Privacy and Security issues in Internet

I believe privacy and security are two prominent issues of internet governance that has been contradicting each other due to globalization and commercialization. From its establishment in early 70s, the internet has been proactive in adapting different fields where its expansion has not only brought it into lime light but virtually has attracted a lot of externalities and irregularities. Today, the internet is changing, what is new in a second can literally be out of date within minutes or hours or days. The e-marketing is also growing enabling the easy research and availability of the products and customers from one part of the world to another. One thing that makes internet more happening is its dynamism; internet business is very dynamic and absorbs everything. As once you upload anything it remains constant which is accessible to all within the ease of their fingers on 365 days basis which from commercialization point of view might be good but at times and situations might be scary and unavoidable. To be specific and short, the Internet is a global interconnected Network that facilitates the information exchange process. Internet compromises of millions of computers connected to each other by the helps of servers and clients. Unfortunately during the data transfer process, any computer in between the sender and receiver can easily see or obtain the data with using simple hacking tools like sniffer. For instance, if you want to buy a product online, you need to fill an online form giving your personal details as well as your credit card information. The data then travels from one server to another to the online shopping web server. During this transfer, someone might be watching the information in between. No one knows how often this happens but technically it’s possible and it’s happening. Apart from that it can be prohibited by encrypting the data but since encrypting program and software’s are very costly so it is often neglected by the online shopping administrators and thus the result in extraction of information by some hacker. This example shows that a person’s details go hand to hand with security and privacy issue as disclosure of personnel information deals as privacy issue and capturing the email by another third party deals with the security issue. Similarly, comparing it with the growing e-marketing is completely different scenario. As Especially in the Call center business a personal details like social security numbers, credit card numbers, address, phone no, personal details etc are sold and bought in the form of leads where the buyer pays hefty money for the lead of the clients. Reality is, it’s against the privacy issue but commercialization has controlled the e-marketing in such a way that malpractices like these are happening openly and uncontrollably. Likewise, For example a person staying in India makes a call in US stating that he is in US and asks for the client’s Credit card and other vital information. Though many questions have been raised against these issues but in a way or two security and privacy are breached everyday in one or the other form. From another angel, the freedom of expression used by the social networking sites like face book, HI5, Twitter, Flickr, Tagged etc has resulted in broadcasting false information by wrong doers using various alias. These websites allow free membership and facilitate the users with different tools like blogs, chartroom, forums, groups etc where innocent people are being falsely guided to wrong information and at time are bound to face the consequences. This is an unjustified advantage of internet privacy where the wrong doers are manipulating the security as well as the privacy issue. Nevertheless, the privacy and security issue are very vital part of each other which need to be balanced proportionately where breach of either is illegal but today with the growing internet and lack of effective standard policies and mechanism, people are manipulating the policies where the innocents are bound to suffer the consequences. The related associations should further act accordingly in securing the rights of personal as well as the whole system giving better opportunity for all in respect of equality and security.

By Shreedeep Rayamajhi