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Social Challenges forInformation Technology

INTRODUCTION:

Today in western societies more people are employed collecting, handling and

distributing information than in any other occupation. Millions of computers inhabit the

earth and many millions of miles of optical fiber, wire and air waves link people, their

computers and the vast array of information handling devices together. Our society is truly

an information society, our time an information age. The question before us now is whether

the kind of society being created is the one we want. It is a question that should especiallyconcern those of us in the MIS community for we are in the forefront of creating this new

society. Use of information technology in business has major impacts on society, and thus

raises serious social and ethical considerations in areas such as privacy, crime, health,

working conditions, individuality, employment, and the search for solutions through

IT. However, we should realize that information technology can have a beneficial effect as

well as a negative effect in each of these areas.

For example, computerizing a production process may have the adverse effect of

eliminating jobs, and the beneficial effect of improving the working conditions and job

satisfaction of employees that remain, while producing products of higher quality at less

cost. So our job as a managerial is tried to minimize the negative effects of IT and

maximize its beneficial effects. That would represent a socially responsible use of

information technology.

SOCIAL CHALLENGES FOR IT:

Social environment involves:

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Religious values:

For example in Islam there is no concept of making friends opposite gender but in

other religion there is no restriction.

Humanistic values:

For example Computer-based systems are criticized as impersonal systems thatdehumanize and depersonalize activities that have been computerized, since they eliminatethe human relationships present in noncomputer systems.

Cultural values:

Every country has there own cultural, social, and ethical norms. Every one have their

own values, and living styles. in Islamic countries jeans is not very common dressing for

women but in European country this is very common thing.

Societal values:

Its also differ from country to country, city to city.

Remember that IT can have both a positive and a negative effect on ethical and social

issues in each of these areas shown.

The social contract among people in the information age must deal with these threats to

human dignity. The ethical issues involved are many and varied; however, it is helpful to

focus on just four. These may be summarized by means of an acronym -- PAPA.

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Privacy: What information about one's self or one's associations must a person reveal to

others, under what conditions, and with what safeguards? What things can people keep to

themselves and not be forced to reveal to others?

Accuracy: Who is responsible for the authenticity, fidelity, and accuracy of information?

Similarly, who is to be held accountable for errors in information and how is the injured

party to be made whole?

Property: Who owns information? What are the just and fair prices for its exchange? Who

owns the channels, especially the airways, through which information is transmitted? How

should access to this scarce resource be allocated?

Accessibility: What information does a person or an organization have a right or a

privilege to obtain, under what conditions, and with what safeguards?

In answering these questions, Mason proposes the development of a new social

contract, where information technology will help ensure everyone's right to fulfill his or her

human potential. Mason's ideas could serve as the basis for many proposals being

debated concerning privacy, censorship, and accessibility of the Internet. In this new

social contract, information systems should be designed to ensure accuracy and not

invade a person's privacy. Channels of information should be protected and information

made accessible to avoid information illiteracy or deprivation. Finally, information systems

should be designed to protect an individual's intellectual capital from unauthorized

exposure, loss or damage. Developing, protecting, and enforcing this social contract

then become the responsibility ofend users, managers and ISprofessionals.

IT an Employment

The impact of information technology on employment is a major social concern and

is directly related to the use of computers to achieve automation. There can be no doubt

that the use of information technology has created new jobs and increased productivity,

while also causing a significant reduction in some types of job opportunities. Computers

used for office information processing or for the numerical control of machine tools are

accomplishing tasks formerly performed by many clerks and machinists. Also, jobs created

by information technology within a computer-using organization require different types of

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skills and education than do the jobs eliminated by computers. Therefore, individuals may

become unemployed unless they can be retrained

For new positions or new responsibilities.

Privacy Issues

The power of information technology to store and retrieve information can have a

negative effect on the right to privacy of every individual. For example, confidential E-mail

messages by employees are monitored by many companies. Personal information is being

collected about individuals every time they visit a site on the World Wide Web.

Confidential information on individuals contained in centralized computer databases by

credit bureaus, government agencies, and private business firms has been stolen or

misused, resulting in the invasion of privacy, fraud, and other injustices. The unauthorized

use of such information has seriously damaged the privacy of individuals. Errors in such

databases could seriously hurt the credit standing or reputation of an individual.

Privacy on the Internet

If you don't take the proper precautions, anytime you send an E-mail, access a web

site, post a message to a newsgroup, or use the Internet for banking and shopping whether

you're online for business or pleasure, you're vulnerable to anyone bent on collecting data

about you without your knowledge. Fortunately, by using tools like encryption and

anonymous remailers - and by being selective about the sites you visit and the information

you provide-you can minimize, if not completely eliminate, the risk of your privacy being

violated

Computer Crime

Computer crime is the major social and ethical challenge caused by the criminal or

irresponsible actions of computer users who are taking advantage of the widespread use of

computer networks in our society. It thus presents a major challenge to the ethical use of

IT. Computer crime poses serious threats to the integrity, safety, and quality of most

business information systems, and thus makes the development of effective security

methods a top priority.

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Major types of criminal activity involving computers

The theft of money, services, software, and data;

Destruction of data and software, especially by computer viruses;

Hacking on the Internet or other computer networks, and violations of privacy.

Crime on the Internet

Widely publicized attacks by hackers on the Internet have splashed the open

electronic playground with a dose of cold reality and sent newcomers scrambling to beef up

network security plans. In recent years, as the Internet has changed from the casual chat

line of the academic and research communities to the playground of the computationally

hip, attacks have increased. The influx has created a new breed of intruder who uses

sophisticated Software programs designed to automatically probe the Internet looking for

system weaknesses

Hackers can monitor E-mail, Web server access, Gopher services, or file transfers to

extract passwords or steal network files, or to plant data that will cause a system to

welcome intruders. A hacker may also use remote services that allow one computer on a

network to execute programs on another computer to gain privileged access within a

network. Telnet, a tool for interactive use of remote computers, can help a hacker discover

information to plan other attacks. Hackers have used Telnet to access a computer's E-mail

port, for example, to monitor E-mail messages for passwords and other information aboutprivileged user accounts and network resources. These are just some of the typical types of

computer crimes that hackers commit on the Internet on a regular basis. That's why Internet

security measures like encryption and fire walls, as discussed in this chapter, are so vital to

the success of electronic commerce and other business uses of the Internet.

Money Theft

Service Theft

Software Theft

Data Alteration or Theft

Health Issues

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The use of information technology in the workplace raises a variety of health

issues. Heavy use of computers is reportedly causing health problems like job stress,

damaged arm and neck muscles, eye strain, radiation exposure, and even death by

computer caused accidents. For example, computer monitoring is blamed as a major cause

of computer-related job stress. Workers, unions, and government officials criticize

computer monitoring as putting so much stress on employees that it leads to health

problems

SolutionsInformation technology can have many beneficial effects on society. We can use

information technology to solve human and social problems through societal solutions

such as medical diagnosis, computer-assisted instruction, governmental program

planning, environmental quality control, and law enforcement.

Information technology can be used for crime control through various law

enforcement applications. For example, computerized alarm systems allow police to

identify and respond quickly to evidences of criminal activity. Computers have been used

to monitor the level of pollution in the air and in bodies of water, to detect the sources of

pollution, and to issue early warnings when dangerous levels are reached. Computers are

also used for the program planning of many government agencies in such areas as urban

planning, population density and land use studies, high way planning, and urban transit

studies. Computers are being used in job placement systems to help match unemployed persons with available jobs. These and other applications illustrate that information

technology can be used to help solve the problems of society.

Globalization:

Social challenges As businesses go global there will be a pressing need to bridge

the digital divide among nations and also within national borders. Weaving in information

technology into the educational systems across the world poses a formidable challenge,especially so when illiteracy still plagues populous countries like India and China.

Ironically, Asia, the continent to which these countries belong, constitutes 41% of the

global internet users, in spite of a mere 17% population penetration of the internet.

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PRACTICAL STUDY:

SELECTED ORGANIZATION:

INTRODUCTION:Orkut is a free social networking Web site where you can create a profile, connect with

friends, maintain an online scrapbook and use site features and applications to share your

interests and meet others. Orkut users must agree that they're 18 or older to use the site.

Orkut was invitation-only for most of its first five years, but now it's available without an

invitation. All you need is a Google user account -- and you may already have one if you

use other Google services, such as Gmail.

Orkut was named after its creator - Orkut Bykkkten.

As of December 2009, 51.09% of Orkut members are from Brazil, 20.02% from

India and only 17.28% are from the U.S.

Orkut is managed by Google Brazil

Current Orkut members - 100 million

Socia l ChallengesLike many other social networking site that runs on a free environment, Orkut also faces

several challenges including

spammers,

flooders,

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users who create false or misleading profiles,

users with malicious intent, and more.

Testimonials feature:

user authenticity, with its testimonials feature. Your testimonials are posts by your

friends describing what they think of you. Others users can read your testimonials to

determine if they trust you and want to accept your friend request. Testimonials at orkut

make it more difficult for users to mislead others with their profile details, reducing the

potential for stalkers and cyber predators.

Despite the testimonial feature, user authenticity on orkut was still questionable

while invitations were a hot commodity. Until orkut removed its invitation requirement,

some current users put invitations up for auction on eBay while prospective users posted

everywhere online hoping to find such a coveted token.

Privacy :

in Orkut it was possible for anybody to view anyone's pictures, videos as well as

scraps, but people started misusing the photos and videos and placing them on the Internet

with fake details. Many of them were vulgar, especially pictures of women. Moreover, the

scraps could be easily read.Currently privacy covers such features as scraps (separate read

and write access), videos, photo albums, testimonials, and applications. These privacy

levels are available to users:

In December 2008, Orkut developers introduced another privacy update that allow

users to restrict viewing of their albums to certain number of friends, as well as selected e-

mail contacts. The user can limit visibility of her/his profile to a certain region or group of

regions (known as a "network"); in this case outside of these regions no user information is

available.

Hacking:

Orkut had failed to protect its site from hackers by failing to fix a security loophole.

Orkut administration were urged by Pakistani users to check the IP address logs which they

keep, to get evidence of profiles hacked. They have so far chosen to ignore this. If they

continue to exhibit careless and ignorant behaviors, they will be losing more than its

usersalong with their reputationall thanks to the criminal outfits whom they didnt

take actions against.

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Phishing Techniques:

Eventually various phishing sites were develop with the intent of stealing other

person accounts and communities. A couple of month later invisible profiles, communities,

and topics started to appear in orkut.

\

Trolling:

Many resins exist for flooding. As a social network its obvious that people have or

develop enemies on the site but some of them attack simply for the sake of trolling.

Flooder and fake profiles:

As with any social networking community a number fake and cloned profile exists

on orkut. Due to large number of user, the profile were often left unresolved or whenremoved easily. The profiles are normally created to trolling to spam or just for fun.

Hate group:

Anti region, anti national, and anti social and anti ethic group have also been

spotted recently an Indian court has issued notice to google on some of the groups. The

Mumbai policeare seeking a ban on orkut post objection raised by political groups.

State censorship:

Orcut was very popular in Iran but the website is now blocked by the government. As

they say this is due to national security issues and ethical Islamic issues about dating and match

making.

Google has continued to make improvements to orkut in order to keep it

competitive, safe, and fun to use. Today, it's a secure, well-established site backed by a

reputable company. If Google remains committed to maintaining and improving the site,

and promoting it in growing online markets, orkut will continue its world-wide success.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES:

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.Advantages

You can find your old college, school friends here.

You can get the news of the places, schools, colleges, cities which you have left as

there are so many communities.

You can create a community and have many friends of your mentality.

Disadvantages:

There are many fake ids which can make you feel as a good friend and can play with

your emotions.

Certain unparliamentarily things are easily accessible on which the young generations can

easily attracted.

Data collection method:

I took data from internet, books, reports, etc.i have collected secondary data which I

use as my primary data.

SWOT analysis:

Strengths

Collaborative

Engaging

Knowledge Management

Ease of Use

Low Cost

Weaknesses

Oversold

Tribal

Disorderly

Privacy Issues

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Opportunities

Integration

Distributed Platform

Standards

Portable

Modularity

Rapid Generation

Threats

Competing Platforms

Shifting Sands

Ownership

Technical Support

Abuse and Exploitation

Duty of Care

Conclusion

As technology continues to advance, so do the methods in which an individual's

private information may be procured and misused. The solution to avoiding the dystopian

future portrayed in the novel "1984" (Orwell, 1949) lies not in a Unabomber-like attitude of

seclusion from all technology, but rather in assuming the responsibility for educating

ourselves about protection of privacy, and taking prudent privacy protection measures. This

exemplifies the saying that "Freedom is not free". It may be that in an age where terrorism

is so prevalent, some degree of surveillance is a necessary evil, but forsaking our freedoms

cannot protect freedom.

Mittal said, the technology cannot be blames. The information technology provides

access and connectivity and has both positive and negative effect. The medium cannot be

blamed its how people use it your education, family back ground and the way you have

been taught to handle things often governs what you do on the information. Then again

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terrorists use mobile phones for a lot of use other than making calls.whould you say people

stop using phones as well?

REFERENCES:

http://www.orkut.com (7:45 pm, 15 April 2010)

http:/www.tagwalk.com(7:50pm,15 April 2010)

http://www.technospot.com(8:00 pm,15 April 2010)

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http://www.orkut.com/http://www.orkut.com/