Computer Applications- Unethical Computing Practices | Computer Hacking | Cyber crime | 15

Summary

This video lecture by Rebecca van di Rona delves into unethical computing practices, focusing on spam, piracy, and cybercrime. It discusses the cost-effectiveness of spam for businesses, its negative impact on consumers, and methods to combat it, such as CAPTCHA. The lecture also covers software piracy's economic effects, the motives of cybercriminals, and strategies to mitigate online fraud. It touches on various types of malware, including viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, highlighting their malicious intents and the importance of ethical computing.

Takeaways

• 📧 Spam is the misuse of email systems to send unsolicited messages, often for low-cost advertising of questionable products or services.
• 🔎 Identifying spam can be done by analyzing the email content, sender's intent, receiver's consent, relationship between sender and receiver, sender's accountability, degree of deception, and the number of identical emails sent.
• 💰 Spamming is a cost-effective marketing strategy for companies, but it can lead to negative public reactions, full mailboxes, and increased costs for internet users and service providers.
• 🛡 To combat spam, email service providers like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo use mechanisms such as CAPTCHA to ensure only humans can create accounts and send emails.
• 📚 Piracy involves unauthorized copying or distribution of proprietary software, causing significant economic impacts, especially when committed by organizations.
• 💼 Cybercrime is driven by monetary gain, with criminals hacking into computers to steal money or personal information, leading to complex trails for law enforcement.
• 🛡️ E-commerce websites use encryption and other security measures to protect against online credit card fraud, but this can sometimes result in the rejection of legitimate orders.
• 🤖 Hackers are individuals who test the limits of information systems out of intellectual curiosity, and while some view them as beneficial for identifying security flaws, most consider their actions unethical.
• 🦠 Computer viruses are malicious codes that cause unexpected and often undesirable behavior in computers, usually spread through infected files or websites.
• 🐛 Worms are self-replicating harmful programs that can propagate without human intervention, often causing significant disruption to organizations.
• 🏹 Trojan horses are programs that hide malicious code within seemingly harmless software, capable of causing damage or stealing information when executed.
• 🕵️‍♂️ There are various types of cyber attackers, including thrill-seekers, criminals, industrial spies, and terrorists, each with different objectives and levels of risk acceptance.

Q & A

What is spam and why is it considered an unethical computing practice?

Spam is the abuse of email systems to send unsolicited emails to a large number of people, often for low-cost commercial advertising or questionable products. It is unethical because it invades privacy, clogs inboxes, and can deliver harmful malware.

How can the content of an email help in identifying spam?

The content of an email can be analyzed to identify spam by looking for signs of commercial advertising, questionable products, or a lack of consent from the receiver, as well as the intent of the sender and the degree of deception.

What are some reasons why spamming is a widely used marketing practice despite its negative connotations?

Spamming is used because it is cost-effective compared to direct mail campaigns, takes less time to develop, and has a faster turnaround time for feedback.

How do email service providers like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo protect against spam?

These providers offer mechanisms such as CAPTCHA tests to ensure that only humans can obtain free accounts, which helps prevent spammers from using their services to send spam emails.

What is the economic impact of software piracy and why is it significant?

Software piracy has a significant economic impact as it involves unauthorized copying or distribution of proprietary software, leading to lost revenue for software developers and companies.

How do cyber criminals typically profit from their activities?

Cyber criminals profit by stealing and reselling credit card numbers, personal identities, and other sensitive information, or by hacking into computers to transfer money illegally.

What is a computer virus and how does it affect a computer system?

A computer virus is a piece of malicious code that infects a computer, causing it to behave unexpectedly, often by attaching to files or executing from memory, leading to data loss, program corruption, or other undesirable effects.

What is the difference between a computer virus and a computer worm?

A computer virus requires user action to spread, such as opening an infected file, while a worm can propagate itself without human intervention, often by sending copies to other computers via email.

What is a Trojan horse and how can it be delivered to a user's computer?

A Trojan horse is a program that hides malicious code inside a seemingly harmless program. It can be delivered through email attachments, downloads from websites, or removable media devices.

What is a logic bomb and how does it trigger its malicious payload?

A logic bomb is a type of Trojan horse that executes when triggered by a specific event, such as a change in a file, a series of keystrokes, or a particular time or date.

Why are some people still considered hackers as performing a service by identifying security weaknesses?

Some believe that hackers perform a service by exposing security vulnerabilities, which can then be fixed by companies to improve their systems. However, most people view hackers as unethical due to the potential harm they can cause.

Outlines

00:00

📧 Unethical Computing Practices: Spam and Piracy

The script discusses unethical computing practices, starting with spam, which is the misuse of email systems to send unsolicited messages to many people. It often involves low-cost advertising for questionable products and is used by both illegitimate and legitimate organizations to boost sales. The script outlines how to identify spam by analyzing various factors such as the email content, sender's intent, and the consent of the receiver. It also explains the cost-effectiveness of spam as a marketing tool compared to direct mail, but highlights the negative public reaction and the significant costs it imposes on internet users and service providers. Additionally, the script touches on the use of spam to deliver malware and the measures taken by email service providers to combat it, including the use of CAPTCHA to ensure only humans can register for free email accounts. The second part of the paragraph addresses software piracy, which is the unauthorized reproduction and distribution of proprietary software, and its economic impact on organizations.

05:00

💻 Cybercrime and Cybersecurity Threats

The second paragraph delves into cybercrime, another unethical computing practice, where cybercriminals are driven by monetary gain and engage in activities such as hacking into computers to steal money or personal information. The script describes the various motivations of cybercriminals, including trail seekers, common criminals, industrial spies, and terrorists, each with different objectives and levels of risk acceptance. It also covers the impact of cybercrime on businesses, including the loss of revenue due to fraudulent transactions and the cost of implementing security measures. The paragraph outlines different security techniques used by e-commerce websites to protect against online fraud, such as encryption technology, address verification, and transaction risk scoring. The script also discusses the evolution of the term 'hacker' and the various types of computer attacks, emphasizing the growing importance of cybersecurity as technology advances.

10:00

🛡️ Malware and Cybersecurity: Understanding the Threats

The final paragraph focuses on different types of malware and their effects on computer systems and smartphones. It starts with ransomware, a form of malware that takes control of a device until a ransom is paid. The script then covers viruses, which are pieces of malicious code that cause computers to behave unexpectedly, often by attaching to files or residing in memory and infecting new files. Worms are also discussed as self-duplicating programs that can spread without human intervention, often via email. Trojan horses are explained as programs that hide malicious code within seemingly harmless software, which can lead to various harmful outcomes when executed. The paragraph concludes by discussing logic bombs, a type of Trojan that executes when triggered by a specific event. The script emphasizes the importance of understanding these threats as technology evolves and unethical practices become more sophisticated.

Keywords

💡Spam

Spam refers to the unsolicited emails sent in bulk, often for advertising purposes. In the video, it is discussed as a low-cost commercial advertising method, sometimes for questionable products. The script mentions how spam can be identified by analyzing the content of the email, the intent of the sender, and the consent of the receiver, among other factors.

💡Phishing

Phishing is a fraudulent method of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. The video script alludes to phishing through the mention of spam emails that may contain links or attachments that could lead to malicious sites or software.

💡Malware

Malware, short for malicious software, includes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, ransomware, and other forms of harmful programs. The script describes how spam can be used to deliver harmful worms and other malware, which can have serious consequences for the recipients and the integrity of their systems.

💡Captcha

Captcha is a type of challenge-response test used in computing to determine whether or not the user is human. The video explains how captcha can be used to prevent automated bots from creating free email accounts that could be used for spamming, by generating tests that humans can pass but most computer programs cannot.

💡Piracy

Piracy, in the context of computing, refers to the unauthorized use or reproduction of copyrighted material, such as software. The video discusses the economic impact of software piracy and how it involves making copies of proprietary software or enabling others to access it without authorization.

💡Cybercrime

Cybercrime encompasses a wide range of illegal activities that are conducted through the internet. The script mentions cybercrime as an unethical computing practice, where criminals are motivated by monetary gain, engaging in activities such as hacking, stealing personal information, and credit card fraud.

💡Encryption

Encryption is the process of converting information or data into a code to prevent unauthorized access. The video mentions the use of encryption technology by e-commerce websites to protect sensitive information from online credit card fraud.

💡Chargebacks

Chargebacks refer to the reversal of a credit card charge that was previously made by the cardholder. The script discusses how a high rate of disputed transactions, or chargebacks, can greatly reduce a merchant's profit margin and impact customer trust.

💡CVV

CVV stands for Card Verification Value, which is the three-digit number on the back of a credit card used as an additional security feature. The video explains how asking for a CVV can help prevent fraudulent purchases by ensuring that the person making the transaction has access to the physical card.

💡Transaction Risk Scoring

Transaction risk scoring is a security technique used to analyze and score the risk associated with a particular transaction based on the customer's historical shopping patterns. The script gives an example of how unusual transactions, such as using a credit card at a high-end hotel for the first time, might trigger a high risk score and potentially result in the transaction being declined.

💡Trojan Horse

A Trojan Horse is a type of malware that disguises itself as legitimate software to trick users into downloading and executing it. The video describes how Trojan Horses can be used to enable hackers to control a computer remotely, steal sensitive information, or launch attacks against other computers.

Highlights

Rebecca van di Rona introduces the topic of unethical computing practices.

Spam is defined as the abuse of email systems for unsolicited mass emails, often for questionable products.

Legitimate organizations also use spam as a low-cost marketing method to announce new products.

Spam can be identified by analyzing email content, sender intent, receiver consequences, consent, relationship, accountability, deception, and volume.

Spamming is cost-effective compared to Direct Mail campaigns and has a faster turnaround time for feedback.

Public reaction to spam is generally negative due to the intrusion of unwanted material into email boxes.

Spam contributes to communication issues and costs internet users and service providers millions annually.

Spam is also used to deliver harmful worms and malware.

Major email service providers offer mechanisms to protect against spam, including CAPTCHA to ensure human registration.

Piracy is a form of copyright infringement involving unauthorized copying or distribution of software.

The economic impact of software piracy by organizations is significant and affects individual and organizational ethics.

Cybercrime is a profitable venue for criminals, including hacking, credit card theft, and identity fraud.

E-commerce websites use encryption and address verification to reduce online credit card fraud.

Transaction risk scoring software monitors customer shopping patterns to detect and prevent fraud.

Different types of cyber attackers have various motivations, including financial gain, competitive advantage, and destruction.

Hackers may act out of intellectual curiosity, testing information systems for vulnerabilities.

Computer viruses are malicious codes that cause unexpected and often undesirable behavior in computers.

Worms are self-duplicating harmful programs that can propagate without human intervention.

Trojan horses hide malicious code inside seemingly harmless programs to perform harmful actions.

Logic bombs are a type of Trojan that execute when triggered by a specific event.

The video concludes with a summary of analytical computing practices and a teaser for the next lecture section on application software.

Transcripts

foreign

[Music]

media World 9th grade Computer

Applications video lecture series

[Applause]

[Music]

I'm Rebecca van di Rona and from this

episode we are bringing unethical

Computing practices

[Music]

we'll first start with the spams damn is

the abuse of email systems to send

unsolicited email to large number of

people most spam is a form of low-cost

commercial advertising sometimes for

questionable products such as

phonography funny get rich quick schemes

and wordless stock spam is also an

extremely inexpensive method of

marketing used by many legitimate

organizations for example a company

might send email to a broad cross

section of potential customers to

announce the release of a new product in

an attempt to increase initial sales

when identifying the spam we can easily

do that by analyzing the following areas

in the image the content of the email

the intent of the sender and the

consequences of the receiver and the

consent of the receiver relationship

between the sender and the receiver

accountability of the sender and the

degree of deception and finally the

number of identical emails sent so now

let's look at the reasons why spamming

is a highly used analytical practice in

Computing the cost of creating an email

campaign for a product or service is

several hundred to a few thousand bucks

compared with tens of thousands of bucks

for Direct Mail campaigns in addition

email campaigns take only a couple of

weeks to develop compared with three

months or more for Direct Mail campaigns

and the turnaround time for feedback

coverage 48 hours for email as opposed

to weeks for direct mail however the

benefits of spam to companies can be

largely offset by The public's generally

negative reaction to receive unsolicited

deaths spam forces unwanted and often

objectionable material into email boxes

detracts from the ability of recipients

to communicate effectively due to full

mailboxes and relevant emails being

hidden among many unsolicited messages

and the cost internet users and service

providers should afford will be millions

of dollars annually and this spam is

also used to deliver harmful worms and

other malware most of the email service

providers provide following mechanisms

to give the protection from spans many

companies including Google Microsoft and

Yahoo offer free email Services

spammers often seek to use email

accounts from such major free and

reputable web based email service

providers as the spam can be sent at no

charge and is less likely to be blocked

spammers can defeat their registration

process of the free email Services by

launching a coordinated bot attack that

can sign up for thousands of email

accounts these accounts are then used by

the spammers to send thousands of

unreasonable email messages for free a

partial solution to this problem is the

use of captcha to ensure that only

humans obtain free accounts capture

completely automated public during test

to tell computers and humans apart this

software generates tests that human can

pass but the most sophisticated computer

programs can't for example humans can

read the distorted text in this image

but simple computer programs with image

processing ability would not be able to

do that okay now the next topic is

piracy piracy is a form of copyright

infringement that involves making copies

of software or enabling others to access

software to which they are not entitled

in general form we can Define piracy as

the using of technology in unauthorized

ways a to reproduce copies of

proprietary information or B distribute

proprietor information across a computer

network the economic impact of

systematic software piracy by organic

organizations is far more significant

than the impact of a few individuals

copying their friends program from a

moral point of view however if

unauthorized copying of proprietary

software is wrong then it is just as

strong for individuals as it is for

organizations interested in profiting

from it Information Technology provides

a new and highly profitable venue for

cyber criminals who are attracted to use

of Information Technology for its ease

and reaching millions of potential

victims cyber crime is another

analytical Computing practice cyber

criminals are motivated by the potential

for monetary gain and hacked into

computers to steal Often by transferring

money from one account to another to

another leaving a hopelessly complicated

trial for law enforcement officers to

follow cyber criminals also engage in

all forms of Computer Fraud stealing and

reselling credit card numbers personal

identities and cell phone IDs Etc

because the potential for monitoring

gain is high they can afford to spend

large sums of money to buy the technical

expertise and access their need from

analytical insiders the use of stolen

credit card information is a favorite

Ploy of computer criminals fraud rates

are highest for merchants who sell

downloadable software or expensive items

such as electronics and jewelry a high

rate of disputed transactions known as

chargebacks can greatly reduce a whip

Merchant's profit margin however the

permanent loss of Revenue caused by lost

customer trust has far more impact than

the cost of fraudulent purchasers and

wall string security most companies are

afraid to admit publicly that they have

been hit by online fraud or hackers

because they don't want to hurt their

reputation to reduce the potential for

online credit card fraud most e-commerce

websites use some form of encryption

technology to protect information as it

comes in from the consumer some also

verify the address submitted online

against the one the issuing bank has

unfiled but this way the merchant May

inadvertently throw out legitimate

orders as a result for example a

consumer might place a legitimate order

but request shipment to another

different address because it is a grift

another security technique is to ask for

a card verification value CVV the three

digit number above the signature panel

on the back of a credit card this

technique makes it impossible to make

purchases with a credit card number

stolen online and additional security

option is transaction risk scoring

software which keeps track of a

customer's historical shopping patterns

and notes they wear shown from the norm

for example let's say that you have

never been into a 5 start of class hotel

or there is no such a transaction with

your credit card previously so if your

credit card information is being used at

such a place the transaction score would

go up dramatically so much so that the

transaction might be declined the people

who attacks computer include Trail

Seekers wanting a challenge common

criminals looking for financial gain and

Industrial spies trying to gain a

competitive advantage and terrorists

seeking to cause destruction to further

their course each type of perpetrator

has different objectives and access to

varying resources and it is willing to

accept different levels of risk to

accomplish his or her objective each

perpetrator makes a decision to act in

an unethical manner to achieve his or

her own personal objectives so so let's

take the first type of perpetrator

hackers in this table hackers test the

limitations of Information Systems out

of intellectual curiosity to see whether

they can gain access and how far they

can go they have at least a basic

understanding of information systems and

security features and much of their

motivation comes from a desire to learn

even more the term hacker has evolved

over the years leading to its negative

connotation today rather than the

positive one it used to help while there

is still a vocal minority who believe

the hackers perform a service by

identifying security weaknesses most

people now believe that a hacker does

not have the right to explore public or

private networks there are numerous

types of computer attacks with new

varieties being invented all the time we

usually think of such exploits being

aimed at computers and smartphone

increasingly smartphone users store an

array of personal identity information

on their devices including credit card

numbers and bank account numbers

smartphones are used to serve the web

and also it can do business transactions

electronically the more people use their

smartphones for these purposes the more

attractive these devices become as a

target for cyber Thieves for example

ransomware is a form of malware which

when downloaded onto a Smartphone takes

control of the device and its data until

the owner agrees to pay a ransom to the

attacker another form of smartphone

malware runs of charges on user's

accounts by automatically sending

messages to numbers that charge fees

upon receipt of a message the first

malicious intention we are going to talk

about is viruses computer virus cells

has become an umbrella term for many

types of malicious code technique

vehicle here virus is a piece of

programming code usually discussed as

something else that causes a computer to

behave in an unexpected and usually

undesirable manner often a virus is

attached to a file so that when the

infected file is open the virus executes

other viruses sit in a computer's memory

and infect files that the computer opens

modifies or creates the most viruses

deliver a payload or malicious software

that causes the computer to perform in

an unexpected way for example the virus

may be programmed to display a certain

message on the computer's display screen

delete or modify a certain document or

reformat the hard drive a true virus

does not spread itself from computer to

computer a virus is spread to other

machines when a computer user opens an

infected email attachment download is an

infected program or visits infected

website in other words viruses spread by

the action of the infected computer user

the next item is computer worms unlike a

computer virus which requires users to

spread interested files to another user

a worm is a harmful program that resides

in the active memory of the computer and

duplicates itself worms differ from

viruses in that they can propagate

without human intervention often sending

copies of themselves to other computers

by email the negative impact of a worm

attack on an organization's computers

can be considerable lost data and

programs lost productivity due to

workers being unable to use their

computers additional lost productivity

as workers attempt to recover data and

programs and lots of effort for IT

workers to clean up the mess and restore

everything to as close to normal as

possible the next one is Trojan hose

Trojan Halls is a program in which

malicious code is hidden inside a

seemingly harmless program the programs

harmful payload might be designed to

enable the hacker to destroy the hard

drive corrupt files control the computer

remotely launch attacks against other

computers still passwords or social

security numbers or spy on users by

recording keystrokes and transmitting

them to a server operate by a third

party a Trojan host can be delivered as

an email attachment downloaded from a

website or contracted vrf removable

media device once the user execute the

program that hosted Trojan host the

malicious payload is automatically

launched with no telltale signs common

host programs includes screen savers

greeting cards and games another type of

Trojan horse is a logic bomb which

executes when it is triggered by a

specific event for example logic bombs

can be triggered by a change in a

particular file by typing a specific

series of keys drops or by specific time

or date so that's all about analytical

Computing practices if we have time we

can discuss much more than this because

when technology evolves bad practices

are evolving too therefore what we have

identified in here are few of most

general ones so with this episode we are

going to wind up the third section

Computing and ethics and from the next

lecture we are going to start the fourth

section of this application software

thank you for watching and see you in

the next lecture

[Music]

thank you

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