Mobile Society Visuals

This photo I think can be considered explanatory. I think it's an awesome picture because it represents our society today. Teenagers are now equipped and so involved in these mobile devices that parents have a hard time getting through to them. This picture relates back to my topic because this is the affect mobile technology is having on our society today especially with teenagers.

I would consider this a poor example to try and explain the effects of mobile devices on life and society. All this picture shows is a person texting which doesn't really say much. This is pretty much a generic picture that would require you to read some text as to why the author would put a picture like this in a story that he or she was writing.

Mobile Security: Understanding Physical and Cyber Threats

This decade can easily be described as the “Mobile Decade.” Nowadays information is at the tips of your fingers no matter where you are in the world as long as you have a mobile device that can send and receive information. In this day and age you would be lucky to come across a high school or college student that did not possess a cell phone or any other mobile device. Also, now with the inventions of social networks, information is constantly being sent and received by different people all over the world. The problem with this is the type of information that is being transmitted all over as well as how it is being transmitted. There have been a lot of concerns about how private information is easily accessible through mobile devices. Since there was a lot of speculation about this topic, we did a survey to find out how people are using their cell phones.

The first question we asked was, “how often is your cell phone with you?” Out of 79 people that took the survey, about 63% said that they always have their cell phone with them. This can be a good thing and a bad thing, but in terms of mobile security this is a really good thing. If your phone is always with you there is less of a chance that somebody could steal your phone and get into things like your email or your bank account if you use mobile banking. It’s always good to have your cell phone with you or to know where it is.

The second question posed was, “does your cell phone require a password or passcode to be entered in order to access it?” Surprisingly about 75% of the people that we polled said that they do not have a password or passcode on their phone. With me, I have a Motorola Droid and I require a passcode to access my phone, especially because my phone is directly linked to my email and my Facebook page and anyone could just access them without any problems. I think it is important for people to have passwords or passcodes so that only they can access the information they have in their phone.

Our third question was not created to illicit any numeric data relating to who has what capabilities on their phone, etc. Instead, it was meant to better understand how secure people felt when using Internet capabilities on their phones. We asked how worried users were about cell phone viruses. A staggering 96.3% of the 79 people who took the online survey said that they were not worried or hardly worried (one bubble up from "not worried.") This led to our main digging for information to see how worried people should be. 

The following question was somewhat related to the aforementioned one, but asked if people had any anti-virus programs installed on their phones. Only 10.1% of 79 said yes, while the rest claimed to not know if they had it or not, or did not have any altogether for sure. Surely people should be more concerned with the state of their cell phones' vulnerability from a cyber perspective? We delved even deeper with the next question, trying to get to the bottom of this and see if our fears were unfounded (or relevant).

The fifth and sixth questions on our survey asked detailed questions regarding internet use on cell phones. Quickly jumping to the eighth, as a reference point, only 34 people in our online study of 79 had any Internet capabilities on their phones (smartphone or otherwise). Out of these 34, the distribution for how frequently people check their email was pretty spread out. The more you check your email, the more likely you would be to open something containing a malignant code, so that was the purpose of posing such a question. The next asked, more specifically, if anyone had actually been hacked through their cell phone's Internet. Only one person of our 79 online participants had ever been hacked through the Internet on their phone. This alone suggests how little people should be worried, if the chances are 1/79 in our survey (and possibly more if a larger sample was taken). 

Bluetooth devices can also create greater vulnerability patches for cell phone users, as their conversations can be intercepted and listened to through radio frequencies. Website Gizmoto gives specific, detailed instructions on how to eavesdrop on someone's conversation when they are using a Bluetooth headset. Looking at the Google results I got, it seems like a fairly simple task. What does this mean? Do not give out sensitive information on your bluetooth. Physically, this would make sense anyways, as you would not like a passerby overhearing your bank account PIN when you do mobile banking.

Another question we asked our population was if they owned a smartphone or phone with internet capabilities. According to the survey, the results were pretty even, although there were 9 more people who did not have a smartphone. I also found that to be a little surprising because I figured people nowadays want as many features as they can get on their phone. According to an article on lmk.girlscouts.org, only 28% of teens have web-capability on their phones and they only use it for email, checking the weather, sports scores, and social networking. This is really surprising because almost everyone I know has a cell phone that has web-capabilities. I guess this could be a good thing because that means you’re not using email or social networking or banking and you have almost no chance of being vulnerable to cell phone hackers.

The last 2 questions really tie into each other about sharing information with their cell phone. We asked, “how easily do you give out your cell phone number online,” and “how often do you give out personally identifiable information on your cell phone via text, calling, email, etc?” According to the survey, 60% of the population we polled gave their number out to a few websites online. I am part of that 60% because for instance, I use Facebook Mobile, Mobile Email, AOL Instant Messenger, and Skype on my phone, all of which require me to put my cell phone number on their websites. Forty-five percent rarely give out personally identifiable information via cell phone. I think that you have to be careful about what information you give to people and how you give it out.

Sources:

http://lmk.girlscouts.org/Online-Safety-Topics/Mobile-Devices/It-s-In-Your-Hands/Cell-Phone-Statistics.aspx 

http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/cell-phones-key-to-teens-social-lives-47-can-text-with-eyes-closed-6126/ 

 http://gizmodo.com/328664/how-to-eavesdrop-on-bluetooth-headsets

Safety of Mobile Devices

A lot of people nowadays are worried about the safety of their mobile devices. I am one of the those people after I had a couple incidents happen to me this past month. I have a Motorola Droid and this past month i have had some issues with it. The first issue is that somehow my phone sent spam emails to 8 random people with just a link, so I had to download anti-virus applications to make sure my phone didn't have any viruses or malware on it. I ended up downloading 2 applications, one that scans all of my other applications and one that scans my phone. Apparently my phone did find something and was able to fix it. This past week my phone has been kind of spazzing out. It would move the menus and click on different applications by itself. I ran the anti-virus applications and it did not pick up anything but my phone did stop spazzing out. So i guess what I am trying to ask is: Are mobile devices safe and secure?

According to an article in the Tech Republic, five main concerns of the consumer are exposure of critical information, lost or stolen devices, mobile viruses, email viruses, and spam. According to another article in Baseline there are ten best practices for mobile security.

The first best practice is to choose your mobile device carefully. Not all devices have the same precautions for security threats.

The second best practice is to turn on encryption. Encryption provides more security coding which makes it harder to hack into the phone.

The third is to require authentication. In other words put a password or passcode on your phone so that only you can use it or if you lose your phone no one will be able to access it.

The fourth is to utilize remote wipe capabilities. If you do this, the IT staff will be able to disable your phone in the event someone steals your phone or if you lose it.

Fifth, make sure your mobile device service has a Lost Phone Hotline. This allows consumers to go to a place where they can figure out how to get a new device if they lose their old one.

Sixth, control third-party applications. Make sure you know what kind of applications you are downloading and make sure they are secure. For example I always read the reviews before I download an application.

The seventh practice is more for the service provider. The provider should set up firewall policies to protect outside traffic from entering consumers phones and getting their private information.

The eight practice is to use intrusion prevention software. This will prevent hackers from trying to hack into your system.

The ninth practice is to keep an open mind about Anti-Virus. This article doesn't really suggest buying anti-virus software but it talks about keeping an open mind about it.

The tenth practice is for service providers to shore up bluetooth. Hackers can easily use bluetooth to hack into a mobile device if the bluetooth is not properly secured.

I am not saying that you have to do all these things to make sure your mobile device is secure, I am just saying to be careful about the things that you download and the things that you do on your device. Hackers prey on consumers with the best mobile devices so that they can get all types of personal information. So just be careful about the type of information you store in your mobile device.

Good Sources vs. Bad Sources

There is a lot of information out there on the internet for people to collect. Some of it is credible and some of it is just people's opinions. You really have to be careful when searching for information online. I always check the url to see if that website is a credible website and I always look at the overall website to make sure it looks professional. If the website does not look professional and has a lot of advertisements along the sides of it, it is probably not the best site to get your information from. You also have to be careful about which sites to go to when looking for information because programmers will put harmful things on those websites to hurt your computer.

There is one website that I am looking at which I consider to be a good website. It is businesslink.gov. First of all this is a reliable website because it is a government website. The website looks very professional and there are no advertisements on it. You can tell the information is true because of the different things that are posted you know from personal knowledge that it is true. I also know that this is a reliable source because it is relevant to my topic. The information doesn't provide opinions nor does it go off on a rant about unrelated issues or topics.

One website that is not a good site to get reliable information is http://mobileoffice.about.com/. This site has different articles about different things. Some of the articles are blog posts and some of them are opinionated. Information from blogs can be reliable but it always helps to look up where that person got there information from because sometimes they could be posting incorrect information. This website also has a lot of links and just too much things going on on it for it to be reliable. There are a lot of short articles which really do not give you that extensive research that you are looking for. Also there are different articles about different topics that don't directly relate to each other. It just doesn't look like a website for research. It looks like a website where you share your opinion on different news topics.

Although, there are a lot of good website related sources that will give you good information about mobile technologies. Since my topic is so broad it is pretty easy to find the information you want from searching online. I could not find a lot of bad websites for my topic because the subject of mobile technology is pretty factual, although people will give there opinions. In today's age it is harder to find reliable resources on online because there is so much out there. People can just put anything they want to online and it makes it difficult for other people trying to find real information. You really have to be careful and make sure you know what is a good website and what is a bad website so that you don't receive bad information.

Gates Says, Internet Will Continue to Expand

In 2008, Bill Gates spoke to University of Waterloo students about the expansion of the internet and other technologies. He described last decade as the "First Digital Decade." He believes that in this era, technology will blend touch and speech, turning table tops into computers. He even said that television would soon be available on the internet and he was right. Another thing Gates spoke about is how the internet can be used to benefit poor countries. A lot of the students were inspired by Gates when he spoke at University of Waterloo. One of the students said "It was interesting and enlightening. It was not just talk about recruitment." Bill Gates has influenced society in so many ways, whether it is by giving speeches or creating new technologies. He has a lot to do with most of the stuff he talked about in his speech.

The cool thing about Gates' talk was that he only spoke about this 2 years ago, and almost everything that he said in this article is happening 2 years later. For example, when Gates was talking about how television would soon be available through the internet, he was right. While typing this blog, I am currently watching the Jets vs. Patriots game online because it is not showing on television right now. Also, you saw how the internet was used to help countries like Hati when they suffered from that devastating earthquake. That just goes to show how fast technology is growing in this society.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008770290_apwagatesspeech.html

History of Social Impact of Technology

A major advancement for technology was through the Industrial Revolution which took place during the 18th and 19th century. During that time many people moved from their land in the villages to live in the overcrowded cities because they wanted to make more money. Since there was an advancement in technology, many companies started hiring factory workers. Trade prospered and merchants were very profitable because of the abundance of urban workers. A lot of those urban workers consisted of children and peasants, and they did not often work in the best conditions. Life back then was all about making money to survive so there wasn't really anything that the workers could do.

War has been and will continue to be the primary reason for technological advancement. Different nations are always trying to keep up with the latest gadget or device to have an advantage on other countries. Its amazing how a lot of the newest technology that the public can get their hands on, the military has already been using it for many months even years before it is released to the public.

Technology has been and can be used in many ways, either to better society or even to bring it down. It has entered the food market which many people think is not good for society. Technology has been and is still being used to enhance the animals that we eat. This has caused issues because many people have gotten sick from the steroids and products the farmers will use to enhance the animals. Also corporations have used technology to control the food industry. For example, GM has enhanced salmon that grows ten times faster than normal salmon and it ends up destroying river systems. This causes all of the smaller life forms to be wiped out and alters the whole food chain. This is just one of the ways technology can be detrimental to society.

The internet is another advancement of technology. It allows the free flow of information at any moment. About 2 decades ago only rich people could afford to buy a computer and have the internet. There wasn't as much information out there before as there is now. Nowadays people can afford computers and laptops and can get on the internet at anytime and from almost anywhere. There is so much information out there now, its overwhelming. People can do so much on the internet now. For example, email, instant message, video chat, research etc. There is jus so much out there to do. 

The history of technology has a lot to do with how technology is operated today. Almost everyone has a cell phone nowadays and is accessible at any moment. Almost everyone also has some sort of mp3 player and can listen to any type of music at any time. Devices now are getting smaller and are increasing in features to suit different types of people. Its amazing to look back at how technology has changed over time and how it has impacted society over the years. 

Introduction to Mobile Technologies and their impact on life and society

Have your parents or friends ever gotten mad at you because you are always on your phone, or listening to music through your ipod, or always on your laptop? Well this happens to me very often. My parents are always getting on me about texting and being on Facebook for most of the day. Mobile technology has taken over society. Our mobile devices have a huge impact on the way we communicate and how we go about our everyday life. Most youth, all they talk about is the next phone or ipod they will be getting. A lot of them just want one to be cool but there are others who like me look for the phone with the most features that will support the things I do every day. There are so many different types of mobile technology today. Today, almost everyone has either a cell phone, laptop, ipod/mp3 player, or even a ipad or tablet PC. Before the 90s people had to survive without the technologies that we have in this day and age. In our present day it seems like one day cannot go by without some sort type of mobile technology being used. This can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing. It can be good for business because employees and clients are constantly communicating, but it can be bad for family if everyone is neglecting each other because they are constantly on their phone or laptop. Is mobile technology enhancing our lives and our society or is mobile technology more of a distraction than an enhancement?

I picked this topic because it affects our everyday life. Mobile technology allows people to be "plugged in" to what is going in the world and society at any moment. Most people like to be "plugged in" to everything that is going on with friends and family so it is sometimes hard to turn off the phone or not look at emails. In this blog I will be discussing things like the history of mobile technology, different types of mobile technology, the pros and cons of different mobile technology, and the positives and negatives of the way mobile technology is used in society today. My goals for this blog are to educate you, keep you informed on new and emerging technology, share my thoughts and feelings on different information that I find in my research, and to educate myself with my research. I hope you find it useful and resourceful.