Addressing the cyber safety challenge: from risk to resilience

Addressing the cyber safety challenge: from risk to resilience describes the cyber safety issues emerging from a range of technology trends, how different populations are using technologies and the risks they face, and how we can effectively respond to each group’s unique cyber safety needs. Written by the University of Western Sydney for Telstra Corporation Ltd, the report advocates for continuing to move cyber safety from a ‘risk and protection’ framework to one that focuses on building digital resilience, as well as fostering trust and confidence in the online environment. To do this we need to: Address the needs of populations often neglected by current policies and programs – including adults, seniors, parents, and small to medium enterprises Continue to build the digital literacy skills of all populations, because digital literacy strongly influences users’ ability to engage safely online – this is best achieved by a hands-on learning approach Keep risk in perspective – the risks and benefits of digital participation go hand in hand Broaden the focus from awareness-raising to long-term behaviour change. As digital technologies become further integrated into the everyday lives of Australians, users are potentially exposed to greater risks. However, the risks and benefits of digital participation go hand in hand. The challenge, therefore, is to support users to minimise the risks without limiting their digital participation and their capacity to derive the full benefits of connectivity. If Australians are to benefit as either consumers or providers of online services and products in the e-commerce environment, consumer safety and trust need to be improved. Cyber safety needs to be considered against a transforming backdrop of technology trends, products and practices. While the rise of social media has tended to dominate recent debate and developments in cyber safety, particularly in relation to young people, a range of other trends is also shaping how users engage online, the risks they potentially face in the new media landscape, and the strategies used to address them. These trends include the rise of user generated content and content sharing platforms; the uptake of mobile technologies and, in particular, the adoption of smartphones; cloud computing; platform integration and single sign-on mechanisms; and the rise of GPS and location based services

The influence of social networking, video games and general computer usage on parent-child relations

The aim of this project was to find out how parents feel about controlling the media/technology use of their adolescent children and how it influences their parent/child relations. This is important because modern entertainment technologies are easily accessible and available to the population; thus they inevitably invade family space and influence family life. A gap in the literature is identified, indicating that existing research does not explore the reasons why parents control or do not control their adolescent children’s use of social media, video games and more. Additionally, there was no literature concerning how parents feel about such control and whether it was part of emotional labour; that being any activities that are performed with a child’s well-being in mind. The project was carried out as the part of an undergraduate degree course by the final year student in sociology. The data was collected through face-to-face and telephone semi-structured interviews with mothers and fathers of adolescents. It was observed that both mothers and fathers felt their control over children’s use of media and technologies influenced their relations. Also the findings show a variety of reasons why parents choose to exercise their control in a particular way, and how it links to parent-child relations

Cyber-Democracy or Cyber-Hegemony? Exploring the Political and Economic Structures of the Internet as an Alternative Source of Information

Although government regulation of the Internet has been decried as undercutting free speech, the control of Internet content through capitalist gateways???namely, profit-driven software companies???has gone largely uncriticized. The author argues that this discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force neglecting to confront the invasion of online advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. This study suggests that ???inappropriate content??? (that is, nudity, pornography, obscenities) constitutes a cultural currency through which concerns and responses to the Internet have been articulated within the mainstream. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, the author contends that the rhetorical elements creating ???cyber-safety??? concerns within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by asking them to see some Internet content as value laden (sexuality, trigger words, or adult content), while disguising the interests and authority of profitable computer software and hardware industries (advertising and marketing). Although most online ???safety measures??? neglect to confront the emerging invasion of advertising/marketing directed at children and youth, the author argues that media literacy in cyberspace demands such scrutiny. Unlike measures to block or filter online information, students need an empowerment approach that will enable them to analyze, evaluate, and judge the information they receive.published or submitted for publicatio

Privacy in Gaming

Video game platforms and business models are increasingly built on collection, use, and sharing of personal information for purposes of both functionality and revenue. This paper examines privacy issues and explores data practices, technical specifications, and policy statements of the most popular games and gaming platforms to provide an overview of the current privacy legal landscape for mobile gaming, console gaming, and virtual reality devices. The research observes how modern gaming aligns with information privacy notions and norms and how data practices and technologies specific to gaming may affect users and, in particular, child gamers. After objectively selecting and analyzing major players in gaming, the research notes the many different ways that game companies collect data from users, including through cameras, sensors, microphones, and other hardware, through platform features for social interaction and user-generated content, and by means of tracking technologies like cookies and beacons. The paper also notes how location and biometric data are collected routinely through game platforms and explores issues specific to mobile gaming and pairing with smartphones and other external hardware devices. The paper concludes that transparency as to gaming companies’ data practices could be much improved, especially regarding sharing with third party affiliates. In addition, the research considers how children’s privacy may be particularly affected while gaming, determining that special attention should be paid to user control mechanisms and privacy settings within games and platforms, that social media and other interactive features create unique privacy and safety concerns for children which require gamer and parent education, and that privacy policy language is often incongruent with age ratings advertised to children and parents. To contribute additional research value and resources, the paper attaches a comprehensive set of appendices, on which the research conclusions are in part based, detailing the technical specifications and privacy policy statements of popular games and gaming platforms for mobile gaming, console gaming, and virtual reality devices

Parental Influences on the Internet Use by Children in Saudi Arabia

The advancement in technology has undoubtedly enriched the world, both socially and culturally, leading to concerns and unintended consequences surrounding both accessibility and its usage. The concerns of parents on their children’s internet usage have been one of the main reasons behind identifying ways and means to mediate children’s internet access and usage effectively. Even though it is recognised that internet usage has many positive influences on children, there are also concerns about the possible negative impact. For parents in Saudi Arabia (SA), mediating children’s internet usage is a significant concern due to the increasingly easy access to the internet and the likely negative impact on the children. These concerns and existing literature formed the basis for this research which sought to investigate the parental mediation of children’s internet usage in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the research questions ask what the intensity of children’s participation in internet activities is and how effective is parental mediation in controlling usage is? In what way do social and cultural factors motivate parents to practice regulative and restrictive mediation of their child’s internet usage. Furthermore, does excessive internet usage result in negative or inappropriate consequences regarding children’s behaviour? This research adopted a multiple paradigm approach which utilised both qualitative and quantitative approaches to collect and analyse data. Data collection for this research was through a questionnaire survey (involving 700 children and 465 parents) randomly selected, and semi-structured interviews involving 23 parents. Analysis of the data suggested that parental mediation of children’s internet usage in Saudi Arabia is a major issue. The key findings from this research indicate a very high level of internet use among children in Saudi Arabia. Approximately, 64% of the respondents indicated that they use the internet on a daily basis spending between 2 to 6 hours on the internet. Video sharing was identified to be the most common use of the internet by the children. The main drivers for parental mediation of children’s internet usage in SA were identified as the need to ensure children were trained to adhere to Islamic teachings and social values, the security of children and misinformation of children. Mediation strategies adopted by parents ranged from controlling the amount of times children spent on the internet; restricting children’s access to potentially dangerous websites, and advising children on safety issues on the internet. The implications of the research results and recommendations for ensuring effective mediation of children’s internet usage in SA are discussed in the study.Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University, Saudi Arabi

Norm-based and commitment-driven agentification of the Internet of Things

There are no doubts that the Internet-of-Things (IoT) has conquered the ICT industry to the extent that many governments and organizations are already rolling out many anywhere,anytime online services that IoT sustains. However, like any emerging and disruptive technology, multiple obstacles are slowing down IoT practical adoption including the passive nature and privacy invasion of things. This paper examines how to empower things with necessary capabilities that would make them proactive and responsive. This means things can, for instance reach out to collaborative peers, (un)form dynamic communities when necessary, avoid malicious peers, and be “questioned” for their actions. To achieve such empowerment, this paper presents an approach for agentifying things using norms along with commitments that operationalize these norms. Both norms and commitments are specialized into social (i.e., application independent) and business (i.e., application dependent), respectively. Being proactive, things could violate commitments at run-time, which needs to be detected through monitoring. In this paper, thing agentification is illustrated with a case study about missing children and demonstrated with a testbed that uses different IoT-related technologies such as Eclipse Mosquitto broker and Message Queuing Telemetry Transport protocol. Some experiments conducted upon this testbed are also discussed