3rd Paper: Access Nation

In this episode of Law & Order, several truths and fallacies about the world of computing are challenged. The existence of the internet gave birth to online profiles and information banks which in turn has stirred up quite a lot of privacy issues over the past decade. Both the television and the wide screen have shown us that almost anything is possible if only you have the means. Naturally, people tend to believe what they see especially if it is not so common and difficult to understand. Because of this, many facts are exaggerated to an extent that it is still believable and hard to distinguish from myths.

In the story Access Nation, the so-called company sells information which is already available in the web by whatever means. In the real world, knowledgeable people would exploit loopholes in security to obtain information that should not actually be available to everyone. More commonly known as hacking, this kind of theft has long existed but is still not a familiar topic to common users. Although most of us are aware that information we display in the internet could be used against us or to take advantage of us, many users still allow this to happen. One good example is social network sites. People upload personal information and even photographs for everyone to see, definitely not a good practice.

Many parts of the story discuss ways to obtain information from a computer or a computer user, some fact and some fiction. One of which mentioned in the story is a worm which could actually hijack a computer. Remote access to a PC is possible but has several limitations. There are several accounts of worms being used to obtain passwords, and it was mentioned that federal authorities use one to do as such, named the “Magic Lantern”. The existence of such worms has actually been proven possible. In fact, a lot of “keylogging” software are abundant in computer shops in the Philippines and are used to steal user credentials.

I have read in numerous articles and online threads that the delete option doesn’t actually delete, but instead just points its location to nothing. It is suggested that anything deleted or overwritten can easily be recovered. In the show, the computer analyst mentioned that when a document is saved or updated in a word processor, it is possible to view it in its state before it was last saved. This is not possible because as a document is being saved in the same location with the same filename, the file is overwritten and its previous saved state is lost. This feature has yet to be offered in existing word processors. Throughout the story, the authorities seek the advice of a computer analyst who tries to trace the tracks of the said assailant. In doing so, personal information about the district attorney and the investigator was collected from the internet and was shown to them to prove that it is possible. The information included biological data, websites visited, and even bank information. It was suggested that we all leave “bread crumbs” when we surf the net and that every move we make can be traced. The first thing that comes into mind is tracking cookies. However, these cookies do not store the actual account data, as doing so would be a very dangerous practice. Also, websites visited can only be viewed through the browser history in the user’s computer. It is only possible for other people to obtain our personal information if we actually display that personal information for others to see. Not everything in the internet is available unless made available.