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>.