed. The attachment of the mail includes dangerous software. This software installed different programs from the internet on the computer and with this program the hacker is able to find out passwords and usernames.
Source: http://news.preisgenau.de/phishing-virus-fordert-user-auf-ihr-facebook-password-zuruckzusetzen-6176.html
MMS – Bomber in China – 05.04.2010
A virus in China infected millions of cell phones. The virus is camouflaged as a application and sends per multimedia message a URL with dangerously codes. The owner of the cell phone have to pay for this MMS without any knowledge about it.
Source: http://business.chip.de/news/MMS-Bomber-Virus-auf-Millionen-von-Handys_42290969.html
Famous Hackers and cases caused by hackers
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick is most likely the most famous hacker of his time (he is born in 1963). He has been in jail for several times because of his crimes done by hacking to different systems (for example, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network of The USA from witch the Internet as we know it now was developed). Mr. Mitnick hacked also to several companies' computer systems (ie. Nokia, Fujitsu, Motorola).
Nowadays Kevin Mitnick can be discribed as "white-hat hacker" since he is running his own computer security consultancy. He has also wrote two books and several movies are made about him.
Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6670127/Top-10-most-famous-hackers.html
http://www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html
Hacker Revenge in China -08.04.2010
The Chinese politician Yan Qi supports an embargo of private Internet cafés. In her opinion are Internet cafés the main reason for social problems like truancy and addiction to computer games.
The User community of such internet cafes reacted with a Hacker attack. Goal of the attack was the website of the restaurant, which owner is Yin. The Hackers deleted all links and wrote disdainfully messages on the site.
Sources: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/computer/837/505043/text/
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,681688,00.html
US- Hacker swindled with stolen Credit card data’s - 27.03.2010
The Hacker Albert Gonzales stole as much as $ 200 million by penetrating the server of a credit-card processing company and intercepting wireless signals from major retail outlets. He used real accounts to create bogus credit cards..
Source: http://www.webbassena.com/2010/03/allgemein/us-computer-hacker-albert-gonzalez-muss-
Jonna's experiences and thoughts of viruses
Luckily I have never been able to have or install a virus into any of our computers because of the good firewalls and anti-virus programs that have been running in our computers. Those programs are updated on regularly basis and they will give a notice when they need to be updated or when there is a new better version available.The good thing in those programs is that you can easily and freely download those from the internet and install them without being a computer wizard.
Not long ago I was surfing on my favorite baking sites and got virus warning after I opened one link on the site. I was actually a bit scared not because of the virus alarm notice but the alarm sound the computer started to keep! The virus itself was easy to remove, just by choosing delete from the multiple options. The virus was some kind of worm; I did not pay a lot of attention to that.
The other members of our group have got similar experiences and it has been nice to notice that none of us have been able to get a virus neither into the computer nor to the memory stick.
Facebook e-mail as camouflage for Virus attack – 21.03.2010
In March 2010 a lot of Facebook users had problems with a phishing virus. The users got a e-mail with the information that the password have to be renewed. The attachment of the mail includes dangerous software. This software installed different programs from the internet on the computer and with this program the hacker is able to find out passwords and usernames.
Source: http://news.preisgenau.de/phishing-virus-fordert-user-auf-ihr-facebook-password-zuruckzusetzen-6176.html
MMS – Bomber in China – 05.04.2010
A virus in China infected millions of cell phones. The virus is camouflaged as a application and sends per multimedia message a URL with dangerously codes. The owner of the cell phone have to pay for this MMS without any knowledge about it.
Source: http://business.chip.de/news/MMS-Bomber-Virus-auf-Millionen-von-Handys_42290969.html
Famous Hackers and cases caused by hackers
Kevin Mitnick
Kevin Mitnick is most likely the most famous hacker of his time (he is born in 1963). He has been in jail for several times because of his crimes done by hacking to different systems (for example, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network of The USA from witch the Internet as we know it now was developed). Mr. Mitnick hacked also to several companies' computer systems (ie. Nokia, Fujitsu, Motorola).
Nowadays Kevin Mitnick can be discribed as "white-hat hacker" since he is running his own computer security consultancy. He has also wrote two books and several movies are made about him.
Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/6670127/Top-10-most-famous-hackers.html
http://www.takedown.com/bio/mitnick.html
Hacker Revenge in China -08.04.2010
The Chinese politician Yan Qi supports an embargo of private Internet cafés. In her opinion are Internet cafés the main reason for social problems like truancy and addiction to computer games.
The User community of such internet cafes reacted with a Hacker attack. Goal of the attack was the website of the restaurant, which owner is Yin. The Hackers deleted all links and wrote disdainfully messages on the site.
Sources: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/computer/837/505043/text/
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,681688,00.html
US- Hacker swindled with stolen Credit card data’s - 27.03.2010
The Hacker Albert Gonzales stole as much as $ 200 million by penetrating the server of a credit-card processing company and intercepting wireless signals from major retail outlets. He used real accounts to create bogus credit cards..
Source: http://www.webbassena.com/2010/03/allgemein/us-computer-hacker-albert-gonzalez-muss-
Jonna's experiences and thoughts of viruses
Luckily I have never been able to have or install a virus into any of our computers because of the good firewalls and anti-virus programs that have been running in our computers. Those programs are updated on regularly basis and they will give a notice when they need to be updated or when there is a new better version available.The good thing in those programs is that you can easily and freely download those from the internet and install them without being a computer wizard.
Not long ago I was surfing on my favorite baking sites and got virus warning after I opened one link on the site. I was actually a bit scared not because of the virus alarm notice but the alarm sound the computer started to keep! The virus itself was easy to remove, just by choosing delete from the multiple options. The virus was some kind of worm; I did not pay a lot of attention to that.
The other members of our group have got similar experiences and it has been nice to notice that none of us have been able to get a virus neither into the computer nor to the memory stick.
Sunday, 28 March 2010
Task 1 - Export restrictions of strong encryption system
Computer encryption is based on the science of cryptography. Cryptography has been used very long time, actually as long as humans have wanted to keep information secret. Before it came possible to all of us, the biggest users were governments, mainly in the military purposes. The cryptography is used in that way that the one who should read the message needs some ciphers to decode the message.
1. The US government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems –WHY?
The World Wide Web is full of risks for his users because all information can be catched, stored and falsified. But mostly, The US government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems simply because they are have a fear of the terrorists will obtain access to it. Even though the US government would do this, the restrictions will not keep terrorists away from the strong encryption, because technology is available almost in every part of the world.
2. Why or why not should other countries and individuals be against it?
Basically the US Government’s worries are understandable and everyone in the world should understand it. The terrorism is a huge problem in the world nowadays and especially in the US. This is why people should understand that why the US Government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems. So that it is easier to follow and reach the criminals.
But in the other hand, why should the whole world follow the US. The US has been trying to be the boss and police of the whole other world, why should it have the right to command other countries and individuals. By restricting the encryption systems, the US government is also controlling the individual users of the Internet. They could follow and watch what people are doing. Should only one government have a right to do it?
3. What do you in general think about governments roles about controlling the information on the internet?
We think that there are two different sides of this subject. In the other hand it is good that the government has a right to restrict things in the Internet and find information easily. That could increase the national or even international safety. But that also means controlling the privet persons Internet usage. Then the government has the right to collect individual persons data and information. This is also an offence to the personal rights.
So we do not have a right single opinion for this one. There is always two sides of the question.
1. The US government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems –WHY?
The World Wide Web is full of risks for his users because all information can be catched, stored and falsified. But mostly, The US government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems simply because they are have a fear of the terrorists will obtain access to it. Even though the US government would do this, the restrictions will not keep terrorists away from the strong encryption, because technology is available almost in every part of the world.
2. Why or why not should other countries and individuals be against it?
Basically the US Government’s worries are understandable and everyone in the world should understand it. The terrorism is a huge problem in the world nowadays and especially in the US. This is why people should understand that why the US Government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption systems. So that it is easier to follow and reach the criminals.
But in the other hand, why should the whole world follow the US. The US has been trying to be the boss and police of the whole other world, why should it have the right to command other countries and individuals. By restricting the encryption systems, the US government is also controlling the individual users of the Internet. They could follow and watch what people are doing. Should only one government have a right to do it?
3. What do you in general think about governments roles about controlling the information on the internet?
We think that there are two different sides of this subject. In the other hand it is good that the government has a right to restrict things in the Internet and find information easily. That could increase the national or even international safety. But that also means controlling the privet persons Internet usage. Then the government has the right to collect individual persons data and information. This is also an offence to the personal rights.
So we do not have a right single opinion for this one. There is always two sides of the question.
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