Weekly task - week 4

PRIVACY POLICIES OF WEB SITE

Two websites with private policy

• http://about.aol.com/aolnetwork/aol_pp
• http://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=p/gen/ua/policy_privacy-outside

Aol company defines itself as: "AOL is a leading global ad-supported Web company, with a comprehensive display advertising network in the U.S., a suite of popular Web brands and products, and a leading social media network."

Paypal defines itself as:"PayPal is the faster, safer way to pay and get paid online. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing."

Both companies have more or less the same content of private policy.

• personnal information (protection and storage)
  
• information of operational system, browser
• protection of financial information
• restriction of using services, children
• customer information service
• information about cookies
• sharing information to other parties

PayPal is more focused on financial information because the company is based on financial services.

PayPal pribvate policy is clear because it is described in shorter way with examples and the reader hase the possibility to choose topic chapter.

Weekly task - week 3

What is the Digital Divide?

Digital divide is a gap between people who have access to the technology (computers) and Internet. This problem concerns all people in developed countries or in developing countries. Indeed, in developed countries, some people do not have any Internet connection because of the cost or the place where they live (in countryside for example).
As the European Commission established, we think that to have an Internet access can be possible for everyone.

Developed countries
For that reason, government should give some subventions in order to give computers, training etc... Moreover, in some countries as Sweden or Finland, it is possible to find in public area (railway station) some computers in self service. Computers are available for free but customers have to pay for the Internet connection.

Basically, people in Scandinavia chose themselves the place for living in the forest and further suburbs. According to this reason it is not necessary to make restriction to provide internet connection everywhere. Or not high spead connection, we think that this investition is to big and more and less useless.

Developing countries

Technology and Internet connection are not spread as well as in developed countries. For example, as humanitarian organization send some equipment like screens.

Weekly task - week 2

What can viruses and crackers really do?

1) Virus story - ILOVEYOU

The virus "ILOVEYOU" was sent by e-mail on the May 4, 2000 in the Philippines and again in the year 2007.

It contained the document named LOVE-LETTER-FOR-YOU.TXT.vbs
The virus was able to delete files, e.g. *.jpg, *.mp3, made changes in the operational system, rewrite files, etc. and also was able to send itself to all addresses in contact list.
It was spread vey quickly from Asia to Europe and finally to USA, more than 10% of computers were attacked, British Parliament, Pentagon, CIA, Czech TV. It made more than 1200 copies during the first three hours.

The virus was written by Visual Basic Script so it attacked only computers that used MS Windows.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ILOVEYOU
http.//www.publish.cz/pczone/?id=4

2) Hacker or cracker story

The presidential election was held on the 21st of March 2009 in Slovakia. Unfortunately this is not very famous in Slovakia, but local politicals and also hackers saw campaignes of candidates as very boring, so some hackers changed web sites of these candidates and put there fictitious statement.
E.g. They put the statement on the web page of Ivan Gašparovič: "Uncle Fico put all this stuff into my head but I can not say to anyone.. Honestly, I do not believe him too much, that he does it for my best. Back to the Presidential salary I am quite satisfied and I have said, why would not I acquiesce to him? I still do not want to go on retirement."

http://aktualne.centrum.cz/zahranici/evropa/clanek.phtml?id=632076

Weekly task - week 1

Export restrictions of strong encryption systems

Why the US government wants to restrict the export of strong encryption system:

The encryption is a way to encode files. Only someone with an access key can open the file. This system is very useful in order to protect intellectual property, and to protect confidential data from spies or hackers.
In business field, this encryption system allows protecting personal consumer data. Nowadays, US government decides to restrict encryption system because of terorist attacks. However, the government recognizes that it is not a good policy. So, they put it more flexible. Indeed, they accept the export of the encryption system only if the decoder key are given to escrow agents. Moreover, now the US government wants to make a proposal to the OECD. This proposal allows bigger power for USA because other countries have the same rule.

Why or why not should other countries and individuals be against it?

We think that the other countries cannot be against this measure, indeed, they can take the market from American companies. It means that, if American companies cannot satisfy the demand of encryption system, other countries can satisfy it.
Moreover, countries which are in the OECD can approve this measure or not, but it is preferable that they do not accept it. OECD organization allows economic growth but this US measure is not in favour of economic growth.

What do you in general think about governments´ roles about controlling the information on the Internet?

In my opinion, the controlling of Internet by government can be very debatable. Indeed, one of the roles of the government is to protect people, so, if on the Internet “something” can be “dangerous” for the population, the government should remove or fix it in order to offer to people better Internet environment (more safe). However, all of the information should not be controlled on the Internet even political contradiction (opposition).