Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Essay Example

Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Essay Example Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Paper Consequences of war driving and insecure home networks Paper War driving compromises wi-fi networks by allowing hackers to disrupt the operations of wi-fi networks as well as free access to sensitive, private data from legitimate wi-fi network users. Al Potter (manager, ICSA Network Security Lab manager) demonstrated how war drivers can relatively tap into private wi-fi networks. Tests done by Potter and his group revealed that they detected a significant number of unsecured LANs while driving at a constant speed of 65 mph going between Leesburg, Va. , and Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C. Potter was bewildered by the findings of their tests concluding that most individuals and companies are not even aware that their wi-fi servers are under constant threat from hackers that do war driving. Potter’s findings also coincide with Wysopal’s statements that war driving can be easily done, and it is believed that hackers now have a sort of compilation or â€Å"phone book† of some sort which lists unsecured and secured wireless networks that they can tap into using their GPS systems and wireless NIC’s (Miller, 2001). Insecure home networks A home network pertains to a small computer network (wi-fi systems included) limited within a private residence. Home networks are commonly established to facilitate digital domestic applications like home internet access, cable television and other functions. Home wi-fi networks are now very popular due to their advantages (such as faster internet connection) and are fairly cheap and easy to install due to widely available consumer technologies such as 802.11, Bluetooth and HomeRF. A larger home network is relatively feasible now using Wide Area Network technologies, which consequently calls for standardization of middleware/common technologies such as UPnP, HAVi, Jini and OSGi. As implied earlier, home networks are prone to unauthorized access and hacking and most home consumers are unaware that most of their private data can be stolen or be tampered with if they are not careful of if they do not erect the necessary security features. If home user continues to disregard their digital security, then hackers will have a good time tampering and hacking their precious data to their liking (Sengodan et al, n. d. ). Home networks are definitely easier for hackers and other cyber criminals to tamper with. Hackers can then freely do as they please to an unprotected home network, resulting to cyber-theft (of data, money and other valuables), breach of user privacy, damage to hardware and other such consequences. Apprehension and persecution of cyber criminals are rare because crimes like these are fairly new and there are only a few laws in existence that pertain to cyber crimes and because of these reasons most cyber criminals run free and remain relatively anonymous. In order to prevent cyber crimes, new laws and acts must be made in order to counter the activities of cyber criminals. If not, hackers and cyber-criminals will continue to run rampant to do as they please. The use of computer and other similar devices have been so much integrated in everyday modern life that probably each home and corporation has their own network of units. Common users may not consider their data as highly classified as with corporate files but the very idea of privacy certainly implies that the common user is also concerned about security. Hackers on the other hand do not generally care about the identity of their victims as all they want is control and access f their desired system or network. The damage that they can do to corporate networks can also be applied to home systems, so private users should still be aware of the importance of a security system for their computer systems (â€Å"Home Network Security†, 2001). Information security is divided into three areas: first is confidentiality, which only properly means that the owner of the data should only be the sole person that has access to it. The second is integrity, which reserves the right of the owner to modify the data whenever he or she wills it. The third is availability or the accessibility of the data when and where the owner wills it. These three concepts are very much applicable to home and corporate users alike. Security risks that are derived from these three concepts may occur when the user is online (hacking via the internet) or offline thru theft and other unscrupulous deeds (â€Å"Home Network Security†, 2001). Therefore, the need for an efficient and effective security system applies to all types of users and must include common security methods such as authentication, confidentiality, integrity, access control and non-repudiation (Sengodan et al, n. d. ).

Definition and Examples of Confirmation Bias

Definition and Examples of Confirmation Bias In argumentation, confirmation bias is the tendency to accept evidence that confirms our beliefs and to reject evidence that contradicts them. Also known as  confirmatory bias. When conducting research, people can make an effort to overcome confirmation bias by deliberately seeking evidence that contradicts their own viewpoints. The concepts of perceptual defense bias and the backfire effect are related to confirmation bias. The term confirmation bias  was coined by English cognitive psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason (1924-2003) in the context of an experiment he reported on in 1960. Examples and Observations The confirmation bias is a consequence of the way perception works. Beliefs shape expectations, which in turn shape perceptions, which then shape conclusions. Thus we see what we expect to see and conclude what we expect to conclude. As Henry David Thoreau put it, We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. The truism, Ill believe it when I see it might be better stated Ill see it when I believe it.The potent effect of expectations on perception was demonstrated in the following experiment. When subjects were given a drink that they thought contained alcohol, but in fact did not they experienced reduced social anxiety. However, other subjects who were told they were being given nonalcoholic beverages when they were, in fact, alcoholic did not experience reduced anxiety in social situations. (David R. Aronson, Evidence-Based Technical Analysis. Wiley, 2007) The Limits of Reason Women are bad drivers, Saddam plotted 9/11, Obama was not born in America, and Iraq had weapons of mass destruction: to believe any of these requires suspending some of our critical-thinking faculties and succumbing instead to the kind of irrationality that drives the logically minded crazy. It helps, for instance, to use confirmation bias (seeing and recalling only evidence that supports your beliefs, so you can recount examples of women driving 40 mph in the fast lane). It also helps not to test your beliefs against empirical data (where, exactly, are the WMD, after seven years of U.S. forces crawling all over Iraq?); not to subject beliefs to the plausibility test (faking Obama’s birth certificate would require how widespread a conspiracy?); and to be guided by emotion (the loss of thousands of American lives in Iraq feels more justified if we are avenging 9/11). (Sharon Begley, The Limits of Reason. Newsweek, August 16, 2010) Information Overload In principle, the availability of a great deal of information could protect us from the confirmation bias; we could use information sources to find alternative positions and objections raised against our own. If we did that and thought hard about the results, we would expose ourselves to a valuable dialectical process of objections and replies. The problem is, though, there is too much information to pay attention to all of it. We must select, and we have a strong tendency to select according to what we believe and like to believe. But if we attend only to confirming data, we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to have well-reasoned, fair, and accurate beliefs. (Trudy Govier, A Practical Study of Argument, 7th ed. Wadsworth, 2010) The  Backfire Effect and Affective Tipping Points The strongest bias in American politics is not a liberal bias or a conservative bias; it is a confirmation bias, or the urge to believe only things that confirm what you already believe to be true. Not only do we tend to seek out and remember information that reaffirms what we already believe, but there is also a backfire effect, which sees people doubling down on their beliefs after being presented with evidence that contradicts them.So, where do we go from here? Theres no simple answer, but the only way people will start rejecting falsehoods being fed to them is by confronting uncomfortable truths.  Fact-checking is like exposure therapy for partisans, and there is some reason to believe in what researchers call an effective tipping point, where motivated reasoners start to accept hard truths after seeing enough claims debunked over and over. (Emma Roller, Your Facts or Mine? The New York Times, October 25, 2016) Perceptual Defense Bias Like other biases, the confirmation bias also has an opposite which traditionally has been termed perceptual defense bias. This process refers to the automatic discounting of disconfirming stimuli that protect the individual against information, ideas or situations that are threatening to an existing perception or attitude. It is a process that encourages the perception of stimuli in terms of the known and familiar. (John Martin and Martin Fellenz, Organizational Behaviour and Management, 4th ed. South Western Educational Publishing, 2010) Confirmation Bias on Facebook [C]onfirmation bias- the psychological tendency for people to embrace new information as affirming their pre-existing beliefs and to ignore evidence that doesn’t- is seeing itself play out in new ways in the social ecosystem of Facebook. Unlike Twitter- or real life- where interaction with those who disagree with you on political matters is an inevitability, Facebook users can block, mute and unfriend any outlet or person that will not further bolster their current worldview.​Even Facebook itself sees the segmentation of users along political lines on its site- and synchronizes it not only with the posts users see but with the advertisements they’re shown. (Scott Bixby, The End of Trump: How Facebook Deepens Millennials, Confirmation Bias. The Guardian [UK], October 1, 2016) Thoreau on Chains of Observations A man receives only what he is ready to receive, whether physically, or intellectually, or morally, as animals conceive their kinds at certain seasons only. We hear and apprehend only what we already half know. If there is something which does not concern me, which is out of my line, which by experience or by genius my attention is not drawn to, however novel and remarkable it may be, if it is spoken, I hear it not, if it is written, I read it not, or if I read it, it does not detain me. Every man thus tracks himself through life, in all his hearing and reading and observation and traveling. His observations make a chain. The phenomenon or fact that cannot in any wise be linked with the rest which he has observed, he does not observe.(Henry David Thoreau, Journals, January 5, 1860)