4/28/2017 2 Comments Alive or Dead user account (#13)As advances in modern medicine continue to expand the life expectancy of people within the world, we tend to perceive death of someone we knew as tragic. Our perception of death has changed within the past couple of decades when we would see them as just another phase of life, especially when people had a lower life expectancy when compared to today. As time passed by, we see how the advancement in technology has allowed us to keep tangible pictures of the loved ones for the future. Fast forwarding to now, April 2017, we can store pictures of people in different places such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. Most of these accounts tend to be public so we are able to see their pictures of them and the adventures they have. When the person is no longer with us, their social media accounts are still on and everyone is able to view their pictures and things they posted when they were alive. People who don’t even know that they are not alive will even send them friend request or even tag them into things they are doing. Currently there aren’t really any rules or regulation, that I am aware about, that deals with the removal of social media accounts for people who aren’t alive anymore. According to an according I found online called “Dead Facebook users will soon outnumber the living” states “30 million Facebook users died in the first eight years of its existence. In fact, 428 of them die every hour, so they’re practically dropping like flies. And every day, these dormant accounts receive friend requests, get tagged in photos, and sometimes, they’re even wished a happy birthday.” Even though this doesn’t seem to be an immediate life or death problem for people, but it does bring into the light the question as too when should these types of accounts be deactivated and who should be the one to give the command, whether it be the family of the deceased user or the social media company itself? My personal opinion on this is that social media sites, like Facebook, should be able to take down a deceased persons account within a year or so. If the family or loved ones want to keep user account alive, then they should either ask or petition for it to be up. But if they do that, the account should be modified in such a way that it should not accept friend request, messages, and other things that a regular, living user would use. It should also have something that is a give away that this users account is not active because the person is deceased. Even when I was thinking about this, I realized that this itself poses an ethical issue when it comes to Facebook itself knowing that a person is deceased and therefor taking action against that. Whether they should have access to that specific and somewhat private information is up for debate, but when there are literally millions of inactive accounts online, it would probably be a good idea to start deleting some of them as time goes by. http://www.theloop.ca/dead-facebook-users-will-soon-outnumber-the-living/
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4/21/2017 5 Comments Alexa hears all (#12)As we begin to integrate technology more into our daily lives, we tend to rely on it more. We use assistants such as Siri or Google when we would like to do a specific task without having to type it. It can range from asking for the weather to having it search for something online or even play music. We also have other more upcoming pieces of technology such as Amazon’s Alexa, which is solely used listen to the user and execute what the user requests. In order for Alexa to determine when the user said the activation word “Alexa”, the device is always recording everything that it is listen to. It then sends the recorders somewhere else where Amazon determines whether the user at any moment said “Alexa”. These recording, according to Amazon are store somewhere in an Amazon server and are deleted in a “later time”. The exact time that they are stored range and there is no clear indication as to when they will get deleted. Given that Amazon’s device records the conversations, it will be useful in solving investigations such as the one I found online and that I also linked. According to the police report, there was murder that took place in a house. The exact occurrences as to how it happened are unknown, but the only clew lies within an Amazon echo device that was playing music when the incident occurred. Investigators are asking for Amazon to provide them with the recording for that specific date and time. This mainly goes back to the design of the Amazon echo in which it is always listen to its surrounding for the activation keyword. What this means is that there could be a recording of what happened the day of the incident stored somewhere in Amazon’s servers. Even though these device holds vital information to solving the crime at hand, Amazon is not just going to hand it over cause that is private information of the user and they are not just going to hand over private information of the user without there being a legal statement or lawsuit in this case against Amazon itself. This case is similar to the “investigation into the 2015 mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, pitted Apple, which built one of the shooter's mobile phones, against the FBI, which wanted the tech giant's help cracking the device's PIN code.” When it comes to these type of scenarios, there will always be a constant struggle with keeping people information private and the government wanting access to their information. http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/28/tech/amazon-echo-alexa-bentonville-arkansas-murder-case-trnd/ 4/14/2017 3 Comments Dangers of webcams (blogpost #11) We live in a time in when everyone has at least a computer at their house, whether it be a personal laptop or a desktop. We always tend to have these devices and others connected to the internet and the average person doesn’t really think about having their devices hacked by other people. This is especially concerning when it comes to most modern day laptops coming with webcams already installed in them or they can be easily bought at the store and could be as cheap as $20. The issues, as you might have guessed already, is that people can easily hack into your laptop and hijack your laptop/desktop and could do several things that they would like to. One thing that is most concerning is that they can turn on or off the webcam without you ever noticing. This is something that a parent would be extremely worried about as they would not feel safe or comfortable in having someone spy on them. According to the article “The Dangers of Webcams”, it mentions how “Webcams pose a serious risk to children because it allows an open window into the actives and lives (and bedrooms) of children and teens, and sexual predators are using this technology to their own perverted advantage to target and sexually abuse innocent children.” This is the thing that is the most concerning to me, just knowing that people like that are able to just watch children without them knowing.
In my opinion, I feel like the average adult should be familiar with risk of technology has, and not just look at the benefits that it has. People should be aware of the threats and dangers that are becoming more and more talked about and the negative impacts that it would have. Such as this example as was previously mentioned, if parents were more knowledgable about this sort of things, they would be more cautious of having technology around the house. Whether it be making sure to disconnect the computer from the internet when not being used, covering up webcams and audio ports so nobody listens to conversation, or even making sure that your computer doesn’t have any viruses. People should be more proactive making sure that they know as much as possible about the threats and dangers that come with buy a computer or anything other piece of technology has. http://www.tellinitlikeitis.net/2008/07/the-dangers-of-webcams.html 4/6/2017 2 Comments Wearable technology (Blog #10) We live in a world that is heavily dominated by technology such that everywhere we go, technology plays a role in shaping the way we live in the modern world. Whether it be the creation of autonomous cars that are capable of driving themselves from A to B or like the phones that we in our pockets right now. Within recent years, there has been a shift in the use of technology to more wearable technologies such as Apple’s iWatch, Fitbit sport watches and wristbands, and the list can go one. What these devices offer is sometimes more than what the phone itself is able to do, such as measure your heart rate, sleep patterns, level of exercise, and many more. Some people like these features and just the convenience that these devices offer the user, but all this comes at a price. If you have heard the expression before “Nothin in life is free”, then you know that all this comes at a price. Even though you did pay for the device with your hard earned money, you are also paying the company as well for the amount of time you use their product. In this case, you don’t pay the company with cash, necessarily, you are paying them with you data. Data that could range anywhere from your level of activity to your sleep patterns, companies will use the data to collect from you to try to figure out ways to improve their product or they can even sell your data to other companies so they can try to sell you their product. That is how big companies such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and many more are able to offer there product for free because they are just selling your information to other companies. Which goes back to what quote mentioned earlier about there is no such thing as something free. Another threat that people are more concerned when it comes to wearable technology is that they can easily be hacked. According to the article “A New Wake of Gadgets Can Collect Your Personal Information Like Never Before” mentions how “According to two security experts, wearable computing devices can get hacked, but it remains unclear as to whether or not there's real motivation in stealing data from wearable devices just yet.” This can be quite alarming for many of us, just knowing that other people are able to hack our devices and know things about us that we wouldn’t like to other people to know about us. One issue that comes to mind is the fact that some wearable technologies are able to gather GPS location of the user, which can be really frightening to know that someone knows exactly where you are at all times is scary. http://www.businessinsider.com/privacy-fitness-trackers-smartwatches-2014-10 |
AuthorHi, my name is Jose Sanchez, but many of my friends tend to call me Pepe. I am a Computer Science major at CSUMB and this is my blog post. Enjoy! :) Archives
May 2017
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