SOCIAL MEDIA AND INFORMATION SECURITY BY:ALEXANDER DEUCALION

Introduction: An Analogy It used to be that you could tell what you looked like by standing in front of a mirror. You could obtain quite a bit of information about yourself and also decide which and how much of this personal information you would be willing to let others know; in fact let the whole world know. But nowadays you dont usually stand in front of a mirror, but rather sit in front of a computer and so now it has become a whole new ball game. Unlike a mirror that gives you an accurate representation of what you look like that can only be seen by you ( and anyone that might be standing by you), the computer is the new mirror- a gateway to a world that has more information about yourself than what you know. Starting to get creeped -out? Hang-on, you havent seen anything yet. The bad news is that an undeterminable number of people are collecting and selling information about you. Is there any good news? Dont worry; by the end of this paper we will determine that. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how technology is driving the virtualization of society and its mores, the trends in cyber-culture and their impact on personal privacy and the risk and prevalence of unauthorized disclosures. Given the pervasiveness of public participation in and around unregulated practices of social media and online marketing, this paper will also focus on the risks that both individuals and businesses are facing regarding privacy violation and information security, respectively.

Lastly, we will look closely at social media from the interpersonal communication perspective. How has virtualization affected our ability to interact with people? There are quite a few personal stories and observations about how people who converse frequently using social media indicate being uncomfortable at the prospect of meeting in person. Virtualization and Social media has drawn new lines for social interaction remarkably different from traditional methods and these lines are not to be crossed. Whether these trends are beneficial is a debate that has become mot given the revolutionary reality of how we interact and respond with one another, with businesses and with government. Virtual me One of the effects of the technology explosion of today is the memory lapse we seem to develop when asked to think for more than two or three years back. For example-who can remember how life was before texting first become available and widely used? Another effect is the importance placed on the medium over the importance of the message. Cyber-culture and digital communications have adopted their own protocols and customs which as will be seen, rely on anonymity and transparency. And it isnt only online communications but off-line digital communications such as cell phones as well. Dont call me-Ill text you Texting is by far the most widespread and popular form of communication in the Digital Age right now:

Cell-phone texting has become the preferred channel of basic communication between teens and their friends and cell calling is a close second. Some 75% of 12-17 year-olds now own cell phones, up from 45% in 2004. Those phones have become indispensable tools in teen communication patterns. Fully 72% of all teens or 88% of teen cell phone users are text-messagers. That is a sharp rise from the 51% of teens who were texters in 2006. More than half of teens (54%) are daily texters. (Lenhardt, et al. 2010) Texting is a perfect example of why the medium has become more important than the message. Like traditional forms of communication, digital communications have developed their own customs and mannerisms. When you get a text from someone, they expect a text back. If you reply with a phone call you are likely to be scolded and chastised and may be actually be considered rude. Consider the following Facebook post: I get a text this morning, "r u up yet?" I was still sleeping so I didn't respond. since I don't respond so then u call me five mins later??? What the Fuck? Some people need a Bitch slap in a half (Facebook post) Texting is in fact an impersonal form of communication with its own vocabulary, phonemes, and inflection (or lack of). One reason that texting is impersonal is that there is no voice communication involved that may reveal vocal inflection indicating the emotional state of the person who made communication. And these problems are evident in online communications as well. The rate of worldwide internet usage has doubled in the last 10 years. About 26 percent of the world's population was online at the end of 2009 (Ribero 2010) And with that rate ever increasing we now have the justifications to be concerned about personal privacy and information security But what are these concerns? Welcome to my online world 3

The fact that the Digital Age is rapidly changing our communications with other people, both those we know and strangers is only one area to consider. Much work on the interpersonal psychology of the Digital Age is available. Another area that needs to be focused on is the rapidly changing trustworthiness of people and institutions. It isnt that they are more untrustworthy now but rather that many tools and resources are available to demonstrate their untrustworthiness like never before. This will be our focus here. This is not only true of malicious agents (spammers and phishers, etc.) but those engaged in legitimate business and marketing on the Internet. The infrastructure of online commerce largely depends on back-end collection personal information from the seemingly harmless cookie to profile perusal and other forms of unauthorized disclosures made regularly on a commercial basis What a tangled Web they weave Internet marketing relies on a click-based model. Technically, what makes the Web work is the hypertext links that appear on every page one visits and when an ad or banner is either clicked or mouse-over, that represents an event that is registered to a database stored in the pages web server. Every behavior displayed by a person while online, every action of the mouse and keyboard can be recorded, collected and made available much in the same way as telephone directory and other type of lists were available in the old days. While there are many resources and strategies for businesses to conduct online commerce and marketing, we will just cover the nexus between business and social media. Widespread information is available from almost everywhere the connection 4

between the two. What this means for those concerned with personal intrusion and surveillance by business and government respectively is what information they get how they get it and what they use it for. Infollecting Facebook is the largest and most popular and widely used site. It has since its beginning managed to become steeped in controversy. Mashable, a supersite for disseminating Social Media news and information has a large repository of articles regarding Facebooks information collection and privacy intrusion behavior. One such article asks if reports of privacy concerns on the rise are accurate. Another discusses the information collection habits of Facebook and how user behavior and disregard for privacy provisions can introduce a risk of unauthorized disclosure of personal data. Consumer Reports annual State of the Net study found that people are increasingly concerned with their privacy on Facebook. The report breaks down social privacy into a handful of categories: over-sharing by users, underuse of privacy controls, over-collection of data, over-sharing of data by apps and cyber bullying or harassment (Fitzgerald 2012). There are of course concerns about other Social Media- Google + has raised eyebrows about their privacy policies which have an element of ambition and user control. According to an article in Mashable, Google has made all of their 70 some policy rule documents into one master document (Freeman, 2012). And another article discusses the concerns that the public (Fox, 2012) has with Googles privacy workarounds in order to amass more ad revenue (Kessler, 2012). Twitter has been in the hot-seat a time or two. Mashable covers news about these two Social Media sites as well.

Big Brother is watching Even though there has always been a considerable amount of citizen surveillance by government, especially during the Nixon years, it was not until September 11, 2001, that it was openly justified (although sometimes questionably so). That one act of terrorism did more to forever change how we protect our personal privacy than any other on record. The government made a radical departure from its usual citizen surveillance and accelerated its efforts through the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Along with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) this department has developed practices and policies that allow it to conduct surveillance on citizens in typical McCarthy fashion.(Note: Senator McCarthy conducted an extensive surveillance campaign during the height of the Cold War in the 50s to monitor citizen activity in the hope of detecting communist supporters. The witch hunt singled out many individuals without substantiation and ruined many lives) Today communism has been replaced by terrorism. Terrorist activities and suspicion of terrorism have spurred massive surveillance efforts of citizens by any means available, including Social Media. The Department of Homeland Security and the FBI openly admit to tracking what users are sharing on Facebook and Twitter. According to the article "Homeland Security Tracks These Keywords on Twitter and Facebook Social media outlets provide instant feedback and alert capabilities to rapidly changing or newly occurring situations, states U.S. Homeland Security internal documents. The [Media Monitoring Capability team] works to summarize the extensive information from these resources to provide a well-rounded operational picture for the Department of Homeland Security. (Pan, 2012)

Your Tax Dollars at work That these actions by the government are unconstitutional and deprive citizens of their basic privacy and freedom of speech, this author has no doubt though a debate could easily be made. But not everyone agrees with the government. A civil liberties and privacy watchdog, The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) reports that it used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain volumes of documents on how DHS monitor Social Media use. A contract has been made with General Dynamics for developing a system to enable DHS to monitor and track social media sharing (2-Fitzpatrick, 2012). Need I go on? Conclusion I have given a few examples of how the digital culture has changed the face of communication and given the reader some cases where the use of social media can infringe on our privacy and information security. Hackers and other malicious agents could easily get profile information to stalk former spouses and create spamming situations. Businesses try to get all the information they can about you through your online behavior, including what links you click and what banners you mouse over. Often this information gathering represents an unauthorized disclosure. In a lot of cases the information is authorized but the use of the information is misrepresented and other uses that you ar not aware of can happen. We have seen how the government uses social media to spy on citizens in an attempt to uncover possible terrorist tendencies and national security violations-so they say.

Recommendations While it is not necessarily going to happen that the misuse of personal information by business and government is going to be successfully dealt with completely, nor are Social Media sites going to adopt inline safeguards to protect your privacy ( since they amass revenue from advertising and marketing sources), the recourse lies in public concern and education. Privacy and Information security watchdogs such as EPIC and the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (http://www.privacyrights.org/) can both lobby to defend our privacy freedoms and provide privacy education to allow people to have a more prudent and wise attitudes and behaviors when going online for any reason. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has all the up to date news, trends, concerns and ways to take charge of your privacy information. In conjunction with self-education on online privacy, I would like to see some of these watchdogs hold national PSA campaigns about privacy protection-kind of like the Dont Drink and Drive campaigns that seem to be everywhere. The privacy PSA campaign could have a slogan too (perhaps Surf Smart) and basically have different types of short spots that deal with various privacy topics. I am convinced that the very

technology that has numbed peoples sense of caution can be used for the benefit of the people and not against them.

References Lenhardt, Amanda, Kristen Purcell, Rich Ling, and Scott Campbell. Teens and Mobile Phones. Rep. Pew Internet, 20 Apr. 2010. Web. 4 May 2012. <http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2010/Teens-and-Mobile-Phones.aspx>. Ribero, John. "More Than One in Four Use Internet Worldwide, Says ITU." CIO. 25 May 2010. Web. 04 May 2012. <http://www.cio.com/article/595014/More_Than_One_in_Four_Use_Internet_Worldwide <Says_ITU>. (1)Fitzpatrick, Alex. "Study Says Facebook Privacy Concerns Are on the Rise-Is It Accurate?" Mashable. 03 May 2012. Web. 04 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/05/04/facebook-privacy-concerns-study/>. (2)Fitzpatrick, Alex. "Lawmakers to Homeland Security: Social Media Monitoring Threatens Free Speech." Mashable. 16 Feb. 2012. Web. 06 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/02/16/social-media-homeland-security/>. Fox, Zoe. "Google Privacy Creeping You Out? Microsoft Says It Has Alternatives." Mashable. 01 Feb. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/02/01/microsoft-google-alternatives/>. Kessler, Sarah. "Privacy Watchdog Complains to FTC: Google's Search Engine Is Unfair." Mashable. 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/01/12/watchdog-ftc-google-social-search-unfair/>. Freeman, Kate. "Google Changes Again, Launches One Privacy Policy to Rule Them All." Mashable. 12 Jan. 2012. Web. 05 May 2012. 9

<http://mashable.com/2012/01/24/google-changes-again-launches-one-privacy-policyto-rule-them-all/>. Pan, Joann. "Homeland Security Tracks These Keywords on Twitter and Facebook." Mashable. 02 Mar. 2012. Web. 06 May 2012. <http://mashable.com/2012/03/02/socialnetworking-monitoring/>.

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