Why Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side?

Raphael Cohen-Almagor, the author of Confronting the Internet’s Dark Side, explains his motivation for exploring the dangerous side of the world wide web. This new book is the first comprehensive book on social responsibility on the Internet

Determining Small Business Cybersecurity Strategies to Prevent Data Breaches

Cybercrime is one of the quickest growing areas of criminality. Criminals abuse the speed, accessibility, and privacy of the Internet to commit diverse crimes involving data and identity theft that cause severe damage to victims worldwide. Many small businesses do not have the financial and technological means to protect their systems from cyberattack, making them vulnerable to data breaches. This exploratory multiple case study, grounded in systems thinking theory and routine activities theory, encompassed an investigation of cybersecurity strategies used by 5 small business leaders in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The data collection process involved open-ended online questionnaires, semistructured face-to-face interviews, and review of company documents. Based on methodological triangulation of the data sources and inductive analysis, 3 emergent themes identified are policy, training, and technology. Key findings include having a specific goal and tactical approach when creating small business cybersecurity strategies and arming employees with cybersecurity training to increase their awareness of security compliance. Recommendations include small business use of cloud computing to remove the burden of protecting data on their own, thus making it unnecessary to house corporate servers. The study has implications for positive social change because small business leaders may apply the findings to decrease personal information leakage, resulting from data breaches, which affects the livelihood of individuals or companies if disclosure of their data occurs

Emerging Technologies

This monograph investigates a multitude of emerging technologies including 3D printing, 5G, blockchain, and many more to assess their potential for use to further humanity’s shared goal of sustainable development. Through case studies detailing how these technologies are already being used at companies worldwide, author Sinan Küfeoğlu explores how emerging technologies can be used to enhance progress toward each of the seventeen United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and to guarantee economic growth even in the face of challenges such as climate change. To assemble this book, the author explored the business models of 650 companies in order to demonstrate how innovations can be converted into value to support sustainable development. To ensure practical application, only technologies currently on the market and in use actual companies were investigated. This volume will be of great use to academics, policymakers, innovators at the forefront of green business, and anyone else who is interested in novel and innovative business models and how they could help to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. This is an open access book

Technology-Facilitated Domestic Abuse in Political Economy: A new theoretical framework

This paper presents a new theoretical framework around technology-facilitated domestic abuse (TFDA) in identifying four distinct types of omnipresent behaviour. Perpetrators are increasingly drawing upon networked technologies likes smartphones, social media and GPS trackers in monitoring, controlling and abusing survivors. There is considerable academic literature developing in response to this. Whilst this scholarship is valuable, this paper argues that TFDA must be understood as a neoliberal manifestation of patriarchal legacies of misogyny and sexism. A failure to recognise this will serve to prioritise abusers’ freedom to do harm over rights of survivors to be protected from harm

Modeling and forecasting gender-based violence through machine learning techniques

Gender-Based Violence (GBV) is a serious problem that societies and governments must address using all applicable resources. This requires adequate planning in order to optimize both resources and budget, which demands a thorough understanding of the magnitude of the problem, as well as analysis of its past impact in order to infer future incidence. On the other hand, for years, the rise of Machine Learning techniques and Big Data has led different countries to collect information on both GBV and other general social variables that in one way or another can affect violence levels. In this work, in order to forecast GBV, firstly, a database of features related to more than a decade’s worth of GBV is compiled and prepared from official sources available due to Spain’s open access. Then, secondly, a methodology is proposed that involves testing different methods of features selection so that, with each of the subsets generated, four techniques of predictive algorithms are applied and compared. The tests conducted indicate that it is possible to predict the number of GBV complaints presented to a court at a predictive horizon of six months with an accuracy (Root Median Squared Error) of 0.1686 complaints to the courts per 10,000 inhabitants—throughout the whole Spanish territory—with a Multi-Objective Evolutionary Search Strategy for the selection of variables, and with Random Forest as the predictive algorithm. The proposed methodology has also been successfully applied to three specific Spanish territories of different populations (large, medium, and small), pointing to the presented method’s possible use elsewhere in the world

The future of mobile devices:security and mobility

Mobile computing has transformed the way we work, play and communicate in a very short space of time. Advances in mobile technology and the innovative uses of that technology have contributed to a multitude of social and political effects from new ecommerce enterprises to the London Riots. Alongside these innovations are security concerns which will underpin how we think about and develop mobile technology in the future. This two day workshop comprised of a conceptual discussion and two technical exercises. The conceptual discussion group discussed current trends, future possibilities and how mobile technology will impact our lives over the next 10 years and beyond. The technical groups were given two days to produce a demonstrable attack scenario using mobile technology

Technology’s Role in the Nonprofit Sector: Increasing Organizational Effectiveness and Efficiency through Technology Innovations

Increasing technology uptake in the nonprofit sector will allow nonprofit organizations and social workers to provide more effective services through improved work processes. The following paper will discuss how these processes (service delivery, fundraising, and outreach) are carried out in the nonprofit sector given the current technology landscape in nonprofits. I will provide background information about innovations such as cloud computing systems, social media, and mobile technologies that should be incorporated into the nonprofit sector in order to improve the quality of services and work processes. An overview of the barriers that nonprofits face, such as lack of knowledge, lack of resources, and demands by funders, will explain the challenges accompanying increased technology uptake. The final section provides a method to overcome obstacles, allowing the optimal integration of technology into the nonprofit sector

Empowering Women Through the Use of Technology: A Scoping Review

The achievement of gender equity and equality has been a long-time goal of many international entities. The main indicator for the goal of women’s empowerment, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has been to: “enhanc[e] the use of enabling technology by increasing the proportion of women and girls who have access” (United Nations [UN], p. 20). While information and communication technologies (ICTs) were initially thought to be neutral in terms of access and opportunity, emerging trends now indicate that the use of technology within society has significant social implications, specifically related to gender as a determinant of health. Using the Arksey and O’Malley (2005) methodology for scoping reviews, the following question was answered: What is the impact of ICT on the level of women’s empowerment worldwide? Using the stated research question, the primary objective of this scoping review was to identify the extent, range, and scope of evidence involving the impact and influence of ICTs on women’s empowerment. The major themes that emerged from this review included: (a) the means in which ICTs have assisted in building the capacity and tools of women, (b) the manner in which ICTs have been used as an intervention in supporting empowerment; and (c) the approach in which ICTs can act as potential barriers and facilitators to women’s attainment of agency. The evidence from this scoping review supports the innovative use of current and emerging technologies within health care to connect with, engage, and empower women both within the acute and community settings. The extant evidence explores how ICT has played a role in the promotion and support of women’s empowerment as well as supporting the development of health care policies and relevant programs