Life in the information age- crime prevention and cyber crime

Crime prevention and crime

This week I am going to discuss the role of ICT in crime prevention and crimes committed.  This section will be broken down into 2 sections: Computers and crime detection and cyber crime.

The topics that I will be discussing in this topic are ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition), Phishing and Viruses.

Introduction

Preventing crime and committing crime through advances in technology has become very complex. The police have taken advantage of what information technology can offer to develop highly complex methods of preventing crime. Equally so is the case of criminals, they have also taken advantage of technology to increase the likelihood of a successful criminal act over the internet.

Preventing crime (ANPR)

ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition). This has been a very successful piece of technology that is used by police to cross reference vehicles that have been marked as questionable by local police or national police. The system works by a video image of the number plate being taken, which the computer then converts into a proper registration number for the vehicle, which is compared to the database to find a match for a flagged vehicle. The system is found on the majority of major roads and motorways, but it is also fitted inside police cars for them to use on the road.

Advantages of ANPR

ANPR is used widely worldwide and with that brings many different advantages for the police.

Reading of number plates- One of the biggest advantages to the police is that ANPR captures and reads uniwue number plates of the vehicle. This is a major advantage to the police because the computer can convert the video image from the camera into a readable number plate. The police from that if given a call over the police radio about stolen vehicle can wait for vehicles to pass and check the number plate of cars that have been flagged by the police as suspicious. The system itself has enabled more motor vehicle criminals to be arrested as identifying suspicious vehicles has become easier.

Accuracy- The ANPR systems over the years of being in the information age have become more accurate. The accuracy has been estimated as an average of 95% accurate. Because of the accuracy the catching of criminals has become easier as the evidence of crime is evident within the database. Following on from that it is even accurate in adverse weather, or reading dirty number plates making them a very useful tool to police who couldn’t possibly see the number plate by eye.

CCTV systems- The system itself complements the CCTV system very well. The ANPR system can be used in conjunction with the CCTV system to capture the number plate. Because of this the ANPR system is highly versatile piece of equipment.

24 hour coverage- It is widely argued that most motor criminals will look to commit crime at night. This is because it is highly unlikely that there will be witnesses to any crime committed. However the ANPR system works 24/7 unless there is a fault, this means that criminals cannot escape the system even in the night. This is hugely advantageous to the police because they can catch criminals any time of the day even if the criminals think they have got away with any crime committed.

Disadvantages of ANPR

Road pricing- One of the biggest disadvantages of ANPR is it cannot be used for road pricing. This is because that if they were placed on all tolls in Britain it would be expensive to install and it would spoil the landscape of Britain. Although the system is highly effective placing the system on border tools like the seven bridge toll could be an effective method for police.

Main roads- When camera´s are placed along main roads only, drivers may avoid registration by using secondary roads which means the ANPR system wouldn’t apply to them. Because of this motor crime along secondary roads will increase. To counter this police would have to employ more officers to enforce theses secondary roads; this will cost allot of money, and in the current economic climate that isn’t possible.

Privacy fears- Many people have expressed fears about being tracked by the government. Because of this many people have described the system as a police state similar to that of a dictator country, even though they are there for the public safety.

Identity fraud- The cloning of number plates can lead to hazardous consequences for the owners of vehicles if used by the wrong people. Because of these cases of identity fraud may increase through ANPR.

My experiences of ANPR

I haven’t personally had any experiences of ANPR, however many people have the same common issue with the system, privacy. Many of the technology that has been developed for the police has come under criticism from the public due to issues of privacy. Many people have thought the ANPR system to be ineffective due to opinions that uninsured drivers caught by ANPR aren’t going to be caught anyway. However I personally feel it is a good method for catching criminals as they can be tracked through different counties in an attempt to catch them. In Humberside recently 347 arrests were made and 31 vehicles recovered through use of ANPR

Cyber crime

Phishing and viruses

Phishing is a type of identity fraud targeted towards individuals or business in attempt to gain access to private/personal information. Phishes may threaten to for example close people’s bank accounts if they don’t reply to the email. If the person replies they will attempt to get the person participating in money laundering stealing their personal information.  Phishing is usually in the form of an email and can easily be spotted by key information such as wording or even through the email user. With phishing there a many processes involved these are planning, setup and attack, collection and identity fraud.

Planning- phishers decide which business to target and. They often use the same email address and will look to get certain email addresses through use of spam.

Setup- Once they know which business and individuals to attack phishers try to find ways of sending the message and collecting the data. Most of them will look to webpage’s and spam.

Attack- The phishers will send a false message that seems genuine in attempt to find a victim to attack.

Collection- phishers record the information that people enter into web pages and pop up windows.

Fraud- The phishers will then from the information they have collected make illegal purchases over the internet. They may do this multiple times, and from that will judge the successes and failures of the phishing process, and will perform the cycle again.

Viruses

Introduction -A Computer Virus is a software program that is designed to copy itself over and over again and to attach itself to other programs. Viruses can cause huge amount of time wasting and financial loss for people and businesses. The Melissa virus was very good at spreading itself that many businesses had to shut down their email systems. Viruses don’t damage hardware on a computer; they affect the data and programs stored on your computer.

How do they spread?
The easiest method of obtaining a virus is through an email attachment or entering a dangerous website.  Viruses can also be obtained through file sharing websites; people can edit these files to add viruses for other people to download. The viruses attempt to copy itself through a type of storage device on your computer such as a floppy disk, memory stick, CD ROM or a DVD.

How they can be removed


Through the information age many companies stated to develop software that could detect and remove these viruses. This type of software is called anti-virus and can be purchased through many different software/ computer companies such as PC world. When the anti-virus software recognizes a virus it will alert the user, and ask them whether they want to remove the virus and clean the system. The software might also ask the user whether or not they wish the virus to be quarantined so that it can be studied by the company for testing. More malicious viruses are always being written so it is important to have an understanding of all latest viruses that have been detected. Many companies will also issue updates to your anti viruses software to make the system more effective towards viruses.
Preventing infections

Antivirus software- Use the antivirus software to scan your computer daily. Doing this can determine after a browsing session whether or not you have picked up an infection.

Scanning emails-You should also scan al emails because they could contain a threat that you don’t know about. Following on from that not opening email attachments from unknown sources is a good way of preventing viruses because this ensures that the risk of contracting a virus is reduced.

Software sharing- You should look to not to download file sharing software because they have the potential to contain viruses that have been uploaded by sharers. The potential for viruses are usually from free downloads as they an enticement for victims of a virus writer.
Other threats

Trojan horse-Log all your keystrokes and then send the details to another person in charge of the Trojan. It can allow someone else to take control of your computer whilst you are online. The Trojan may also use screen shots and send them to another computer to steal private information.

Worms- Like a virus they can spread, however they spread by themselves over multiple networks. They are highly annoying because they can cause network to slow down reducing the bandwidth of the network.

Adware- This is a very harmless virus that logs the adverts that you look at. Because it logs this information you will get adverts that are tailored to yourself on your browser.

Legislation to protect people against viruses and Phishing

The computer misuse act of 1990

The computer misuse act of 1990 was passed to prevent unauthorised access to computers or hacking. This also covers virus writing and Phishing.

The principles of the computer misuse act of 1990

·        No unauthorised access to computer material

·        No accessing with intent to commit an offence. For example a person commits an offense by looking and using newsletter settings of a person and uses this to send an email to a customer or a set of customers asking them to disclose bank details to steal money from their accounts.

·        No unauthorized modification to computer material. This is because it is illegal to change other people’s data without the permission of that person.

Computer software

Computer software is now covered by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act of 1988, which covers music, literature and software. It is illegal to copy software, run pirated software, and transmit software over a telecommunications line with intent to mass distribute it.

            Copyright has 3 offenses

·        Illegal Copying, not for Profit

·        £2k and/or 6 months

·        Mass Copying, not for profit, same penalty + confiscation & compensation to copyright holders.

·        Any of the above if used for profit.

Computer Misuse Act 3 offenses

·        Unauthorised access to a computer results in, £20,000 and/or 6 months.

·        Unauthorised access with intent to cause a further offense, £50, 000 and/or 5 years.

Unauthorised Changing of files through viruses or other malicious programmes, 5 years + £50,000per computer affected.

Life in the information age- entertainment

Life in the information age- entertainment

This week I am going to discuss how the entertainment sector has been affected by us living in the information age.

Some of the topics that I am going to discuss during this post are: Games and Music.

Introduction to entertainment

The entertainment industry has been affected largely by the information age. Many people will see the benefits that the information age has brought to the entertainment industry while others will look for the social and cultural impacts on society brought on through the information age. In addition to that we can clearly see that there is certainly new ways of enjoying entertainment because they are outdating their predecessors. In relation to the topics that I am going to be discussing this week there are now new ways to play games and make the games themselves through technological advances brought on by us living in the information age. Conventional controllers are now starting to be outdated through the introduction of the critically acclaimed Kinect and Playstation move system. In addition to MP3 players are being made obsolete by the more powerful and better storage system in Apples I pods. All these technological advances have made entertainment more ubiquitous than ever, regular conversation starters are to do with technology.

Introduction to gaming

One of the biggest changes to entertainment is the gaming industry. Every consecutive year we will see a new console better than its predecessor, also through this I will be discussing the changes that the gaming industry has seen from the perspective of gamers.

History of Gaming

The first generation console was called the Magnavox odyssey; it was first released in 1972 and required 2 players to play on. This console allowed the playing of 12 games and could be considered as the starting point for most modern day consoles and gaming.

One of the biggest advances in technology in 1976 was the release of the first cartridge based games console. The console was called the Fairchild channel f; it was the first console to have a processor and 64 bytes of RAM. In fact this console was so successful that cartridge based consoles were used right up to 1994 when Playstation released their games on CD discs.

1985 saw the biggest ever puzzle game released. Tetris is still now a very huge arcade game with over 70 million versions of the game being sold worldwide. Games like this were beginning to make the gaming industry huge as many people played the game.

1988 saw the first CD Rom unit for a console. This kick started the CD disc gaming that still exists today. This was released for the PC engine as an add on pack.

1989 Saw Atari releasing the first games console to have colour. It was called the Atari Lynx and it was the console that the Nintendo DS and PSP were born from.

1993 Saw the first arcade game to use polygons in the form of hardware 3D. The game was called virtua fighter and took advantage of real world fighting techniques.

2000 was a real revelation in console gaming. PS2 had a DVD players contained within in becoming the cheapest DVD player on the market and had huge sales in Japan. The PS2 could be regarded as the biggest console of its time until the Xbox came in the market and changed gaming forever.

2001 saw the Xbox arriving. Microsoft had developed a console that would soon change the world in its next console. However on the topic of this console its best feature offered was it had a hard drive for game storage. It was a revelation for gaming because we have had to use memory card that offered little storage available.

2005 Saw the Xbox 360 being released. It is probably now the market dominator for gamer despite PS3 still being on the market. The Xbox Elite was probably the best Xbox 360 with 120GB worth of storage, that amount could store around 800 games!

2011 Kinect is released for Xbox 360. This was a major step towards virtual gaming because it required no controller and only required the player to use their hands and feet. This seemed to make Wii obsolete.

Advantages brought to gaming

Better entertainment- It is widely argued that since the release of the Magnavox Odyssey gaming has been one of the biggest entertainment in the world. We can play with multiple people every since the first console allowing us to play with friends and family over multiple games. I personally believe being gamer, gaming offers something else to entertainment; you can play gaming for hours I feel than sitting in front of a T.V.

Cartridge gaming- Ever since the release of the fairplay channel f cartridge gaming has dominated the market. It could be regarded as the start for the loading of games into consoles, I personally have had cartridge based consoles and personally believe that they are as good as CD discs, in fact they are probably better because CD’s can get scratch while the cartridge does not.

CD discs- Being in the information age we now have access to playing games on discs. This has been the case ever since Playstation released games on to its console in the form of discs. Because of this advance in 1994 games released on the new consoles PS3 and Xbox 360 will take the form of CD discs. CD discs have been a revelation for gaming because multiple content could be placed on these discs unlike the cartridge. I personally believe that CD discs have allowed the multiple adding of content which is good because game designers aren’t limited on what they can put in the games.

HD gaming- HD gaming has been apparent ever since the release of the PS3 and the Xbox 360. What this offers gamers is crisper colour and sound to make gaming more realistic than ever. Landscapes in particular games such as fallout have been made to seem real; and the level of detail that the gamer can see makes gaming seem more real than ever. I personally believe being a gamer that HD gaming has made available better graphics to games and designers can focus on landscapes to make gaming seem, more real for the player.

Playstaion move and Kinect- One of the biggest revelations for gamers in the information age is the access to no ‘controllers gaming’. This type of gaming I thought was very early for this stage, however being in the information age w consoles and gadgets arte made readily available every 6 months or so. However what these gadgets offer us is a new and exciting type of gaming never seen before and could shape the future in which we play games. I personally have Kinect and believe that even though it might take a while for people to get used to it, it will soon become the start of the new generation of gaming because it is very futuristic.

Disadvantages of gaming in the information age

It is of my opinion that the information age has brought more positives than it has negatives. There are a few disadvantages that the information age has brought to gaming.

Addictiveness- Many of the games that are released today are very addictive. It is bad for people that actually need to get on with work or school work and prevents growth in education. I personally believe that gaming is a distraction from work if left uncontrolled and being a gamer it is very tempting to leave the work you have to do to play on a games console.

Keeping up- It is very difficult to keep up with every single console, game and gadget that is made. It can become very annoying when you purchase one console and in the next 2 months another console comes around because you have to buy new games for that console and get used to what it offers.

Expense- Games in the information have seem to get more expense especially every Christmas when they release the best and most anticipated games of the year. I personally believe that although this is good for the companies that make these games it is not good for consumers when making a choice on what to buy.

My experience of gaming in the information age- The first console I ever had was the Nintendo 64; this used cartridge games which I thought were pretty good. In terms of what the Wii offers I feel that Nintendo have felled short of they have previously offered gamers. The N64 was a very good console compared to the Wii because it offered very good graphics and an enjoyable experience that you don’t seem to get with the Wii. In terms of the Xbox 360 and Ps3 war Xbox have done very well to fend of PS3 because it seemed that PS3 would dominate the market with its blue ray player. Gaming in the information is certainly bigger than it has ever been and this is evident through the amount of content that is released for the consoles.

Music

Ever since the introduction of the MP3 player in 1997 is widely regarded a first mass produced system capable of listening to personal music. The system was created by Saehan Information Systems with a flash drive capable of storing 32MB of content which is about 6 songs. Listening to personal music has become quite a big trend. Many people will listen to personal music in public, you will probably see a person listening to personal music every single day on the streets giving you an idea of how big it has become through the information age.

Advantages of the music industry through the information age

Better hardware- The Apple I pod could be considered as the market dominator for personal music. It in recent years has made MP3 players obsolete despite them being cheaper than I pods. The IPod is actually an MP3 player but it has a much better storage system than a conventional Sony MP3 player for example. An IPod classic can store up 160GB worth on content while the earlier MP3 players could store 64MB worth of song. I personally believe that if you take it from the view that earlier MP3 players could store about 6 songs compared to now where 1000s of songs could be stored it gives you an idea of what the information age has offered the music industry.

Vast amount of selection- Many  would argue that through the information age  a vast amount of music could be selected through stores such as ITunes and Sonic stage for Sony MP3 players. I personally believe that this vast amount of selection is an advantage because new music can be explored by people to the point at which less well known artists become better known.

Portable- being in the information age has developed music players that are portable. As they are portable we have the ability to take them any where we like and listen to personal music via the music player wherever we are. I personally believe that this is a huge advantage for the music industry because we often wish to work somewhere relaxing; having these portable music players enables us to have that relaxing environment in which we can work without background noise for people talking for example.

Battery- Although battery life in music players is pretty low Apple released a docking station to allow people to charge their IPod anywhere where electricity is available. It is similar to Phone hubs in appearance allowing people to recharge their IPod to listen again. The best feature about it is that you don’t need an official apple docking station; you can by a simple cheap docking station so long as it is compatible with the IPod that you own.

Disadvantage of Music in the information age-

Loud music- many people that own an IPod/MP3 player will have their music very loud. It can be very annoying for someone trying to work because you can the music be played and secondly having loud music can contribute to early deafness. I think to address this problem the sound needs to be made to be at a constant volume because early deafness is quite a big problem that can be stopped so easily.

Personal music issues- Many people in the streets when crossing roads are listening to loud music and can’t hear oncoming traffic resulting in accidents happening. Secondly there is a lack of concentration from people when listening to personal music and when you are trying to talk to someone with loud music being played it seems rude to carry on listening to that piece of music. I Personally have seen people cross with music being played in their ears and get run over as a result of not looking and concentrating where they areas stepping.

 

Pirate coping- One of the biggest disadvantages faced with music companies is pirate copying. Many people will use pre brought discs and copy them to their IPod which is illegal. For the consumer this is good because they don’t have top pay for songs; but for the company they are losing business. To counter this Apple should look into automatic detection of Pirating via their software as warning message to people who do this.

My experiences of Music in the information age- I personally believe that Music has changed quite significantly in recent decades certainly. Apple is the market dominator and looks to continue that by the huge profits that they make on their products. However the information age is all about wars between companies to make the best products, someone should look to rival apple because letting them have the market stops the consumer from experiences other products apart from apple. The choice for the consumer in ITunes for example is huge and lets them explore many different artists that they may never have heard from. However Apple as we know have ridiculous prices which is why someone should rival them because that is why many turn to pirate downloading.