Question Bank
1. Net Neutrality
The original founders of the internet, and subsequently, the wide-wide-web, envisaged equality in terms of how and when network data should be routed around the networks.
Recently, the large media streaming services and some internet service providers have lobbied governments in the US and Europe (including the UK) to allow certain data to be routed with a higher priority than other traffic. The services would decide which traffic would be routed and when.
Arguments have raged for many years about this, with proponents of net neutrality wanting the internet to remain free of control of data, especially by big corporations and governments. On the other side, many companies want control to enhance network transmission speeds and to generate extra sources of income.
Service providers claim that they need to do this to ensure optimum network speeds in the face of ever-increasing video traffic and to ensure a high quality of service for their customers. The providers often say they would charge a premium to eliminate waits/buffering of video by placing a higher priority on such traffic across their networks. Consider revenue for internet service providers and quality of service for customers.
Supporters of Net Neutrality claim internet traffic should be free to move around, unhindered or interfered with. They also argue that the internet would become only usable to those able to afford the higher costs of guaranteeing their traffic would be transmitted. Here, consider the paying public and society in general
Develop arguments to determine whether the internet should be controlled on behalf of internet services providers (ISP) or not.
2. Crypto-Currencies
In recent years, there has been much excitement surrounding crypto-currencies. These are purely digital mechanisms to represent money. They have no paper-based or real-world version. Transactions are recorded digitally. Crypto-currencies transcend international boundaries and jurisdictions.
The concept behind crypto-currencies is that they provide an anonymous means to hold and transfer money.
They are designed in such a way to hide details of ownership and retain the anonymity of those involved in any transactions. Because of these design features, many governments, tax departments and law-enforcement agencies have declared crypto-currencies dangerous – they claim that criminals can easily take advantage of their anonymous properties and others can use them to avoid paying tax.
Crypto-currencies usually work by recording transactions in what is known as a ‘block chain’. This is a very large distributed data store that is effectively a ‘ledger’ or ‘record’ of transactions.
This ledger is held on the many computers (known as ‘nodes’) that participate in supporting a particular block-chain. Individual transactions are added to the block-chain and are communicated between the nodes. Fundamentally, the block-chain is a data set and associated mathematical equations comprising algorithms that are used to validate the integrity of the data. Computers that participate in supporting a particular block-chain assist in processing the algorithms that check the data. Undertaking such activities reward those involved by awarding them an amount of the crypto-currency that the block-chain supports. This is known as ‘mining’, but without it, the given crypto-currency will stall as the transactions will go unverified and therefore be un-trusted.
Develop arguments for and against crypto-currencies. The considerations here are establishing frictionless financial transactions, anonymity, and the ability to transcend international boundaries, along with the link between crypto-currencies and crime (due to the anonymity of transactions) and the ability to evade local tax legislation. You may also wish to consider any limitations to the underlying technology.
3. Privacy and Data Protection
In today’s technologically driven world, storage and transmission of personal data is the norm. It is not unusual for data about an individual to be stored in thirty or more different places by different companies or organisations. Online retailers, media-streaming companies, social media sites, banks, insurance companies, medical services, educational establishments, and local authorities, are amongst the many organisations that store data about individuals. With a plethora of data sources, as well as a variety of different security arrangements, it is not entirely unknown for some of that data to end up in the hands of those who should not see it.
Because of some early electronic data breaches, most governments have created laws that protect an individual’s rights in terms of data access and security. In the UK, the adoption of the EU’s 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which replaces the UK’s Data Protection Act, is an example of such laws. These specify the rights of individuals to see the data that is stored about them and place stipulations on those storing the data. Allowing data to be accessed flagrantly, not placing data in sufficiently secure storage mechanisms, or not allowing individuals to see what is held about them, all constitute breaches of this legislation.
Despite these laws, it is not uncommon for data breaches to occur. The often-feared occurrence of hacking, which involves an outside entity breaking into a system to gather information, does happen, but is not as common as most people think. Instead, the most common reason for data loss is incompetence whereby access credentials are left exposed, private data is transmitted/given away by accident, systems left open by mistake or actual coding errors. The next most common cause is insider knowledge and misuse (i.e., ‘inside jobs’). Actual physical theft of data storage devices or computers, such as stealing laptops from cars, is the next most common reason. Viruses or malware present much smaller causes of data breach.
That said, if an individual becomes a victim of a data breach, irrespective of method, the results can be serious. Financial loss, reputational loss and loss of private and personal information can all affect an individual, sometimes disastrously.
Hypothetical Scenario
The UK’s National Health Service has recently proposed to allow third parties to access to patient medical records. The third parties comprise pharmaceutical companies, private medical research companies and big-data analysis companies. The NHS will auction one million patient records at a time, and the records will go to the highest bidder. Monies received will go back to patient care. It is envisaged that each batch of patient records will occur every three months until all records have been released.
Develop arguments for and against the auction of the medical records. You may want to consider what could happen to the data upon its release, or any laws that may be broken. Consider the likely benefits to the public. Also consider what mechanisms for data protection should be explored or stipulated by the NHS prior to the release of the records.
Marking Rubric for all questions on p5.
