RFID and the end of cash?

November 16, 2011

RFID and the end of cash?

             Cash transaction cannot be tracked but, the more detailed recording of the RFID transfers could help Government track the flow of money as well as tax them (Angell, Ian). Auto identification technology feature of RFID was first used by the Royal Air Force during the times of World War II, which could differentiate friendly aircraft with the enemy (Angell, Ian). And, the time since then, the advancement and research in the RFID technology have eased people’s life as well as helped business succeed in many perspectives. But, at the same time, it created a question for us to answer about its future use, and the concerns about the privacy of the individuals.

            Of all of the privacy issues about its future use, RF-emitting tags that are small enough to fit into the bank notes, so that, the Government would be able to track the cash transactions, seems to be on the top of the concern for most of the individuals. Most of the individuals are concerned about their privacy about being anonymous, as well as, not being able to enjoy the properties of cash as fungibility and stored value (Angell, Ian). The authors of the article seem to be outraged by the Government’s involvement in using technology to control the citizens of its Nation by introducing the RFID technology to end the cash.

            The positive use of the RFID technology seems to be the answer by the Government for the individuals who are against it. This technology could be used to easily find the misplaced keys, phones, spectacles and any belongings of the individuals (Angell, Ian). But, it could be debated by the fact that private information about the individuals, and their belongings could be easily tracked creating the database of the individual, and their behaviors, which is a serious privacy concern (Angell, Ian). Authors of this article distinctly categorized the supporters of the RFID technology as the U.S. Department of Defense, Wal-Mart, and the mobile technology sectors, and seem to be outraged by their negligence towards the privacy of the individuals (Angell, Ian).

            Even though, there are many advantages of using RFID technology by the Government officials, for instance to track the terrorist in the airports by reading the tagged passports in the proper range, the authors, smartly questioned about the use the same technology by the wrong person to gain private information, and using it to create chaos, or, benefit from it (Angell, Ian). We would soon be living in the world of tags and, the rate of identity theft could even increase which would be really hard to control, if the technology would be implied in our society (Angell, Ian). 

            The RFID technology would definitely end the cash we know of, in today’s world. With many disadvantages over advantages, in concern with the individual’s privacy, the use of RFID technology would enable the Government and the big corporations, to regulate taxation and control over the citizens. Also, this can definitely create many identity theft issues, and would directly affect the individual’s right to privacy.             

              

Works Cited:

Angell, Ian, and Jan Kietzmann. "RFID and the End of Cash?" ACM Digital Library. ACM New York, NY, USA, Dec. 2006. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1183236.1183237>.

Promoting Personal Responsibility for Internet Safety

November 19, 2011

Promoting Personal Responsibility for Internet Safety

            As we are using internet and technology more than before to communicate and perform our daily jobs, it is the right time to spread the awareness to every individual, to teach them to protect themselves, against the threats that come along with the use of this technology. The author believes that if the user himself is aware, and takes responsibility for the internet safety, then, most of the problems of IT security would be miraculously solved.

            To promote online safety, many websites (Staysafeonline, iSAFE, Cybersmart, i-Safety etc.) provides strategies that include the fear factor for the threat appraisal, and building confidence for the coping appraisal, for online safety (LaRose, Robert). Moderate amount of fear would motivate individuals that results in online safety, whereas, low amounts of fear diminish safety (LaRose, Robert). Self-efficacy is the key for any individual to be safe online because it has direct impact on safe behavior. Building response efficacy would help users to be safe online which it is very important.

            The natural tendency of a human being, to measure the rewards and the costs that are involved in practicing safe and unsafe behavior, would also impact the user’s actual safety practices, and its effectiveness (LaRose, Robert).  We need to encourage user of the system to promote safe behavior by highlighting the benefits, in long run. Involvement is very critical action that users should be motivated to be practiced, so that, they see safe behaviors resulting the benefits, rather than a hassle. We need to inbuilt a moral responsibility for every individual towards self-regulation to take responsibility. The authors conducted a survey of many individuals who believed that online safety is their own personal responsibility as well as those individuals who believed just the opposite (LaRose, Robert). The result of the survey is very obvious that those who took responsibility were more likely to protect themselves from the threats, by their greater involvement in the activities as updating virus protection, scanning with a hijack eraser, using anti-spyware, updating operating system patches, deleting temporary files as well as cookies, using spam filters as well as pop up blocker and most importantly - using a firewall (LaRose, Robert).  Some individuals may be sound professional in the field of Computer Science, and the individual may be so confident that even if the system gets compromised, he/she could get out of it, and, would not take the responsibility to take actions of regular maintenance (LaRose, Robert). This is a serious problem, because it would be hard to motivate those individuals towards promoting personal responsibility for internet safety.

            Therefore, to encourage individual users for online safety, the most important factors that contribute to motivate them, seems to be encouraging them for personal responsibility, self-efficacy, response efficacy, and involvement. I completely agree with the author’s points and their studies on the computer user’s behavior on online safety. I personally believe that if every individual listens to their intuition and takes responsibility for the safe online practices, then most of the online privacy issues would be solved.

Works Cited:

LaRose, Robert, Nora J. Rifon, and Richard Enbody. "Promoting Personal Responsibility for Internet Safety." ACM Digital Library. ACM New York, NY, USA, Mar. 2008. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1325555.1325569>.

What matters when introducing new information technology?

November 5, 2011

What matters when introducing new information technology?  

            Technology is changing every day and implementation of new technology is very important as well as risky. Without the proper management, in the process of introducing new information system, backed up by the right workforce to implement it, the introduction of new information technology would most likely face problems. Therefore, to successfully introduce a new information technology, the support of top level management to avoid the common problems, such as commitment, knowledge, communication, planning and infrastructure would be very helpful (Brown, Susan A). 

            We need to have our management team to be able to properly implement the information system that includes initiation, adoption, adaption, acceptance, routinization, and infusion (Brown, Susan A). The article neatly concludes the idea that the management implementing the right issues at the right time would help the implementation process that would give positive outcome (Brown, Susan A). The research conducted in the article suggests that the information system had problems in commitment, knowledge (technology expertise limited), communication (lacked communication with customers and across the group members), planning (made up their own criteria and format), and infrastructure (incompatibility between new system an existing system) indicating the importance of commitment that increases over time (Brown, Susan A).

            The organization can be successful by investing in the employee education, making communication environment for the employees, evaluating the infrastructure, renewing the commitment in words as well as deeds, and, preparing and following the planning (Brown, Susan A). All of these factors for an organization should be balanced and harmonized just as the musician in an orchestra would do for a pleasant music (Brown, Susan A). A project could be successful, but, it may have been delayed in its delivery that may affect the productivity of the project, especially, in today’s world, when technology is changing so rapidly. So, we need to deliver our information system within the deadline as well as at the allocated budget, for the project to be really called successful.

            Overall, I completely agree with the authors and their suggestions for successfully introducing the new information technology. Top level management by implementing knowledge, communication, infrastructure, commitment and planning in the process of introducing the new information technology would make a more likely probability for the project to be successful.

           

           

Works Cited:

Brown, Susan A., Bryan A. Reinicke, and Norman L. Chervany. "What Matters When Introducing New Information Technology | September 2007." Communications of the ACM. ACM New York, NY, USA, Sept. 2007. Web. 07 Nov. 2011. <http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2007/9/5567-what-matters-when-introducing-new-information-technology/fulltext>.

What's Wrong with Online Privacy Policies?

November 12, 2011

What's Wrong with Online Privacy Policies?

            Online privacy policies are used to inform the users of the organization, the policies that the organization has towards the users on how the information of the users is accessed, and to what level. The user has the rights to know about it as well as the organization are more likely to put these information, so that, they inform users of what they can do, and, cannot. Unfortunately, the trend of displaying these policies by the organization has been criticized of being too long, vague, unclear, miss representing, and most importantly, they tend to address the protection of the company against privacy lawsuits that are hardly understood by the general users (Pollach, Irene).

            Customer should always be at the core of any business. Since, businesses are going more online than ever before, the time has come that the business should practice good online policies to inform the users of how their information is being used. This would earn the user’s trust and, encourage the users to participate in online transaction, which could help any business to gain the customers in this competitive market (Pollach, Irene). They should be clear on the factors as how they are handling customer’s data, and if they would be providing information to the third parties.

            The online privacy policy should be written in simple language that could be read even by the people who are not well educated because, study has found that the internet users are not reading online privacy policies since they are more of a legalistic and hard to read (Pollach, Irene). The author of the article, What's Wrong with Online Privacy Policies?, conducted studies with many companies about how the policies would reflect about data handling, and how they describe their data handling practices concerning to data collection, third-party data collection, data storage, data sharing, and market communication (Pollach, Irene).  The studies showed that 39.4% of the questions couldn’t be answered with the policies of many companies, as well as, the data storage that stood out are of insufficient disclosure that needs to be addressed to gain the user trust (Pollach, Irene).

            The language used in writing policies are basically based on linguistics that may be interpreted by a normal user in a different manner, away from reality, or, they would not be able to understand it properly (Pollach, Irene). Therefore, they need to be clear enough for the users to read and understand the policy, by the proper use of lexical choice, syntactical transformation, negation, and modality in language that is used in online privacy policies (Pollach, Irene). Also, presentation  of different types of data and data handling methods in user friendly cells to enable users to decide which parts of the policy they would like to get information on, would definitely help better user experience, leading user satisfaction and company goodwill (Pollach, Irene).

            The article by Irene Pollach, neatly presents the flaws of the general online privacy policies written by most of the companies. The author also proposed the solution and recommendation about the best practices, that would help the customers gain confidence towards online transaction, and, the company creating a goodwill and long term positive results. I completely agree with the authors suggestions and his ideas that the transparent online policies would only help the company to build positive relationships with the customers.

           

Works Cited:

Pollach, Irene. "What's Wrong with Online Privacy Policies?" ACM Digital Library. ACM New York, NY, USA, Sept. 2007. Web. 12 Nov. 2011. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1284621.1284627>.

           

A Risk Profile of Offshore-Outsourced Development Projects

November 5, 2011

A Risk Profile of Offshore-Outsourced Development Projects

            In the today's world of Economic Globalization, offshore-outsourced development projects are increasing day by day, and, the trend in its increase indicates that in future, more of the business would be relying on it. The problem lies in this process, for any business, to be able to efficiently achieve the objectives they are looking for, in the products and services, they are outsourcing. ACM performed a study of the risk factors of offshore-outsourced development which presented a serious threat to the successful completion of the project (Iacovou, Charalambos L). Previously, studies had been conducted, but, it was based on in-house and domestically outsourced environments (Iacovou, Charalambos L).

            The study started by selecting experienced senior project managers and directors to complete a form summarizing their experience, and finally, selecting 15 out of 57, well qualified individuals to participate in the study, such as, Delphi Survey method (Iacovou, Charalambos L). The result of the study basically suggested that most likely, “offshore initiatives experience the same fundamental issues that affect non-offshore ones.” (Iacovou, Charalambos L). But, the in depth insights from the panelists’ suggested that they most likely poses sever threats in multinational and distance based working teams (Iacovou, Charalambos L). A recent ACM report suggests that outsourcing "magnifies existing risks and creates new threats” (Iacovou, Charalambos L). Therefore, as an offshore client, we need to be very careful in providing the resources to communicate with the outsourcing companies, so that; they would be efficient in delivering our deliverables.

            The panel came up with the 10 most important risk factors in offshore project development which concentrate on three major areas of concern, that includes - miscommunication in client-vendor communications, language and other environmental factors that miscommunicate the original set of requirements, and, the most common – language and cultural barriers in the project communications (Iacovou, Charalambos L). The other risks that need to be solved are poor change controls and the lack of informal interactions between the developers and the users (Iacovou, Charalambos L). Lack of top management commitment, lack of offshore project management know-how by client, failure to manage end user expectations, lack of know-how by offshore team, as well as, failure to consider all the costs involved, are the major issues that the study came up with, in accordance to mitigate the risk factors in offshore projects (Iacovou, Charalambos L).

            In short, offshore projects face higher risks that involve the traditional project risks as well as threats that are common to offshore environment. Hence, they need to overcome these risks and threats so that, the project would incur less level of failure. I agree on all of the risk factors and, their rating given by the panelists which is very helpful for us, if we decide to offshore our projects. The risk factor 17, “Constraints due to time zone differences”, and its rating at 5.8 seem to be over stated, in my opinion. This should not have much impact on the communication between the offshore team and the client, because as far as I know, offshore team manages their working schedules according to the time zones of the client location. But, overall, this study really gives us insights of what needs to be prioritized by the clients, before or during their outsourcing of their offshore projects, so that, they would be able to select the risk factors that are more important to them and the outsourcing companies abroad.

           

Works Cited:

Iacovou, Charalambos L., and Robbie Nakatsu. "A Risk Profile of Offshore-outsourced Development Projects | June 2008." Communications of the ACM. ACM New York, NY, USA, June 2008. Web. 05 Nov. 2011. <http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/6/5389-a-risk-profile-of-offshore-outsourced-development-projects/fulltext>.                                                                                                   

Reducing Internet Auction Fraud

November 1, 2011

Reducing Internet Auction Fraud

            When we are connected to internet, we are networked to the virtual world of so many people and chances are that, we may be vulnerable to internet fraud. The Financial Times in 2003 noted that online fraud was 20 times higher online than offline (Gavish, Bezalel). The complaints of online fraud registered at the IC3 Web site was 20,000 in 2000, in comparison to 200,000 in 2007, which is a huge increase in its rate (Gavish, Bezalel). We need to be prepared to face even more challenges in the near future as every business and everything we do, are going in to cloud with the boom of cloud computing.

            The article clearly makes a point that if we provide automatic insurance for the buyers and the seller, it generates more bidding activity as the two parties are more comfortable, involving in the bidding which might produce more instances of auction fraud (Gavish, Bezalel). Even though, seller can be the victim of fraud, the more likely party that suffers the most out of it is the buyer because the experience of the system as well as the process of auction is more likely to be greater with the seller than the buyer who visit the site just to buy the particular item that they are interested in (Gavish, Bezalel).

            To reduce the auction fraud, the auction houses should increase the information that is shared by the sellers as well as the buyers (Gavish, Bezalel). The total number of transaction and the positive responses out of the total is definitely one of the information of the seller that would be beneficial to reduce the auction fraud. Also, a separate statistics for selling and buying, for the member of the auction houses would be beneficial, because it would help the buyer not to misinterpret the positive score that may have been tricked on to attract buyers (Gavish, Bezalel). The auction houses should send a secret code in the physical address of the seller to validate the seller, so that, they would be able to discourage the fraud sellers (Gavish, Bezalel). The escrow services officially certified by the auction houses would definitely help reduce the fraud. Another great idea would be to charge the seller with the amount of money that he is selling online, because the buyer is already charged with the amount before they get the product (Gavish, Bezalel). Insurance companies should be certified by the auction houses, and a mandatory field for the sellers to do the transaction, would definitely help reduce the increasing proportions of the auction fraud (Gavish, Bezalel).

            Of all the points above, the most important one to reduce the auction fraud is the precaution that the buyer should be motivated to take doing the transaction. As a buyer, we can check with Better Business Bureau for the reputation of the company (Gavish, Bezalel). Try to get the products by going to an “eBay Xchange Point,” if it’s available. Always pay with your credit card not western union or any other forms of payment.

            I’m personally very much convinced with the article, “Reducing Internet Auction Fraud”. More information on the seller and buyer, separate statistics for selling and buying, charging the seller an amount equal to the sale, sensible insurance policy and most importantly the awareness to the buyers to protect themselves would definitely help reduce the internet auction fraud. But, I disagree with the authors point to institute regulatory control over the auction. The very beauty of the freedom that the buyer, seller and the auction houses have to perform the transaction without hassle would be endangered. I think people should be morally encouraged to do the right thing than to control them.  

Works Cited:

Gavish, Bezalel, and Christopher L. Tucci. "Reducing Internet Auction Fraud | May 2008." Communications of the ACM. Communications of the ACM. Web. 02 Nov. 2011. <http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2008/5/5409-reducing-internet-auction-fraud/fulltext>.

The ACM Code of Ethics

October 28, 2011

The ACM Code of Ethics

            We as the member of ACM as well as a computer professional; we need to make sure our actions in our professional as well as personal life, follows the ACM code of ethics. In long run, if we follow the ACM code of ethics, we as an individual, as well as our company would have higher probability of reaching the goals and objectives. The codes would integrate all computer professionals giving them the correct path to practice what is right and ethical. We need to abide by the ACM code of ethics by following all sections as general moral imperatives, more specific professional responsibilities, organizational leadership imperatives and compliance with the code (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery).

            In general moral imperatives for ACM code of ethics, we have to contribute to society and human well-being by building applications that would be helpful. We should avoid the use of computer technology to harm other users, employees, employers or the general public. Honesty being the essential component of trust, an organization cannot function effectively without trust (Anderson, Ronald E, Page 101). An individual must be honest in disclosing both the advantages as well as the problems that is present in the system. We need to incorporate within our work environment, the values of equality, tolerance, respect and the principles of equal justice (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery). We should also honor property rights including copyrights and patent. We should always give proper credit to intellectual property as well as respect the privacy of others. All the information that we have in our database is personal property and we should not misuse it in any manner. Therefore, we need to honor the confidentiality of the information we have access to.

            More specific professional responsibilities includes strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in both the process and products of professional work. We as a computer professional always need to acquire and maintain professional competence by constantly learning the new technologies to upgrade ourselves. We also need to obey existing laws or be responsible for not obeying it. It is always ethical to accept the professional review of our co-workers as well as provide the critical review for the works of others (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery).  We have a special responsibility of providing credible evaluations that may have conflicts as well as we should honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery). We should disclose the facts about our progress. We also have a responsibility of informing the public about the system we created, its limitations and its consequences. Trespassing and unauthorized use of computers is unethical, and we should completely avoid it unless we are authorized to do so (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery).

Organizational leadership imperatives help the organization and the leaders of the organization to lead the business ethically for its long term objectives. Hence, the compliance with the code would secure the membership in ACM for any computer professionals else, otherwise, would be terminated (Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery).

            As a member of ACM, I would seriously abide by the codes of ethics given by ACM. I personally think that we as a computer professional should use our knowledge to make people’s life even easier and not harm others or disguise in any means. Hence, we need to follow ACM code of ethics in our organizations.

Works Cited:

Anderson, Ronald E., Deborah G. Johnson, Donald Gotterbarn, and Judith Perrolle. "Using the      New ACM Code of Ethics in Decision Making." ACM Digital Library. ACM New York, NY, USA, Feb. 1993. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. <http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=151220.151231>.                                 

"Code of Ethics - Association for Computing Machinery." Welcome — Association for Computing Machinery. ACM, 16 Oct. 1992. Web. 29 Oct. 2011. <http://www.acm.org/about/code-of-ethics>.