Computers can hold ginormous amounts of information within one laptop, and were designed that way for the users to easily access this information and use it to their advantage while searching the internet. People use this information for various things. whether it'd be storing images of the family on Chirstmas eve or saving software on their computer allowing them to use it for work or simply entertainment, storing information has a lot of value in this information age. These raise some privacy invasive concerns, however, with the connection in the internet. With so much information and so much value for information, information thieft is common, leading to legal and ethical issues with the internet.
The simple action of uploading information onto the internet is asking people to steal it from you in some way or another. Even having it saved on your computer is dangerous, and you start wondering why people steal this information. Hackers -- whenever they do their job-- only look for information they can take away and sell or manipulate in their own way. This information is valuable because it can be used to harm someone -- like stealing their passwords or accounts -- and can be sold on the internet for a profit. Stolen information can also be used to impersonate someone. Stolen passwords can be used to log into people's accounts and text anyone that they've contacted on those accounts. They can say do, and delete anything they want at a click of a button, and if that isn't scary enough, people can lock you out of those accounts and completely take over them like a parasite on a poor defenseless animal.
Computer crime is the act of stealing information, but from companies. It requires a well suited and trained professional to break into servers or computer systems to manipulate them and extract the desired content. Due to the scarcity of these professionals, it's become very profitable to be one due to the high amounts of money you can demand from someone, but that doesn't justify their actions when it comes to the information taken. This has become an issue due to the difficulty of finding the location of these professionals and arresting them for comitting the crime. Like stated before, these professionals need to be extreamly good at what they do and extreamly intellegent inorder to get into the server's system and out safely, without being detected. Most of the time the professional is able to take the information and get away unscaved or without any law enforcers on him/her, and when they are tracked the law enforcers do nothing. This crime can also be comitted by a companie's own employees. Since they have access to the companie's servers and information, they can easily log in and steal companie's trade secrets and data for some extra cash. This makes computer crime very common because of how profitable it is
Many companies have large groups of employees contributing to their success
and being rewarded with a wage. These companies may include:
Modern companies require networks, servers, and connections to run their websites and customer service. In order to keep these softwares running, companies have hired computer IT experts to truble-shoot, analize, and evaluate these softwares. These occupations are an example of crowdsourcing because they don't need to meet up in person inorder to do their jobs. The only requirement for these experts is connection to the internet and a laptop/computer. This means that they can work from anywhere, do the same things as if they were there, and complete their job. Most of these computer IT workers -- after covid -- meet and message eachother through social media platforms like Zoom, Skype, and Messenger inorder to complete tasks while still being far away from one another.
Advertisement is another big part of a company. It allows customers
to see a company's product and maybe want to buy it. These
advertisements come in different forms --all promoting the company.
When someone thinks of advertisement, they think of a giant bill
board with a huge logo printed in vibrant colors in the freeway or
outside their house. Although it's true there's advertisements like
that, they don't always come in that form. They can be as setting
up an account on social media platforms and replying to people's
messages about how great their products are, and this could be
done with crowdsourcing. In order to set up a social media account
or email someone, you'd only need the internet and a computer or
phone. Companies hire people with these things and pay them to
advertise their company on social media platforms for an increase
in their finances. People gather in groups online and cooperate
to accomplish this goal, messaging and replying to multiple people
at once and accomplishing their task or simply cooperating to
form an AI to send emails out to whoever they can, either ways
they're crowd sourcing.
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Youtube's algorithm is designed to make it the most amount of money.
This is an example of algorithm bias because of the recommendation
system Youtube implements on its videos. It holds a bias to videos
which have an exponential amount of views and likes which can be seen
unfair to starting Youtubers due to the little number of views people
give them. This makes it difficult to start a youtube channel.
Instagram is a social media platform which allows you to share pictures
with everyone who's following you and allows you to text them without
anything there to stop you. It has this feature called "reels" which
allows you to post a 2 minute long video and puts it into an algorithm.
This is an example of algorithm bias due to the fact that reels with a
high like to dislike ratio are recommended more than others. Whenever
you scroll down on your screen you're looking for a dopamine boost which
makes you want to scroll down even more. The company designed their app
in this way because of the addiction it can cause on someone if they're
constantly being bombarded by dopamine filled videos, making you spend
upwards to 3 hours just scrolling. This is they've implemented an
algorithm bias in their app.
Google is a search engine which allows you to search anything on the internet
and find the result you want. This leads to algorithm bias due to the simple
fact that there will always be misinformation or false information on the internet
and it takes time in order to define if it's wrong or not. Google's algorithm
recommends the websites which have the most clicks and people on it. This
provides a disadvantage to people which are just starting their websites
and providing their readers with true and important information. The only
way to overcome this algorithm is by advertising your company or website
on other sites, and sometimes that doesn't even work. Due to the distrust
sketchy websites have given people -- especially by implementing viruses
-- people have stopped looking at websites which have not been recommended
by the algorithm due to viruses which can be easily placed in a website and
corrupt a computer.
With virusese and sketchy websites everywhere, it's hard to stay safe
on the internet. Here are 3 ways inorder to keep your private
information safe from hackers and scammers:
How often do you click on a link and it sends you to a random website with a ton of ads and "download me" buttons? These websites almost always have viruses embedded into them at every click. These websites may come out of nowhere. Whether it'd be from an add telling you to click this link and receive a reward or simply searching a topic up, they could be encountered at any moment. That's why it's so important to know what websites you're on and if they could be trusted. Most popular websites -- Youtube.com, wiki.com, Pintrest.com, etc. -- have no viruses and could be trusted. Informative and business websites are especially important because of how they can easily misinformation or scam you out of your money, either ways know what you're getting into before you get into it.
This ties into the "know the website" paragraph. People are too trusting when it comes to the internet. They just click on random links given to them by their favorite influencers or random websites on the internet hoping to find more about the person or get "free V-bucks", all of the time it doesn't work. It all relates to this quote, "if it seems too good to be true, then it is." No matter if it's your best friend, mother, grandma, or great grandma, you should still check the link they've sent you before clicking it. People now-in-days have such low attention spans that they can't even focus on just reading a simple link which has made these scams so dangerous. They're able to infultrate your passwords and information and sell it for a profit, and i'm a victim to this. There was this once on this website called "discord" -- messeging app which allows you to text your friends and family without any cellular-data -- where one of my classmates posted something about giving awaya free nitro. If you don't know what nitros are, they're basically this discord add-on which allows you to customize your avatar more and sendmore information in a singular message. I click on it and put in my discord information, completely ignorant because I trusted my classmateand 3 days later I got hacked.