Buy essay on The effect of computer hacking on privacy

The introduction of computer technologies into all the spheres of human activity has led to a qualitative complexity of communicative relations, which is first of all due to the replacement of the former technology of document processing by electronic one. With the transition to the global use of computers in private life and business practices, all the previously applied measures of administrative provision of the authenticity of the subjects of communication have just lost their meaning. Nowadays, it has become possible to refer to the non-existent return address in the e-mail messages or simulate e-mails from addresses known to the recipient. In online Internet communication, gender, age, profession, level of education are no longer the parameters identifying a personality, because since their creation such means of communication have not contained mechanisms to ensure the authenticity and still do not support them. A new quality of communicative relations is defined by the term “virtual reality”, the meaning of which lies in presenting something in the way it does not exist in reality. This situation forces to pay further more attention to the issues of confidentiality and security in the open computer-mediated communication.
Issues of confidentiality and security in the open computer-mediated communication have become the priority, because their neglect results in the immediate breach of basic rights and freedoms and contributes to the process of destruction of economic links (Botha and von Solms 5-11). Even a superficial analysis of the contents of web sites and networked electronic media provides many examples of undermining the dignity of a person, violations of the right to privacy, right to private and family life, attempts to deprive citizens of honor and good name. The collection, storage, usage and spreading of private information without person’s consent is not only possible in the information society, but is also embedded into its ideology.

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Consequences of hacking attacks
Modern communication could be considered open due to the specifics of technical device appliance and the used methods of communication in the contemporary conditions. E-mail messages are potentially accessible to the Internet providers, co-workers or family members who have the access to the computer, and to hackers who are able to secretly trace e-mail messaging and to establish control over private computer gadgets and the information they contain. The same problems occur in real-time communication and sites viewing.
Hacker attacks, new viruses, Internet disconnect and other computer troubles have become a part of everyday life and business. Here is a short list of computer security threats: computer viruses, spyware, phishing mailing (luring private information), vulnerability of computer programs, hacker attacks, short trivial passwords, no antivirus, no firewall, failure to update antivirus databases, failure to update spyware database, use of infected pirated software (cracks, keygens, and cracked programs), visiting sites of questionable content, reading letters from unknown senders (Leng 187-89). The list could be further prolonged since swindlers’ ingenuity has no limits.
The main threat is computer viruses. Computer virus is a computer program that can at its own desire (more precisely, at the desire of the hacker who has written the virus) download itself to an unprotected computer and perform on it any operation like the owner of the computer. In the infected computer, the virus usually hides and silently performs its mission. Viruses act impartially, looking for vulnerable parts of a computer and try to use them regardless of whether the owner is a housewife or a bank manager. Having infected a computer, the virus tends to infect the information carriers (flash drives, disks, floppy disks) to use them to be transported to other computers to which a person can have access. In addition, in the infected computer virus checks the access to the LAN and the Internet to transmit copies of itself to network computers (Nissenbaum 195-217).
Another kind of malware is spyware. These programs are rarely identified by antivirus software because they do not harm the computer, do not spread by themselves, and do not perform suspicious actions. They monitor the keystrokes and mouse movements, connect to the Internet like many other useful programs installed to the computer. Nevertheless, the spyware can transmit personal information (such as passwords entered on websites), and allow the viruses to penetrate the computer by creating vulnerability in the system (Nissenbaum 195-217).