The Information Collection System and Communication of the US - Essay Example

Introduction Computer and Internet have been the latest and most popularized manifestation of the progress made in technology. In this faceless digital world, human beings are more comfortable with the mouse in hand in the comfort of their bedroom. Increased features have facilitated almost every activity to be done through the computer. However alongside its benefits this inanimate object have somehow generated eagerness among the users to find a way of venting their crooked desires by committing crimes. Despite all the mal practices and necessity for regulation of the Internet for different reasons, the U.S government should not regulate Internet because it could endanger e-business. Internet was invented to facilitate the information collection system and communication of the USA military force. However, with the increased use of computer over time and sharp fall in computer prices, Internet made its entry into the households in the 80s and more effectively during 90s. Soon Internet became popular in almost all the developed countries and made its way into the developing countries as well. The 90s witnessed a sharp decrease in computer prices owing to the continuous research and development in the field of Information Technology and efficient, smaller and cheaper computers had been invented during this period. At the same time Internet became more and more available due to spread of optical fiber at a mass level and its price fell due to the emergence of competing organizations in the field of Internet service providers. The situation was perfect for the Internet to spread at the onset of the new millennium and it made an optimum use of that situation to spread even at a much faster rate than before and made a much deeper drive than it had ever made since its inception. The U.S government should not regulate Internet because it could endanger e-business. Benefits: The importance of Internet in the context of e-business and globalization Firstly, Internet is readily available to anyone and even that at a cheap rate. The ready availability is due to the spread of optical fiber beneath the seawater, which has made possible the continental connectivity and the cheaper price is due to the competitive nature of the Internet service providers’ market. If one service provider asks a little higher price he would surely lose customers, as the customer will get the same service at a cheaper rate. Secondly, Internet is brilliant for getting any information, from weather condition to railway availability. All these can be known by a click of the mouse and comparing to its information providing capability, the medium it uses to convey that information, i.e. a computer requires minimum place and any house hold can accommodate that much place. Thirdly, our life has became much faster now than before. On the other hand, the present modernization of life style leaves very little time for us. Therefore if anything helps us to save time, it is accepted with cheers. In the modern world, many shops subscribe to the Internet facility and we can place an order right from our personal desk. We can even receive that product that we have ordered right in our home this helps us to save our time and energy that we may invest in some any other productive work instead of marketing. Moreover in the virtual market, people can read the description of a product, its contents and more interestingly a review of the same product that they are planning to buy by other users. All these combined makes the virtual market more attractive than the real one. Furthermore one can arrange his or her travel from home, as now it is possible to book tickets of air or train and hotel though the Internet, the customer can pay through credit card and experience a hassle free experience that compels him or her to say that life was never so easy before. Internet is the largest source of information; we can read all most all the newspaper, journals, magazines and books through the Internet. Comparing the price of their hard copy the soft copies are pretty cheap and some even free. Online libraries like JSTOR, Elsevier and so many others are assets for the students and the professors. Nowadays some virtual universities and e-learning zones are even launched and it has benefited many students living in distant places. Again for those students who do not have the money to travel abroad, virtual universities are a blessing. Almost all the reputed financial organizations have their website and they have made virtual banking possible. In virtual banking all the clients are provided with an account, which is a mirror copy of their respective bank account. The client can operate his bank account by logging in this virtual account; in this manner he can sit back at home and deposit or withdraw funds from his bank account and can even pay his/her credit card bill or any other kind of bills. One of the greatest gifts of Internet is that it allows the employs of an organization to work from home. The discovery of Virtual Private Network or VPN and Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP provide freedom to the employees. This has twin benefits – firstly, it has increased the working hour (VOIP facilitates this) and also the volume of work and secondly, the employee can now enjoy the comfort of home and simultaneously work to his or her optimum level. Apart from this, in case of any accident or in times of pregnancy, if the employee is not capable of coming out of home and make the journey to his office then this facility really counts and without hampering the employees’ productivity it ensures his or her safety. Electronic commerce goes a long way in supporting international business, especially by means of sales, promotion and support obtained through the Internet. This is a topic, which is heating up at the moment and has been supported by an evidence of high market capitalization of firms involved in such electronic business. (Hawkins, Best and Coney, 1998) Such growth rates are expected to continue over the future years. However, sales via Internet account till now contribute a small portion of the total sales figure especially in nations outside America. (Turban, Lee, King and e Chung 2000) By that time e-commerce started to boom and local or indigenous demand for almost all commodities was met globally or from global supplies. Problems Associated: Probable ethical issues and crimes Technology has provided its users with ample opportunities to make their life easier just like they have led to a more convenient way of committing crimes and abusing the technology itself. When computer was first invented no one would have dreamt that one day it would become a user’s nightmare. Initially computers definitely suffered from mechanical problems arising out of the hardware and software malfunctioning. However, with the advent of Internet, computer users faced a new form of problem called Virus. The term is nothing new. From centuries people are well acquainted with the term. However, computer viruses are a set of erratic programs that infect a computer through the Internet and results in mal functioning and more severely often after the crash of hard disk. So from where these viruses come from? They are sent by a bunch of computer freaks that just take the pleasure of disturbing other people. The overwhelming presence of porn sites all over the world and the recent craze in MMS scandals and web cam recordings and their subsequent uploads in different sites like debonair blog, rapid share and mega share are increasing the enlisted criminal cases to the police. On one hand these make unethical inroads into one’s very personal life and on the other, exposes an individual to a social stigma. However those individuals who are willingly uploading their own vulgar pictures online are weakening the society in some other manner. Internet is easily accessible by anyone, starting from the very childhood. Glimpse of these pictures can have severely detrimental effect on child’s psychology and in the long run when grown up, the child might not be able to lead a normal life. The idea of being physically concealed from the world is more lucrative. Child pornography, email scandals, fake lotteries and hacking of important details or enterprises lead to only some of the instances. Internet banking, mobile banking and the ATM counters: The number of bank forgery has increased to a great extent in recent times. People are often found reporting that their Internet banking pin number has been hacked. And they have been robbed off their money. On such an occasion, banks do not refund the money. The same is also true for mobile banking as well. The speed of life has increased to a great extent nowadays. Busy people do not have much time to visit a shop and purchase what they need. So in this era of technology, people can purchase anything sitting back at their home. They use credit cards to make payments and they pay online as well. The customer is satisfied as he saves valuable time, but in this manner the number of his credit card gets exposed online only to be identified by someone else who uses it to his own benefits. In order to avoid the long queue of waiting before the counter of a bank, people generally resort to ATM card and this is not at all free of risk. ATM counters are easy to reach than robbing a bank. For some banks, one can use any ATM card for transaction at a higher fee. Now if someone else knows an individual’s password, he or she can use that to draw money from the counter easily. In the era of emails, some instances have been able to fool individuals holding high qualification. A man recently received an email claiming to have come from his own bank and asked for his password. He gave it (password) to them and hence went bankrupt. Risks associated with both debit and credit cards are many. In some nations, criminals fix up deals with the waiters and store clerks in order to supply copies of the credit card receipts. The people who cooperate get some percentage of the earning which is enough motivation for them. Last but not the least, the advancement in technology has been reflected on students’ grades. Students have a tendency to find some online writers to do the job for them. However explaining to them may contain this. Business Information Technology – ethical issues Business Information Technology (BIT) has facilitated the Business processes to a great extent. But along with its potentials, it has also raised many questions regarding the quality of information it provides to the business house and many ethical issues that need to be answered. Thus, the questions that arise are: Are this information complete? Can they be trusted? What about the ethical issues? The days of pigeons are far-gone. Even information carried over the phone seems to be more hazardous and time taking at present. With the spread of Internet, business information received a new messenger popularly known as the BIT. Access to the information basket at the right time and right place holds the single solution for market clearance and supply demand parity. In the era of globalization, with business boundary stretched around the world, it is impossible for a firm to have all the information through physical representation or phone calls or so. With the advent of Internet, online piracy has become a continuous headache for the organizations. Often a company website get hacked by its competitors and ‘e’ security is now a part of company budget. Last but not the least, with intellectual property right till at a nascent stage regarding mass awareness about it, often these business bullies uses information unethically, giving rise to ethical issues. As quoted by Shimeall et al. (2001, 2002), “Defense planning needs to incorporate the virtual world, is there is any chance of limiting physical damage in the real world.” The urgency of security is realized much after the designing of the network. As suggested by Shimeall et al (2001,2002), insulated intranets, which can function in an efficient and safe manner without wider connection, might be a great help in this respect. Also, as Standler (1999) proposes an awareness of such activities is greatly significant. A computer user needs to be aware that a criminal who is determined and creative world be able to cross and defeat any security measure. The most common computer crimes, as reported by Maher (2006) are “fraud by computer manipulation, computer forgery, damage to or modification of computer data or programs, unauthorized access to computer systems or services and unauthorized reproduction of computer programs.” Solution: Need for Regulation It is therefore obvious that technology has offered enough opportunities for the users to engage themselves in unethical computer activities and other crimes. Thus, computer crime is now becoming a global problem. Computer laws all over the world need to be combined with the existing United States computer laws in order to ensure greater enforcement of law all over the world. Strict enforcement of law is therefore required such that computer users may be scared to commit such crimes in future. Besides, prevention is better than cure and therefore children needs to be taught these ethics at the school level itself. The workers at large business houses should be trained in work ethics related to computer use such that they may learn to think and act ethically. In this light, Federal Communications Commission has advocated or proposed further regulations for the Internet usage and this would be stricter than the regulations prevailing till now. Discriminate us is advised and for that strict policing needs to be attained to track the cyber developments taking place every moment. No Need of regulation: business loss A The future of America resides with the investments in broadband today. A deployment of broadband around the world could contribute an additional 1.2 million jobs and revenue of $500 billion to the economy of America. (Dan, 2007) However the net regulation or ‘net neutrality’ of the present day has been threatening the broadband investments. The big web based companies used the term ‘net neutrality’ in order to “impose government regulations on communication companies based on their claim that these network owners may one day selectively block or slow access to Web content.” The growth of the Internet has been exponential and the bandwidth consumption of YouTube alone is an instance. A new set of regulations introduced can offset this growth trend. B. An introduction of strict regulation would disturb the entire mechanism of virtual global economy and in fact the global economy in reality. For instance, if acceptance of credit card were stopped for online transactions, this would lead to many online companies losing customers and the faithful customers running away. Again a setback of demand and hence the industry will suffer. For instance, today, Amazon is a huge warehouse of books and journal articles. This site accepts credit cards and delivers the product at the doorstep. If regulation is imposed and credit cards or cheques are not accepted online due to certain cases of delivery failure and accidental non-refunded payments, huge businesses will suffer and so will the consumers who have been relying on this website for their research works and other academic purposes. (Dan, 2007) C Till now the immense growth in Internet was due to the lack of regulation against the telecom environment, which was regulated. If the net world is regulated or discrimination is used in its usage, then the Federal Communications Commission would be controlling the process. The Communications Commission has started to prevent the practices, which are often mentioned by the declaration of net neutrality. (Dan, 2007) D With advancement in technology, criminals can hide the information about their crimes easily. Careful forensic investigation is required as the environment has become digitalized and the ways of collecting and handling evidence has also changed. Computer crimes might also cause alterations to the system. The FBI is sensitive to the concerns of the victims regarding public exposure and hence any decision to investigate is jointly made between FBI and US Attorney in order to take the victims’ needs into account. (How the FBI Investigates, 2004). According to Calson (1991) the reason behind the problem of computer crime is the lack of moral conscience in people. Hence moral upliftment and ethical preaching is necessary making every young user aware of the dangers associated with the use of the net. Imposing regulations will only open up new technical ways invented by the idle hackers and other cyber criminals. Thus, a process of technological war will continue unnecessarily making the online businesses suffer in the meanwhile. Without a cost benefit analysis and proofs of market failure such a step cannot be taken. E A regulation of the Internet will be rather anti consumerist than pro consumerist. The web-based businesses would refrain from paying the network owners while the consumers would need to bear the cost. This would also reduce the traffic and per head payment will rise. In this process network owners will lose incentives to invest and thus the broadband deployment process would be negatively affected. Conclusion As opined by O’Brien (2001), use of information technology undeniably poses security challenges and ethical questions, thus affecting the society in several ways. America’s national security is at risk due to computer crime. There has been the problem of highly publicized computer viruses accompanied by attractive headlines like “National faces Grave Danger of Electronic Pearl Harbor” and “Internet Paralyzed by Hackers”. As Goodman (2001) predicts, it is not possible for the law enforcement organizations to accurately determine the number of computer crimes every year. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that the number of computer crimes doubled in 1997 and the Internet abuse is growing at a rapid and threatening rate. 1998 recorded an opening of 547 cases of computer abuse while 1154 similar cases were reported in 1999. The FBI supports the findings of Parker as it reports that the main warning came from the “computer experts, hackers and virus founders who are not satisfied with their life or the way they live, so they hunt for money.” (Freeh, 2000) Strict regulation is therefore essential to control these crimes without which the benefits catered by the network shall be of little or no use in practice. However keeping in mind the above points we may say that regulation should not be such that the businesses themselves are affected especially since the U.S. economy is largely dependent on these online-based businesses. Therefore, rather than imposing these new regulations to discourage the use of internet it is advisable to address the specific problems, that is, the problem of lack in ethics and social responsibility. For the sake of businesses and commercial revenue in America owing to the spread of the Internet, it maybe suggested and inferred that regulation of the Internet is not required or desirable. Children should be taught about its usage and ethics even before they learn to deal with the Internet world. References 1. Dan, H. (2007) ‘Netting "net neutrality": new internet regulation threatens U.S. productivity’, Chief Executive, available at: http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-us-federal-government/5499112-1.html (accessed on December 10, 2008) 2. Freeh, L. J. (2000). Statement for the Record of Director Federal Bureau of Investigation on Cybercrime Before the Senate Committee on Judiciary Subcommittee for the Technology, Terrorism, and Government Information Washington, D.C. Retrieved on November 17, 2007, from: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrm/congress/congress00/vatis022900.htm 3. Goodman, M. (2001). Making Computer Crime Count. FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. 70. 8. 4. Maher, L. (2006). Proving Your Case – Computer Security. Retrieved on November 17, 2007 from: http://www.certconf.org/presentations/1999/brief/brief.htm 5. O’Brien, J. A. (2001). Management Information Systems. 5th ed. 380. 6. Parker, D. (1979), “Ethical Conflicts in Computer Science and Technology”, AFIPS Press 7. Shimeall, T., Williams, P., and Dunley, C.(2001, 2002). Countering Cyber War. NATO review. 8. Standler, R. B. (1999). Tips for Avoiding Computer Crime. Retrieved on November 17, 2007 from: http://www.rbs2.com/cvict.htm Read More