Read the "Inside Echelon" by Duncan Campbell. Write a blog opinion about the present situation of the system, what it is used for and how it can influence the global community. You can also draw a couple of hypothetical scenarios (what if...).
Duncan Campbell easily describes Echelon system's history and the current situation. Although, when reading the articles that date from 2000-s, I think it is old information and I need further research on the topic.
The systems now have been automatised and computers process information faster and more efficiently. During war time the system was used to detect possible threat to US, but nowadays it is probably concerned with economic spying.
Since I am not fully aware of the causes of 911, I do not understand how this kind of operation could not be foreseen with the help of Echelon. Was it done face-to-face, without any telephone-, internet-, telex-, and fax communication? There are certainly plenty of conspiracy theories, one of which being the US Government finding solutions to start a war in Iraq, which might be true due to such vast network of information available to the US. In further research I found a blog post on 9/11 and Echelon: Key Players Unearthed, where the author states that lots of big companies work with Echelon, but I did not get the answer for my question of how the actions before 9/11 could not be spotted. However, Campbell's article showed that government leaders and other significant people used the information for their interest, which might lead to the conspiracy theory I pointed out.
Going on from here, the article states that critical information is gathered only to monitor the people of interests, like political leaders and other activists, nowadays of international companies. First all the information, including unnecessary birthday greetings, were gathered, but as the system has automated search criteria, it chooses between the necessary and unnecessary information. Virtually all information of the world can be gathered, and it is monitored mainly by the United States of America and the United Kingdom as main controllers of such network. As we discussed in Introduction to New Media, people might be monitored via cameras on Google Street View, or just plain cameras in the streets; added with Echelon and similar information gathering networks there is virtually no privacy. Nowadays the information is used on spying international companies on new technologies so that America would remain the leader of world's technology, as I read from the article of US Economic spying. The article confirms that there is not much possibility in creating anything new for smaller countries, because ideas are being stolen and perhaps sold to bigger companies.
I think that such network of information processing is not an important threat to insignificant people. Probably for Estonia, as being the part of former Soviet Union, there is not much threat either, since the Soviet Union has disassembled and is not of such interest now as it was in war-time.
Write a blog description of an Internet fraud (scam) scheme.
A simple fact, that it is not allowed to ask 100% of money before having sold the good(s), is widely ignored in e-commerce in Estonia.
A famous scam in Estonia in 2007 was initiated by Mari Aid, and Sulev Kits, members of the executive board of Trendshop OÜ which was owner of the portal Tsiigu.ee. First, people were tricked into buying very cheap things from Tsiigu e-shop, and the first customers really got their goods and gave good reviews on the shop. When time moved on, the scam began to work - 100% of money was taken beforehand and no goods were given to customers. As the customers became troubled, they discussed the matter in different forums like Perekool, Buduaar, Osta.ee etc, where Aid also sold her goods, and found similar victims. They turned to police.
Being in debt, the website was closed, as you can still see, but Mari Aid had the blatancy to open a shop in Viljandi, and continue selling the non-existent goods to mothers. Finally, in 2009, she was accused of cheating the amount of 283 644 kroons from more than 130 people. On Oct. 2, she finally got a sentence, but she still denied scam.
References:
http://uudised.err.ee/index.php?06130943
http://www.tarbija24.ee/281207/esileht/olulised_teemad/tarbija24/kasu/303516.php
http://www.tarbijakaitse.ee/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=5115&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=127535
http://www.nupsu.ee/index.php?menu=news&page=viewnews&item=21806
http://www.tarbija24.ee/?id=170748
Review the scambaiting websites mentioned above. Analyse them from an ethical point of view.
I remember getting a Nigerian "lottery-mail" once and getting interested in similar cases. I Googled (or at that time maybe AltaVistad) the mail and ended up in mugu-baiting web-page, which is similar to "What's the bloody point?" site. It was so amusing, I laughed till the late hour. In fact I think it was the very same site.
From an ethical point of view I think it is not ethical nor it is safe to try it at home. If I am not mistaken, there was a warning that the people they are dealing with are criminals and people should take caution in answering to those e-mails.
I think that it is unethical to send such e-mails to 'mugus' (I just started to like this word), because as seen from the example of a poor American Rupert Sessions, it is possible to get money from simple people. On the other hand, it is not ethical to start joking with these criminals. I think the wisest thing to do is to report to certain authorities who can continue dealing with such cases. The author of the website takes it too far, even getting some money out of the criminals themselves, which proves that some of them are not that wise as to understand that the author is taking the same measures out of them. But by insulting them in the end he is no wiser than the criminals. Anyway, it is a good laugh from both sites!
No comments:
Post a Comment