Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy Research Paper

Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy - Research Paper Example It is in this backdrop that we must study the issue of privacy in the United States today. As the most advanced nation in the world, the urban spaces in the United States are the nerve centers for global commerce and politics. A loss of privacy in the form of loss of confidential information can have far-reaching negative consequences for individuals/corporations/governments involved. In the last two decades, the issue of privacy has taken a new dimension, with the advent of electronic communication. The growth of the Internet has posed new challenges to administrators of privacy and so far these challenges are not properly met. There is plenty of commercial activity that takes place in the Internet, thereby raising the stakes of proper security measures. An FBI report indicates that phishing scams are occurring more frequently on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. Viruses, decoy messages and hacked personal accounts are employed to acquire private data of a user, which is later abused for various purposes. For example, â€Å"Messages, which generally masquerade as warnings related to service agreements or other notifications, contain malicious code that covertly installs software on victims PCs, letting thieves steal account names and passwords. The thieves then use the accounts to distribute messages to friends of the victim, requesting large sums of money and spreading the malicious code even further†. (Schiller, 2009) In the light of discovering such scams in the world of social networking, the FBI has notified Internet users to strengthen their privacy settings and also take precautionary measures such as â€Å"disabling options such as photo sharing when possible, and carefully scrutinizing links before deciding to click on them, regardless of their apparent source† (Schiller, 2009). Already, in