Privacy, Cyber Security, and Mobile Devices

When it comes to online privacy, cyber security is an important factor. When all of us are using cellphones in an hourly basis, if not more frequent, we dont really think the possible security issues on the mobile devices. 

According to US-CERT reports, recently, the number of mobile devices sold exceeds the number of personal computers. Also, the number and sophistication of attacks on mobile devices is increasing, yet the countermeasures are slow to catch up. Like this:

So... what do you think a malware can do on a smartphone? Here are the examples: 

Access to email and social networking accounts, address book, personal and confidential files, messages, etc. that are stored on your device 

Besides malware, there are more security threats on mobile devices. Like spyware, viruses, phishing scams, etc. Almost the same as PCs.

Check out this video. This apparently is a good example of what malware is capable of: 

I dont know what you think, but this video, especially when he extracted out the address book from the phone, it really scared me off...

Did you already know all this?? or What do you think?? 

Social Media - Clearer Wather in a Koi Pond

Recently, I read a book titled as International Communication Strategy. Yes. It is a BIG title. But I will not talk about the book. I brought this book up as I would like to mention one episode in the book.

The book briefly (really briefly) talks about how a political opposition group against the regime had 59 Facebook groups, in South Africa, yet they were not able to achieve their objectives for no particular reason.

Here is my question: What does the presence of 59 Facebook group mean????
My answer is "SOMETHING" but "NOTHING."

It is true that social media make a different grouping culture. As I just said, I would only say it is a new grouping culture. 

There are koi fish in the pond!
we simply cannot see what they are donig! 

As grouping is super easy when you are on social media networks, people tend to easily get grouped.

I think this can be explained by an analogy of a koi pond.

Before social media, the crowd was koi fish living in a pond with full of algae.

They were swimming around together, gathering in may different ways and sizes in the pond, but were not really visible from the outside of the pond. Also, the water might have not been clear enough for them to see each other very well.

Now, after the spread of social media, its like the water in the pond is clearer. We can see the koi fish doing all kinds of things in the water. Like this:

so... what does that mean? I would say there are several points we can think of:

1. we can easily find the interest groups that we may be joining
2. we can also see what other people are doing (if only you have enough time to do so lol)
3. at the same time, our enemies(?) can see what we are doing

Then why did I say this means "something but nothing"????

Because I think that what makes the koi fish jump out of the surface of the water has not changed yet; lack of oxygen, or food thrown by someone??

So... I just wanted to say that having more visibility on human's networking behavior and having a tool making it much easier is cool, but it doesn't necessary change the fundamental threshold of actual "movement."

There still has to be enough incentive for crowd to make them take actions...
Of course, unlike a fish pond, there also has to be a leader; someone who can organize and set a clear objective!

However, I do admit having higher transparency is a big change and this will leverage some fundamental changes in the long run. :) We will see how this would contribute to the society.

What do you think?? Now, LEAVE A COMMENT!!!!

Does Google read my e-mails??

Let's say that you are writing your journal on Google doc, and keep talking about something that you want to buy. Like a new car. One day you would realize you are seeing so many car advertisements around you. For example... in Google search ads sections. Creepy?

Regardless you are realizing it or not, this is actually happening.
When you are reading your G-mail, please pay attention to the right side ads column. It picks up vocabularies from your e-mails and decides which ads to show.

Someone, or something is actually reading your "personal(what you think)" stuff!!

According to Professor Reed, although there is no specific legal article that can protect information ownership, there are three legal sources of ownership; IP rights, confidentiality and contract.

Long story short, he says that users need to be aware of what they are getting into when they are online. So... read the terms and conditions on the site!!
At the same time, Reed acknowledges that users have little room to negotiate with the service providers. He says that the service providers need to come up with a governance forum. (I wonder if this will ever happen though...) And he also mentions government regulations could help.

In Europe, there already are many moves regarding cloud computing and legal issues. Check this page out: http://www.cloudlegal.ccls.qmul.ac.uk/



Oh, well... it all sounds right, but how can we stop what Google is already doing in its G-realm?!?
Any body has any ideas?



Professor Reed's ideas in slides:

Information ownership in the cloud

View more documents from Cloud Legal Project

Your Sleep Cycle Info in the Cloud?

I ran into a very interesting article. The article introduced me new devices that (supposedly) help promote the users health. Here are the devices:

1. Nike + Application on iPhone: a software-hardware combo that lives on your iPod or iPhone and collects information about your running history.

Besides helping you build a detailed database of your progress, the program has a major social component, letting you challenge your friends and boast of your achievements in recurring and somewhat annoying Facebook posts.







2. SleepTracker watch:  a smart alarm. The idea is that you set a time to be woken up.

The watch collects your sleep data and then wakes you up at whatever point in that window it senses you’re not in the middle of a deep sleep cycle.

Presumably, because when you’re not woken out of the most restful period of sleep, you wake up more refreshed.

3.  MOTOACTV from Motorola: a kind of Nike+ for multiple exercises. It lets you quickly generate fitness goals for walking, running, cycling, elliptical or step-machine workouts.

An individual can download post-workout data from Motorola on-line hub. That data includes detailed maps showing exactly where you’ve just been running/walking/cycling, coupled with charts showing your rate distance/calories burned/pace.

They all sounds very decent and convenient devices to have around. However, having all the data in their cloud-based server??? I am not sure if that would be the best way to store all "my" data, which the service provider may claim as "their"data.

We need to think about "information ownership."  While all these cool tools are released in competition, the idea behind it usually is these tools need the user information to be operated. 

There is a law professor, Chris Reed, who talked about this. I will talk about his points next week. :)

However, if you can't wait, please feel free to take a look at his slides: http://www.slideshare.net/CloudLegal/reed-cloud-computing-uwe-2011