Essay on Privacy
Privacy Term Papers
While the free essays can give you inspiration for writing, they cannot be used 'as is' because they will not meet your assignment's requirements. If you are in a time crunch, then you need a custom written term paper on your subject (privacy)
Here you can hire an independent writer/researcher to custom write you an authentic essay to your specifications that will pass any plagiarism test (e.g. Turnitin). Waste no more time!
Ensuring Your Privacy
"Privacy. There seems to be no legal issue today that cuts so wide a swath through conflicts
confronting American society. From AIDS tests to wiretaps, polygraph tests to computerized
data bases, the common denominator has been whether the right to privacy outweighs other
concerns of society....."
Robert Ellis Smith, the Privacy Journal
Computers have been a very instrumental technology that has greatly advanced the
ways in which we now do things such as; business, daily activities, shopping,
scheduling appointments, and many other things. And with more and more people using
the Internet, more and more information being passed over the Internet, more problems
arise. The Internet has been an advance in technology that has greatly increased the
capacities of a computer. These new capacities have been the cause of some serious
problems though. One very important trouble is the lack of privacy on the Internet.
People pass much important information over the Internet and they expect it to be safe
from others. Information passed over the Internet can in fact be intercepted and read by
other people. For many years, this has been happening, and it has always been a
problem, but with more and more information being passed through, people want
something to ensure their privacy. The government does not want to allow everyday
people the privelage of computer security. Although they have tried to place laws on
the uses of some methods of privacy, they have not been as successful as they had
hoped. Privacy is important to people, governments and businesses, and finding a
method to protect their information is also a concern.
Privacy has been defined as "the claim of individuals, groups, or institutions to
determine for themselves when, how, and to what extent information about them is
communicated to others" (Summers, 22). With the advances in technology, it has
become very hard to ensure your privacy. Collecting, manipulating, and sharing data
has become increasingly easier to do. Peoples personal data is becoming alarmingly
easier to obtain. Our preferences, our addresses, telephone numbers, and Social
Security numbers all are sold routinely. In a 1995 United States survey, 80 percent
agreed that consumers have lost all control over how personal information about them
is circulated and used by companies (Summers, 23). Some of the most powerful
companies and corporations are powerful because of their ability to obtain private
information at anytime. Microsoft, the computer software company, is powerful
because it designs the operating system that millions of people use to organize and
transmit data. The Washington Post is powerful because it screens, sorts, and defines
"the news" for influential readers (Bacard, 33). The average person has little power
because he absorbs data form others rather than transmitting data to others. Computer
companies have been trying to come up with ways in which a person can have some
assemblage of privacy. Privacy is important to people. People do not want others to be
able to get this information. Privacy is about power. Information, in the hands of people
who know how to use it, is power (Bacard, 33). John Fiske argues in Power Plays,
Power Works that people are divided in two distinct groups; the "haves" and the "have
nots." The "haves" are those with imperializing power, the dominating group.
Localizing power would be the group of the "have nots." Localizing power refers to the
weaker, resistant group. Privacy relates to Fiske’s theory quite explicitly. The
government, criminals, and businesses would be the "haves," while everyday citizens
would be the "have nots." Everyday people do not have the power to ensure their
privacy like the "haves" do. This is mainly because the imperializing powers try to
prohibit the localizing powers from ensuring their privacy. The government has come
up with regulations on the export of cryptography to control the "have nots."
One method computer companies have come up with to ensure people privacy is
passwords. Passwords are everywhere. People have passwords for phone cards,
credit cards, cash cards, and on the Internet. The idea behind a password is to make it
so someone trying to access your data of hardware is thwarted by inconvenience
(Tiley, 77). The harder you make your password, the harder it is for someone else to
figure it out, and the safer your information is. Deciding on a good and safe password
is the meaningful to privacy. There are many factors in choosing an effective password.
Using numbers and punctuation marks intermingled in your password is a good idea.
Choosing a password that is longer in the number of characters is also efficient. Also,
having your password be case sensitive is important. All of these factors will greatly
increase your rates of security. For example, a password that can contain letters,
numbers, punctuation marks, and is case sensitive allows the user to choose from about
56 different characters. A six character password in this context would have
30,840,979,456 different combinations (Tiley). Increasing your password to seven
characters would have over a trillion possibilities (Tiley, 83). However, a longer
password is optimal, you must choose one that you can easily remember. It will take a
hacker no time to find your sticky note with your password on it in your desk drawer. A
password is easy to remember and hard to guess (Summers, 341). Seeing as how
passwords can have billions and billions of possibilities, one would assume that
passwords are extremely safe in guarding personal information. This not entirely true.
Hackers have computer programs that will try all the words in a standard dictionary, or
every number combination. If you had a simple word or number, your password would
have been found out. Choosing a short word or number is not efficient. An important
date can easily be obtained by a hacker or anyone who simply wants your information.
Experience has shown that more than half the passwords chosen can be easily guessed
or cracked (Tiley, 79). This fact demonstrates the importance of choosing a safe and
efficient password.
Another method of ensuring privacy that is becoming more common and efficient is
cryptography. Cryptography allows users to pass valuable information such as credit
card numbers, Social Security numbers, addresses, and anything else important over
the Internet without being intercepted by eavesdroppers. Cryptography is the art of
transforming information to keep it confidential or to protect its integrity (Summers,
45). The process of encoding and decoding information is called...
MLA Style
. EssayMania.com. Retrieved on 06 Feb, 2012 from
<http://essaymania.com/34364/privacy>
More College Papers
prison gangs
Prison Gangs
The fight for survival within the United States prison system has created a subculture the breeds racism, hate, and violence. About two and a half years ago, a young man named William King was sentenced to death by lethal injection for his participation in the murder of James Byrd Jr
Prison Alternative
"The Prison Alternative"
America has to wake up and realize that the current structure of our penal system is failing terribly. Take a group of people, strip them of possessions and privacy, expose them to constant threats of violence, overcrowd their cell-block, deprive them of meaningful work,
prison
One of America's biggest problems today is the overcrowding of prisons. This began when the population of inmates started to soar in the 1980's. With the increase of rapist, murderers, and drug dealers skyrocketing, there is no reason to this overpopulation. The nation responds to this by building