The Dilemmas of Privacy & Identity Theft in Cyberculture

With the growing involvement of the Internet in the modern life, the pros and cons of Cyberculture are an intriguing issue to reflect upon. Along with several perks of being technology savvy and embracing the revolution of Cyberculture, crimes such as identity theft and invasion of privacy stand out as notable hindrances. This write up reflects on the issues of identity theft and lack of privacy amongst other cybercrimes such as theft, fraud, copyright infringement, and attacks.

A technology dependant life has left people vulnerable to certain technological crimes as the computer systems can be manipulated to design hacking and other cyber crimes. With computer information systems being an inseparable identity of modern life, it is thus essential to analyze both the risks and the advantageous opportunities of the Internet and computers, in order to minimize the risks.

IDENTITYTHEFT refers to the unauthorized obtaining of financial or legal information of a person and then utilizing it for a personal gain, in a way that secures the actual identity of the criminal. Several example of identity theft over the years have raised awareness and protection from organizations. In July, 2001, MSNBC.com reporter Bob Sullivan reflected on how his Social Security numbers, date of birth, driver’s license numbers, and credit card information was shared publicly in a chat room.

Individuals affected with identity theft usually deal with fraudulent financial transactions on personal accounts. Some eminent personalities that have experienced this particular cybercrime are Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey.

The lack of privacy is another popular cybercrime, which begs the question, whether anything is private anymore. Among the different ways of privacy invasion, spying through monitoring software, emails, internet cookies, search history etc. are extremely popular issues since the inception of a technology based life.