Spamming and Flaming

Spamming is an act of sending unsolicited bulk messages to people which usually contain promotions or advertisements of commercial products or services. With the use of certain software, one can automatically sends electronic messages to a huge number of recipients. In the case of spams in e-mails, the recipients’ e-mail addresses are usually obtained by special software that searches and retrieves email addresses in different sources in the web. Spam messages are not only apparent in emails but also in other devices such as in mobile phones, instant messengers and online forums.

Flaming, on the other hand, is an act of posting insulting or disrespecting messages to people in a discussion board. It usually happens when there are arguments about a certain topic in a forum. A flamer typically expresses his strong beliefs about certain things, and thus, asserts his superiority over the others.

Spamming and flaming are considered as sources of different abuses in computing. Spam has been one of the problems that Internet or mobile phone users are complaining about. Their inboxes are being flooded with unsolicited messages coming from different sources which have annoyed them in one way or another. Due to this problem, several laws have been enacted in several countries. For one, the US CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 regulates sending of commercial e-mails to people and provide an “opt-out” policy the will allow people to decline from receiving other messages from the company. In the Philippines, mobile phone users are now being protected from receiving of unsolicited text messages. The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) imposes new rule to different mobile phone operators and content service providers. With this, operators should provide a mechanism that will allow mobile phone users to choose whether to subscribe or not to subscribe the promotional messages. In the event that a subscriber chooses to decline the service being offered, operators should stop from sending similar messages. Operators who will not comply with this regulation will be given administrative and penal actions.

References:

Flaming. [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flaming.

CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003.

Filipinos begin to bid goodbye to text spam. [Online]. Available: http://news.inq7.net/infotech/index.php?index=1&story_id=30818.

Viruses and Worms

A virus is a computer program that reproduces by inserting it self to a ‘host’ which can be any document or executable file that resides in a computer. This computer malware infects computer program or software that may cause serious damage in the computer. On the other hand, a worm is self-contained, self-replicating program that is capable of spreading itself over the network. A worm is usually inserted in a document and then attached it to electronic messages. It can delete files in the infected computer or even alter the system registry causing the computer to reboot or crash.

And on December 4, 2000, the world was shaken by a computer virus that was created by Onel de Guzman, a Filipino student from AMA University. The virus has infected many companies all over the world and it has damaged computers in some major institutions of the US such as the White House, US Congress and FBI. This virus is the most costly virus to date which has created a damage amounting to billions of dollars. On the other hand, a German student was identified as the source of Sasser computer worm that has infected many companies around the world. Satellite communications of an air line company were blocked and some X-ray devices were also disabled as a result of this attack. My computer actually was not actually spared from this Sasser worm!

Because of these computer malwares, anti-virus products are now being offered in the market such as Symantec Anti Virus and Trend Micro Anti Virus which are proven to be effective in controlling and preventing the spread of viruses and worms in a computer system.

References:

Sasser Worm. [Online]. Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasser_worm.

I Love You Computer Virus. [Online]. Available: http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_434.html.

Denial-of-Service, Denial of Rights

I consider denial-of-service attack as the most immoral form of computer abuse. Consumption of scarce resources and destruction or alteration of configuration information are the most identified purpose of this attack and their effects are undeniably harmful in one way or another. For one, utilization of computer or network resources such as consumption of bandwidth or computer memory is a form of stealing. Alteration of information in computer’s system components is destructive that it may cause the computer to malfunction or even permanently damage the computer parts. This practice does not promote welfare for the people but rather intended to harm them. Definitely this computer abuse is considered morally wrong since it inhibit happiness as to what John Stuart Mill stated in his theory of Utilitarianism. People who do this kind of practice may have good purpose for themselves or for their love ones. However, the fact that the attack creates negative effects to those who were victimized by this abuse, it will still be considered immoral. Using something that is not yours without the consent of the owner and harming people explicitly is considered illegal, and therefore, immoral~

Art Bell’s

One of the interesting hoaxes that has been circulating since 1998 through out the Internet is about the alleged bashing of Art Bell, a radio program host, to the Filipino race. It created an impact that Art Bell started receiving hate letters coming from Filipinos all over the world. The supposed message of Art Bell has long been identified as a hoax but up to this day, this has been the subject in some email messages circulating in the Internet. It was surprising that a lot of people, mostly Filipino of course, reacted so much about it and even though it was proven to be a hoax, one can’t help but expresses disagreements in the things attributed to Filipinos. Ironic as it may seem, this infamous letter actually made me more proud of my race. I came to realize that even though that the Philippine is still considered as a ‘third world’ country, we still manage to hold on to our pride and dignity as Filipinos. And this is something that no one can ever be taken from us. Mabuhay ang Pilipino!