Cyberspace

Cyberspace-how safe we are?

All the electronic gadgets we use today are connected to the internet. Internet of things connects our devices to many other devices, so they have our data, which can be accessed by some private companies, then they can further use that data in a positive or negative way. But what is that space or place where these immense amounts of digital information are stored? 

It's Cyberspace. 

Cyberspace is a large computer network made up of many worldwide computer networks that employ TCP/IP protocol to aid in communication and data exchange activities. 

The term "cyberspace" first appeared in the visual arts in the late 1960s, when Danish artist Susanne Using (1940-1998) and her partner architect Carsten Hoff (b. 1934) constituted themselves as Atelier Cyberspace. Under this name, the two made a series of installations and images entitled "sensory spaces" that were based on the principle of open systems adaptable to various influences, such as human movement and the behavior of new materials.

The term was initially coined by “William Gibson” in 1984 in the book Neuromancer.

As through metaphorical lenses, Don Slater used it describes as “the sense of a social setting that exists purely within a space of representation and communication ... it exists entirely within a computer space, distributed across increasingly complex and fluid networks."  

We take cyberspace for granted. We don't think much beyond the screens in front of us. We simply log in, post on Facebook, write a tweet, or send an e-mail, and magically it's gone, instantly appearing on someone else's screen or someone else's inbox. We don't even read the terms and conditions of social media and blindly accept them.

A case study - TOM-Skype 

In around 2008, researchers heard about the suspicions of content filtering on the Chinese version of Skype, particularly on the chat client. So, they set up an experiment in the lab, where they had two computers. On one computer was the Chinese version of Skype and on the other, they had the English version of Skype. In between they put a network monitoring tool called the Wireshark that they use all the time to monitor network traffic, and they started typing banned words. 

They'd say: "Would you like to meet at Tiananmen Square?" On the other chat client, it would just say: "Would you like to meet at (blank)?"

They also noticed that whenever one of those banned keywords was being inputted, a connection was being made to an IP address, a server at that location was not password protected. They could look at all the directories on that server. They decrypted one of the directories and saw millions of personal Skype communications that were being surveyed by Skype on behalf of the Chinese government. Everything from credit card transactions to personal exchanges between two people was being vacuumed up and sent to a server in mainland China. This scandalous finding even made it to the business section of The New York Times.

Nate Villeneuve, a security researcher with the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto found eight servers comprising the TOM-Skype surveillance network, as well as others specifically set to monitor chat traffic from Internet cafes and TOM Online's wireless service. Those servers, said Villeneuve, contained massive log files that contained personal information about both TOM-Skype and Skype users, along with the complete contents of the chats that had been captured using keyword filtering.

The TOM-Skype system scans for a wide range of keywords, including a large number that Villeneuve described as politically sensitive, such as "communist," "Taiwan independence," "democracy," "Tibet," and even "milk powder," the last a reference to the brewing scandal in China over adulterated milk products. Chats that contain such keywords are logged and their contents stored on the servers.

A few years later, researchers revisited the experiment and found that not only was the same keyword censorship still going on but also that it had become more refined and sophisticated. Even today Skype claims it gives end to end encryption, but who would believe Skype or any other social media in a world of cyber espionage and sabotage?

Cyberspace is changing rapidly, but in a direction, that's diametrically opposite from what it was meant to be.

To fully grasp the pivotal issues surrounding cyberspace, global security, and human rights today, researchers point to three major social forces:

1. Changes in communication technology.
2. Role of state in cyberspace.
3. Changing demographics of cyberspace.

The confluence of these three broad developments happening right now has a dramatic impact on human rights, liberal democracy, and freedom.

The core fundamental principles are under threat today. Information is no longer readily available on the internet. Governments arbitrarily cut off the internet or censoring it at their borders. The integrity of information is at questions today.