The Potential Threats of I.C.T

Introduction
 Although as we have already acknowledged I.C.T. is useful in a wide range of ways and has been one of the most influential things if you like of the 21st century like most things it also poses  serious threats. Before the introduction of I.C.T.  bullying only existed face to face and although thats what many people associate bullying with it also happens through various technologies , which is called cyber bullying . Other threats that are posed are spam ,  Phishing and denial of service attacks. All of these pose great threats and are huge critism regarding the development of I.C.T. .

Cyber Bullying
Many people adults and children alike associate bullying as being physical and face to face but often the verbal bullying and not knowing who is saying horrible things to you is often worse and more affects individuals mentally. Although most cases of cyber bullying is among children and teens adults can also be targeted and affected Cyber Bullying makes it easier for cowards to make anothers life a misery as they think they will never get found out. To be a vicitm of cyber bullying is horrible and the messages that some idviduals send are extremyl hurtful. Cyber bullying and other forms of bullying can lead to horrible consequences and many bully's dont understand how serious the issue actually is , many victims self harm and may even commit suicide because of how isolated they fell. 33% of youth have been victimised by cyber bullying and 41% dont tell anyone about the issues they have. Victims need to know that the only way to resolve the problems is by telling someone about the problems they are facing ; a teacher , a friend or even a family member anybody that you can trust and rely on.  Cybel bullying can happen in a number of forms via social networking sites such as facebook , email , through text messages and calls and even through micro-blogging sites such as twitter. The fact that before the development of computers , the internet and phones etc this type of bullying did'nt exist and was not around and so meant that there were much less cases of bullying as individuals did not have the access to the means of bullying. This is a major flaw and a huge potential threat to the futher development of I.C.T. due to the serverity of the situation and how it strongly affects people and can ultimately lead to the death of certain individuals and can also lead to many others being harmed or targeted for one reason or another.Although the major problem of cyber bullying is being improved i belive that it will be something that will never go away and so to stay safe online and to try and prevent cyber bullying as best as possible you should follow saefty rules and precautions to keep you safe.


Spam
Spam is the use of electronic messaging to a large group of people that are found on a mailing list most commonlly via email to usually advertise or sell a product. The emails are all almost identical and are often reffered to as 'junk mail' or unsolicited bulk mail (UBE). Spam has slowly increased since the early 1990's and as there is no cost involved for the sender it remains economically viable for companies to send spam messages.Spammers collect email addresses from chatrooms, websites, customer lists, newsgroups, and viruses which harvest users' address books, and are sold to other spammers. Spam affects different people in different ways as big companies may already have firewalls in place to prevent spam but other people at home who use computers and laptops for personal use may not have firewalls or the right software to protect them from spam and so are more at risk than others . Spam often contains viruses which when opened can be use to hack into peoples computers to retrive private and confidential information. They can also contain attachments which could be laced with viruses and so to prevent getting viruses you should never open spam and the attachments it contains. Spam has been aroud since the internet begun and is a huge potential threat to the users of computers as they are at all times at risk and vunerable of easily becoming a victim of spam.

Phishing
The act of sending an e-mail  to a user falsely claiming to be an established legitimate enterprise in an attempt to scam the user into surrendering private information that will be used for identity theft. The e-mail directs the user to visit a Web site where they are asked to update personal information, such as passwords and credit card, social security, and bank account numbers, that the legitimate organization already has. The Web site, however, is bogus and set up only to steal the users information.

Phishing is a variation on "fishing," the idea being that bait is thrown out with the hopes that while most will ignore the bait, some will be tempted into biting.Phishing is typically carried out by e-mail spoofing or instant messaging and it often directs users to enter details at a fake website whose look and feel are almost identical to the legitimate one. Phishing is an example of social engineering techniques used to deceive users, and exploits the poor usability of current web security technologies. Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, public awareness, and technical security measures.To prevent being a vitim of phishing you should take safety precautions such as guarding against spam , communicate personal information via phone or safe websites , don't click on links open attachments or downlaod files from unknown senders in a email , never email personal or financial information even if you have a close relationship with the recipient , beware of links that ask for personal information , never enter personal information into a pop-up screen, protect you device with a firewall or anti-virus and check your online accounts and bank statements regulaly.

Denial of Service Attacks

A denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) or distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS attack) is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users. Although the means to carry out, motives for, and targets of a DoS attack may vary, it generally consists of the concerted efforts of a person, or multiple people to prevent an Internet site or service from functioning efficiently or at all, temporarily or indefinitely. Perpetrators of DoS attacks typically target sites or services hosted on high-profile web servers such as banks and credit card payment gateways.Many attacks lead to service overloads and many leave the targeted machiene running extremly slowly or not at all meaning they cannot respond to the situation. It also menas that the commmunication between the victims and the company is extremly inadequate.Unfortunately, there are no effective ways to prevent being the victim of a DoS or DDoS attack, but there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood that an attacker will use your computer to attack other computers:

• Install and maintain anti-virus software (see Understanding Anti-Virus Software for more information).
• Install a firewall, and configure it to restrict traffic coming into and leaving your computer (see Understanding Firewalls for more information).

• Follow good security practices for distributing your email address (see Reducing Spam for more information). Applying email filters may help you manage unwanted traffic

Unequal Access regarding I.C.T.

Introduction
Many people around the world do not have access to computers , the internet , laptops and other technologies etc. Although for most of us imagining life without the internet would be impossible , but for many others around the world they have never even had the chance to experience it. 

Not everyone has access to the Internet, how can this affect people who don’t have access around the world?

 

Some people may not have a computer or phone in different countries so they are not able to communicate with other people which can be an unfair disadvantage.

People in this country may be affected by not having access to a computer or phone. They may be affected by this as they may need to find out certain information and not be able to access a website.

Some people in some countries are not able to get web access from medical conditions and disabilities (blind or colour blind) this is why lots of people lose touch in the world.

Some people either in this country  or other countries are affected by  unequal access because they may have old technologies which may not connect to the internet  this is the same with phones as in some rural places there is a limited access.

I.C.T In the Workplace

Introduction


I.C.T and developing technologies have had a huge impact on the world of work . Without all these advanced technologies many jobs would not exist and others would not be able to be done. The whole world of work is dependant on the Internet enormously and has made communication amongst colleagues much easier.


How has I.C.T changed the way we Work

These days people can work from home if they need to like if they have a physical illness or obesity. But it isn't a good way of communicating because people aren't going out and meeting new people.

Mobile phones have changed the way we work because people communicate by texting where as before they had to organise times and meetings in person.

How has the Employment structure and working practices changed ?

Working practices have changed a lot because they are much cleaner and safer and use a lot more technology related tools to do their job. Employment structure has changed.

Employment structure has changed a lot because there are a lot more different primary jobs because new elements have been discovered and that also effects secondary jobs because their making new things. Tertiary has also changed because there are new services that people need now that didn’t exist like someone who works in a mobile phone shop or repairs things like computer .

How a company maintains there sustainability!

 

For the business enterprise sustainable development means adopting business strategies and activities that meet the needs of the enterprise and stake holders today while protecting, sustaining and enhancing the human and natural resources that will be needed in the future.

 

How I.C.T affects how we socialise and Communicate

Introduction
The social impacts of I.C.T. affect our normal day to day life. Many things have changed since new technology has been developed. The time when you communicated using letters is way in the past and now without phones , the internet and emailing the modern day society would quite frankly not be able to survive.

How does I.C.T affect how we socialise?

ICT affects how we socialise by, allowing us to communicate simply to each other. A decade ago people didn’t have the technology to talk to each other like we do now e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc. Nowadays, people find out information via the internet but before, news was spread by word of mouth.

Being able to communicate via the internet doesn’t consist of bad points such as quick and simple and keeping in touch with people like your family and friends which also builds relationships that you need through life . 

Even though using the internet is much quicker and simpler means more time on phones especially with the new smart phones e.g. iPhone 4,Blackberry Curve etc decreasing face to face interaction. Sometimes socialising over the internet can be dangerous due to fake identities. Starting to socialise on the internet at a young age means decreased knowledge on face to face socialising and can affect your behaviour with a big impact. 

How do we use I.C.T.  for entertainment?

 

 

Nowadays, ICT entertainment is used a lot at a young age e.g. cbeebies has its own interactive website to play games. Most people also use ICT for iTunes for their mp3 player, iPod or maybe even their phone. A lot of people use twitter, facebook and websites like that to chat to others over a large network, ICT devices now have a way of linking your laptop or computer to the television so you can watch whatever you want on a bigger screen .

 

 

 

 

The Impacts of Law and I.C.T.

Introduction
 I.C.T. has changed the world tremendously and the law was not left behind where I.C.T was concerned. Many laws have been implemented to ensure that when using technology its safe , reliable and friendly. Many laws such as cyber law , copyright , unauthorized access , data privacy and spamming were put into place to ensure security in the mystic cal cyber world we call the internet!

 

How can someone be liable for copying someones work and passing it off as there own?

 

 

The word for this is plagiarism. Plagiarism is when you steal some-ones work and pass it off as your own without giving the owner credit for the work. In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward. It is most common in students, the consequence of a student committing this crime would be very serve; they would either be suspended, expelled or/and get an F or a 0. Also it will be kept on there educational record for a very long time.

How can someones privacy be protected online ?

 

 Many people have suffered from a invasion of there privacy online as it is much easier for individuals to target people online and collect private information than it is in real life! You may assume that the same laws that protect your privacy in the physical world apply to the digital world as well.  But the Internet remains largely unregulated and the policies governing it are underdeveloped.  Laws concerning online privacy are still being developed. Social networks are sites that allow there users to build social relations and although are extremely popular and in most cases good and helpful they can be an easy way for somebody to invade another’s privacy and access personal details !!!Many people besides friends and acquaintances are interested in the information people post on social networks.  Identity thieves, scam artists, debt collectors, stalkers, and corporations looking for a market advantage are using social networks to gather information about consumers.  Companies that operate social networks are themselves collecting a variety of data about their users, both to personalize the services for the users and to sell to advertisers.

How can People use the internet to help or hinder crime around the world?

 

The internet can be used to organize crime. An example of this is rioting, most gangs of rioting is organized online, on social networking sites! This is a criminal offence, people can be sent to prison for this, and put on there criminal record. However internet can help people find out about other peoples crimes that have been committed, help people find out about the wars that the world is having, and help to solve injustices’ that are vastly occurring.

 
How Does I.C.T make it easy to copy Music/Video files?

Many people in modern day society have been fined hundreds of thousands of pounds for what is known as file sharing. This is when individuals make songs accessible to download for everybody ,free which is against the rights of the artist who owns the rights to the song and its revenue. File sharers have many arguments to justify what they do , they may say that  if people download tracks then they probably wouldn’t have bought them in the first place.  So according to their argument, the record companies aren’t losing any money.  Obviously record companies strongly disagree with file sharers and say they are losing millions of pounds as people are not buying records as they used to. They say this has led to many job losses and means they have less and less money to invest in up and coming artists .  File sharing is seen as morally corrupt and many people say that p2p software’s such as limewire , Ares and Imesh which make file sharing all to easy for individuals should definitely be banned. Individuals have no sense of fear when downloading free songs as they do not acknowledge the severity of what they are doing and how it majorly affects a whole number of people. The copyright law which was passed on October 19th 1979 is implemented to make sure that file sharers come to justice and that artists , actors and directors alike get the money they were rightly entitled to and deserve. The punishment for copyright varies form community service , fines and can even go as far as prison!