Spyware
There are many PC surveillance tools that allow a user to monitor all kinds of activity on a computer, ranging from keystroke capture, snapshots, email logging, and chat logging just to name a few. These tools are often designed for parents, businesses and similar environments, but can be easily abused if they are installed on your computer without your knowledge. Tools such as these are perfectly legal in most places, but if they are abused, they can seriously violate your privacy. In the more recent years of technology, Spyware has risen as a privacy, security, and functionality issue.
What is Spyware
What exactly is Spyware? Spyware is computer software that is installed on a personal computer to intercept or take partial control over the user’s interaction with the computer, without the user’s informed consent (Wikipedia). Spyware is any technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the internet (where it is sometimes called spybot or tracking software), Spyware is programming that is put in someone’s computer secretly gathering information about the user and relaying it to advertisers or other interested parties. Spyware can get in a computer as a software virus or as the result of installing a new program.
While the term Spyware suggests software that secretly monitors the user's behavior, the functions of Spyware extend well beyond simple monitoring and it is legal. Spyware programs can collect various types of personal information, such as Internet surfing habit, sites that have been visited, but can also interfere with user control of the computer in other ways, such as installing additional software, redirecting Web Browser activity, accessing websites blindly that will cause more harmful viruses, or diverting advertising revenue to a third party. Spyware can even change computer settings, resulting in slow connection speeds, different home pages, and loss of Internet or other programs.
Recognizing and Avoiding Spyware
Many experienced Web users have learned how to recognize Spyware, avoid it, and delete it. According to officials at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the nation’s consumer protection agency, all computer users should get wise to the signs that Spyware has been installed on their machines, and then take the appropriate steps to delete it (Federal Trade Commission).
The clues that Spyware is on a computer include:
· a barrage of pop-up ads
· a hijacked browser — that is, a browser that takes you to sites other than those you type into the address box
In Harlan Coben 's, The Undercover Parent, Coben claims that it is okay to install spyware in children’s technological devices. He says this because it can prevent children from, “gambling away their entire life savings", or from cyberbullying others “until the point they committed suicide", or even from the situation where there was a “young boy unknowingly conversing with a pedophile” (Coben 66). However, I believe parents do not need spyware to prevent these things from happening. A parent’s job is to be aware of how their children are using technology to inform them of all the dangers that may waiting and to set rules or boundaries.
A news article called The Undercover Parent by Harlan Coben published in March 16, 2008 as a persuasive editorial where Coben argues how parents using spyware to spy on their kid’s internet history and how sometimes it might go too far. The author starts developing his argument by giving an anecdote of how one of his friends put spyware on their kid’s computer, and later on during the article Coben claims how parents can check up on their kids to see if they’re being cyber bullied or doing something inappropriate but shouldn’t cross the line of looking at their social status. Coben persuades other parents to get spyware to monitor their child’s behavior on the internet in order to make sure their parent know what
To begin with, spyware can prevent pedophiles from targeting your children on the internet. The Internet has become a common hunting ground to prey on children. Nowadays, more and more young people are using social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.While all these web sites act as a social network to unite people it also contains a lot of personal information that may help pedophiles to find their next victim. by using spyware the parents can be aware of
Everyone deserves privacy, whether on the Internet or in person. Even Coben acknowledges that “there is a fine line between being responsibly protective and irresponsibly nosy” (Coben). Keylogging through spyware
This will be a bother to your child’s growth and will be an inconvenience to him/her. This is important to your child for he or she will not know the dangers of the internet and the world.. Spyware can make your child indecisive about things or maybe he cannot even make his own decision.
Many companies allow you to download their software to monitor the device. This is allows the admin to log “every keystroke”(Coben 2), as Coben says. Many people believe that this is an invasion of privacy and maybe it is. This is how Coben combats that, in his last few paragraphs he talks about telling your kids about the spyware. Therefore, they know it’s there and it is now longer an invasion.
Harlan Coben’s article, The Undercover Parent (2008), claims that keeping an eye on your kids with spyware isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I agree with his argument, because without any sort of online monitoring, your child could get into serious trouble.
Information can be gathered about someone because of what they make public on social media, this includes: making a profile that includes personal information, tagging a location, or posting photos that capture personal details. However, data can also be gathered without one knowing. Information is gathered on store credit card holders every time they make a purchase. “Inside such a card a computer chip is buried that records every item purchased along with a variety of personal information of the buyer. This information obtained from the card enables marketing companies to do targeted marketing to specific individuals because the buying habits as well as other personal information of people are known” (Britz, 1996). There are certain types of software that can be considered harmless, for example “Cookies are small text files with unique ID tags that are embedded in a web browser and saved on the user’s hard drive” (Bidgoli, 2015) Another type of software that doesn’t have malicious intent is adware, which is simply a marketing tactic that collects data about internets users to determine which advertisements to put in each user’s web browser. Unfortunately, there are also types of software that do have malicious intent. One of these is Spyware, which is a type of software that gathers information about users, without their consent while they browse
First, parents should not use spyware to monitor their children. Parents possessing too much personal information about their kids can create problems. For example, in my personal experience, parents tend to gossip about their kids social lives. Sometimes they even tell other kids. No one likes rumors, and they usually don't end well. While others may argue that spyware is the only way to truly
Marshall, KP & Swartwout, N 2006 “Marketing and Internet Professionals' Fiduciary Responsibility: A Perspective on Spyware..” Journal of Internet Commerce, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 109–126. (online EBSCOHOST)
Protecting your personal information, both on your personal computer and in other places such as your bank or your job, has become more difficult with the massive growth of the internet and the expertise of some unsavory characters called hackers, crackers or phreakers. Whatever they choose to call themselves, they are theives, plain and simple. Some people still question whether or not hacking should be illegal. I think it's obvious that what hackers do is illegal. A personal computer is personal and the information on it is private. When a hacker invades that privacy, he/she is trespassing and when they take your personal information they're committing a form of thievery (Ludlow). In addition to hackers, we now have marketers invading our privacy through the use of cookies (Rodger).
In this globalized arena, with the proliferating computer users as well as computer networks, risks associated like Malware attacks are also multiplying. As the proverb
In today’s days malware is designated as a software which aims to disturb a computer with the consent or permission of the owner. This term “Malware” is used by computer professionals to describe a varied forms of destructive, annoying and intrusive software code. This word “Malware” is used to indicate all types of malware which include a true set of viruses.
Malware is basically the term for a software that main purpose is to do harm to a computer. The most widely known types of malware is the computer virus but there are plenty of other types of threats in the cyber world that is continuing to evolve.
Many organizations, businesses, and even your government can monitor what you are doing online, and can collect the data you input into your personal computer using cookies. Cookies are small-encrypted files, these cookies are found on a users personal computer. These help retain the data of websites you visit. Many people believe it crosses the line of what is ethical and what is not, and even state it violates their right as an individual.