#Blogpost Five, Week Two – The beginning of end to end encryption.

As sad as it may seem, and as ignorant as us regular internet users may be, we live in an age of cyber criminals, cyber breaches and hackers and thereby the creation and implementation of end to end encryption has never been so important.

This is why I say, Thank God for WhatsApp, because recently the free messenger software application was the first to have introduced a form of encryption named end to end encryption.  

End to end encryption is a form of communication that essentially encodes a message with a specific lock as soon as it is sent and only becomes decoded when the message is delivered by the intended recipient. This eliminates the ability for any external source’s to observe your conversation and thereby prevents images, voicemails, documents and videos from getting into the wrong hands. Not only is the whole chat locked with a specific code, but every message you send,  every voicemail you record, every video, every picture and every call you make is encrypted with its own individual code that can only be seen by the intended receiver.

I think I speak for the majority when I say, that every online form of messenger should utilise end to end encryption, this sadly is not the reality.  However a new generation of end-to-end encrypted messaging protocols that obtain better security properties are rapidly gaining traction. (Ermoshina et al, 2016, p. 244-254). Thereby soon, it is expected that end to end encryption will be more frequently implemented across many forms of online messengers on the world wide web.

This is just the beginning of end to end encryption.

 

References:

Ermoshina, K., Musiani, F. & Halpin, H. 2016, “End-to-end encrypted messaging protocols: An overview”, , pp. 244.

 

 

 

 

 

#Blogpost Four, Week Two – Invasion of Privacy

We all know the concept of privacy, I assume. yes?

Well apparently US tech Giant Cambridge Analytica does not.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that tech giant Cambridge Analytica had previously extracted the profiles and personal information of up to 87 million Facebook users by obtaining their online clicking habits, likes, pictures and statuses.

Cambridge Analytica used an external app by the name of “This is your digital life” to falsely mislead Facebook users telling them they were simply taking part in a personality quiz, instead the quiz gave Cambridge Analytica access to millions of Facebook profiles  and the online habits of the users that had undertaken the quiz. The information they obtained would soon be manipulated for more corrupt purposes, most specifically to fulfil the desires of power driven politicians in support of their election campaign (even more specifically; the US 2016 presidential campaign). Cambridge Analytica utilised the personal information they obtained from the Facebook users to subconsciously manipulate political advertisements on their Facebook feed in order to persuade users to vote one way or another, politically.

Now perhaps, as a society, we all take our privacy for granted, even to the extent that we don’t actually know when it is being invaded. But how were these millions of individuals to know that something they trusted their personal information with, could do such a thing.

This leads us to question if it is indeed our own very own fault for having a social media profile in the first place, is that the risk we take every time we create a profile on any kind of social media application?

To answer my own question. Yes. I believe we should be conscious of our online presence and digital footprint. Every conversation we have, every detail about ourselves that we update on our profile, every friend we add and every picture or status we post, is stored on our phones and social media applications. As much as we would like to think, something like this would never happen to us we need to be constantly aware that things like this do happen, and with the society we live in now, we can never be too careful.

– Lucy

 

 

#Blogpost Three, Week One – What did I miss?

Hi all!

Welcome to my third blogpost, in this blogpost I will be discussing what happened in today’s tutorial. At the beginning of class, each student was asked by our tutor to bring their phone to the front of class, we were told nothing of this except we would get our phones back at the end of the session. I didn’t think much of this at this time.

At the end of class we retrieved our phones from the front. Firstly we were asked how many notifcations/what type of notifications we had missed in the hour and a half that we were without them. Secondly we were asked if we think we could last without our phone for an extended period of time. Mostly all students in the class, missed a few messages from friends via snapchat or Facebook, others missed out on emails, some spam, some not, others missed news updates from news apps they had on their phone, others missed out on messages from work group chats.

I myself missed a number of messages from a group chat with friends and a few news updates/notifcations from the SBS news app I had downloaded. This is usually the norm for me. Which may seem sad. For me, I use my phone as more of a communication device with friends rather than a device to check out and post on Facebook and instagram feeds etc. This led me to analyse the question we were asked by our tutor when we were able to retrieve our phones. Would you be able to last without your phone for a long period of time? If I was home, I most likely could last without, as there are many other things I could used to occupy my time, e.g. listening to records, hanging with friends, talking to people and reading et cetera. However, If I am away from home I believe I would need my phone for music (which I never go a day without (via spotify)) and to also contact my friends, family and work colleagues. All in all I believe I believe I could last an extended period of time without my phone without going insane!!!

Signing off, hope you enjoyed this third post.

Lucy

 

#Blogpost Two, Week One – Discussion with peer/s

Hi all,

Welcome to my second blog post, in today’s tutorial we were introduced to the course and were asked to interact and discuss with a couple of other individuals what our reason was for being at this university, and most specifically studying the degree that we are studying.

Before doing this, I got myself into a group with three other girls: Kate, Emily and Tia. All of which we were asked to answer and discuss the same overarching question: What am I here for? We were all very stumped when we were put on the spot like this from our tutor as of course the main reason to entering this course and completing a bachelors degree is of course to land ourselves qualifications that lead to job opportunities that lead to careers. But once we discussed this, we realised we each had different reasons for studying our degree and just studying in general.

Kate explained that one of her many reasons for her entering tertiary education was to not only gain qualifications required for the specific job she aspires to attain post university, but how to learn,  practice and apply different skills and knowledge  in situations that are specifically suited to her career goal.

Secondly, Emily described her reasons for completing tertiary study as being helpful in providing her with direction in steering her to the right career path. It should also be added that Emily believe’s that tertiary study allows for networking to make new friends. This is not specifically a reason for her attending tertiary but an added bonus.

Lastly, Tia listed her reasons for completing a bachelors degree at Griffith University as a window to new opportunities both socially and academically. Furthermore she added that by attending tertiary study she believes she has gained confidence in herself as a person and as a student. This was not specifically a reason for her attending study again, alike Emily, an added bonus.

Signing off, hope you enjoyed this second post.

Lucy.

 

#Blogpost One, Week One – Introduction to the Site and Me !

Hiii all,

My name is Lucy,

I am currently studying a double degree at Griffith University of Bachelor of Business and a Bachelor of Public Relations and Communication.

I’m going to be blogging on this site for the next 12 weeks.  Most of the coming blog posts will be discussing, analysing and reflecting upon my in class discussions of New Communication Technologies with my tutor and peers. Furthermore in reflecting on these discussions within the upcoming blog posts, as well as being able to view the topics discussed within this course as an outsider, you will also be able to enter my mind a little by viewing my opinions of certain topical discussions within this course.