Communication And Information Technology B

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

1. The article talks about privacy and its changing meanings. The concept of privacy has evolved over the years. What was considered as boundaries in the past have now been removed as we continuously redefine our everyday life and activities. Privacy is actually a concept that umbrella under itself many of our social norms and values, it defines how we treat and react over different situations and with individuals. It plays an important role in identifying our social and political relationships. We often tend to overlook this fact and never discuss it as a whole. This is the reason why all our discussions on privacy today are meaningless. In today’s world we have started relying on each other a lot. We remain connected through social networking. As a result of our life formats today, the relationship between privacy and other values is constantly renegotiated. The articles discusses the concept of privacy in UK at present. Privacy has become a commodity, in fact it is treated as a currency. We use this currency in exchange of goods and services that we require. We shop online, give credit card information, exchange views and pictures on social networks and never give it a second thought. We are giving up on our privacy ourselves. This information is used and manipulated around the world. In 2005 in UK the use of finger prints, cameras and such devices was opposed. The public life is being watched all the time everywhere and we need to be aware of it. Life today has changed our concept of privacy altogether. Technology has crept into our most private of affairs as well and this is a threat to our personal as well as social and national existence.

2. The author describes "Today’s Privacy" as a currency. People use it to get luxuries and services. We readily give our personal and private information in exchange of benefits, shopping points or to open up accounts and sometimes just to socialize on the network. It is treated as a commodity all over the world and in the UK as well. People use it in exchange of services and it is even used in ways and means people are unaware of, most of them being illegal. When we talk about privacy in today’s world, we fail to discuss it as a complete entity and its effects on other social and political norms of the society. This results in a discussion that is meaningless and does not bear any fruit.

3. We are living in the age of technology. The whole world is just a click away, from us now. We have access to information, services and commodities that were earlier considered as just a dream but this technology’s effect is dependent on how we use it. According to my understanding and point of view, technology doesn’t threat our privacy, its use does. We have access to many forums, websites, different high tech gadgets but we aren’t forced to use them. We can refuse to give our personal information for every other service and restrict our usage. We can define our own boundaries and hence retain our privacy. This is how the future of privacy will be defined. I agree with the above statement, which in simple words says that technology isn’t threatening our privacy and it won’t play a role in defining our privacy in the future. It is us ,who will decide how to go about it.

4. The idea quoted in the article is on the use of privacy as a commodity. Our private life has become public, and often we intentionally give it away. When we visit websites, download material, open an account, pay online etc. we step down from our private life and give our personal information for public use. How is this public? This is public because now it has turned into a exchangeable currency. No matter how secure the connection is, our information will land into the hands of other and can be used for things we are unaware of. Companies use it for example, to sell their products, to conduct surveys and there could be other harmful ways as well. There is a whole industry that constitutes on the use of such information. Governments use it for spying, security and many other reasons. This could even lead to cyber-crime. Hence when giving information to others, we are actually making it public and it could be used in ways we are not aware of.

5. Surveillance is defined as observation from a distance, to watch from below(hidden). In today’s world surveillance plays an important role, as monitoring activities has become essential at both domestic and international level. Nowadays governments, business and even at domestic level we monitor activities. For example, we have cameras in shops to prevent theft, terrorists attacks etc. We have constant monitoring of online data to conduct different surveys, to protect against cyber-crimes etc. Government has radars and other mechanism to monitor activities on the border. The threats we face today at the domestic and international level are the strongest reason for monitoring each and every activity everywhere. Those who favor it say that it is unavoidable and is essential for our wellbeing, but there are many who argue that it is an attack on the privacy of an individual and should be minimized.

Question 2:

Cryptography is the art of writing secret (encoding) messages. It is said to be one of the most ancient techniques. In modern times it is used for communication over unsecure medium. Quantum cryptography aims to achieve security from fundamental physical principles, and the encoded messages are said to be unbreakable. Although there are many techniques used for encrypting messages but QC is so far the most secure and safe one.

In quantum key distribution (QKD), a series of random number sequences are transmitted as keys. This transmission is done through single photons that are randomly polarized to states representing ones and zeroes. This string of numbers becomes a quantum key that locks or unlocks encrypted messages sent via normal communication channels. The transmitted photons cannot be intercepted without being destroyed or altered, therefore QKD is considered the most powerful data encryption scheme ever developed and its codes are virtually unbreakable. (LANL, 2011)

How QC works in a system?

Quantum Cryptography is the exchange of randomly polarized photons. Photons are light sources that have no mass but can carry massive amount of energy. These photons spin and their spin indicates the information attached to them. High power filtered laser lights give them the required spin. In any QC activity there are three participants. The sender is referred to as Alice. The receiver is Bob and any third party intruder is called Eve. The system creates photons using LED sources. They are then passed through polarized filters to give them the required spin. Every spin signifies a 0 or a 1. Alice randomly encodes the message on these photons and send them over to bob. When Bob receives the encoded message he tries to decode it using random rectilinear or diagonal filters. Once the message has been decoded, Alice and Bob exchange the information to see if the correct message was delivered. This conversation does not require a secure medium as it will be meaningless to any third party hearing it.

So how do they find out if the message has been eavesdropped, while being transmitted?

Photons have a property of changing their state, whenever they are examined. Eve will also apply random filters to the photons to decode Alice’s message, and while doing so she will alter some of them. When Alice and Bob compare their messages, they will see discrepancies which will indicate that the message has been eavesdropped on. Once the correct key has been received only then the message will be forwarded and received. (QCV, 2013)

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\Downloads\writers club\april\qkd.jpg

(Qkd,2013)

The biggest advantages that QC offers is the detection of eavesdropping. This is easily done using this method. It offers secure and reliable transmission of data even in the presence of Eve. It does have a few draw backs, but they can be overcome. It cannot work for longer distances, as photons change their state over a long distance. It cannot be used for digital signatures, mail and such applications. There are methods to overcome these shortcomings. Longer distances can be bridged and applications are being redesigned to incorporate QC in them.

Question 3:

1. After reading the article thoroughly I read more about different definitions such as privacy and surveillance. This gave be a better insight and knowledge. Then I read the article again. After this I started writing the answers and elaborated on each using my knowledge as well as the information gathered from the article.

2. I read from the basic quantum physics to how quantum cryptography came into existence. Then I started writing the summary and as I wrote, I further read online about different definitions and terms, in order to be able to better elaborate my points.

Question 4:

Finger scan technology is one of the most widely used biometric technology. Sensors are used in various field in life today, and finger print scanning is one of them. . There are different types of sensors used to detect finger prints. They work by measuring the potential between the two surfaces in contact.

Optical sensors:

Optical fingerprint imaging captures a digital image of the print using visible light. This type of sensor is actually a specialized digital camera. The top layer of the sensor, where the finger is placed, is known as the touch surface. Beneath this layer is a light-emitting phosphor layer which illuminates the surface of the finger. The light reflected from the finger passes through the phosphor layer to an array of solid state pixels (a charge-coupled device) which captures a visual image of the fingerprint. In detail, the finger touches a glass prism and the prism is illuminated with diffused light. This light is reflected at the valleys and absorbed at the ridges. The reflected light is focused onto a CCD or CMOS sensor. Optical fingerprint sensors provide good image quality and large sensing area but their size cannot be reduced because as the distance between the prism and the image sensor is reduced, more optical distortion occurs.

A scratched or dirty touch surface can affect the quality of the image. This is one of the disadvantages of this type sensors. For example, a dirty or marked finger is difficult to image properly. It can also be easily fooled by an image of a fingerprint if not coupled with a "live finger" detector. However, unlike capacitive sensors, this sensor technology is not susceptible to electrostatic discharge damage. Also, another advantage is that fingerprints can be read clearly from a distance.

Solid-state sensors:

Solid-State Sensors do not use optical instruments for measuring finger prints. It measure some physical properties of a finger and converts them into ridge-valley images. Some mentionable technologies that are used are:

Capacitance (UPEK)

RF (Authentec)

Thermal (Atmel)

PiezoResistive (Fidelica)

Ultrasonic (Ultrascan)

It consist of an array of pixels, each pixel being a sensor itself. When the finger is placed on the surface of the silicon, the above mentioned four techniques are typically used to convert the ridge/valley information into an electrical signal. Since solid-state sensors do not use optical components, their size is considerably smaller and can be easily embedded. However, a drawback is that silicon sensors are expensive, so the sensing area of solid-state sensors is typically small. (Fierrez, n.d.)

The target market for these types of scanners are single finger products such as Ipads, Iphone etc. (Wasserman, 2005)