Ethical Issues in Secured Communications

Ethical Issues in Secured Communications

1. Introduction

The outstanding growth of network technologies in the past decade have contributed to millions of new applications and industries. Literally millions of companies around the world were created to serve this huge growth. Even though many of those companies did not survive until the present time, most of the applications did survive and they are still widely used among consumers of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds.

Most of the widely used applications are not secured. I will define what is meant by a secured communication later in the paper. However, this paper is more concerned in the way people use these applications in terms of identity. Many applications allow users to participate in specific discussion groups or web activities as anonymous. Anonymity might not be a problem in open chatting rooms for example, but what about banking applications or email or even instant messaging. Email and instant messaging software are free to use and provided by respective companies such as Microsoft and Yahoo. Those services do not require a real identity to be used and many people use these services as anonymous.

The opposite of being anonymous is to be verified, and in order for someone to be verified on the internet, he/she has to be authenticated. Authentication ensures that the person using a specific application is whomever he/she claims to be. This paper will look in detail on how authentication can be achieved on the web and why it is necessary. Then I will focus on the notion of anonymity and identity. Then we will see who supports anonymity on the web and why. Then we will see who stands against it and why. A controversial example will be given and ...

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[2] 2000 B.C. Intell. Prop. & Tech. F. 041901 - Herman T. Tavani, “Privacy and the Internet”

[3] 1999 B.C. Intell. Prop. & Tech. F. 060506 - Dr. Ronald J. Kizior, “Lurking on the Internet”

[4] 1999 B.C. Intell. Prop. & Tech. F. 060507 - Adam White Scoville, “Text is Self: The Merger of Property and Identity”

[5] W. Stallings, "Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice", Prentice Hall, 2002, Ch. 14

[6] E. Shaefer, "MATH 178/196 class notes", Santa Clara University, Computer Science and Mathematics department

[7] http://www.penet.fi/press-english.html

[8] http://legacy.eos.ncsu.edu/eos/info/computer_ethics/privacy/anonymity/

[9] http://www.niksula.cs.hut.fi/~eklund/Opinnot/netsec.html

[10] N. Ling," Data Compression 1 class notes", Santa Clara University, Computer Engineering Department

[11] Anonymity on the web FAQ