Social, Ethical and legal aspects of IT

Hello there, my name is Tyler Gunnell. I am a level 2 IT student at Halesowen College. I am writing about the social, ethical & legal aspects of the IT industry and I hope you enjoy this blog.

Social aspects of IT

Local communities

• Social media helps people to get along with other people in your or other communities e.g. Rural Farmers, Disabled people, the LGBT/LGBGT community, elderly people etc.
• Information about council wheel bin collections.
• Information about local events within your or other communities.

Economic Effects

Advantages:

• Even if you live in another part of the country you can create a business if you have the required internet access.
• You can advertise on social media e.g. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, etc.
• People can set up eBay/Amazon accounts to buy and sell products.

Disadvantages:

• It is expensive to rent a building.
• They must pay heating, lighting, council tax, water bills
• Insurance.
• Maintenance.
• Staffing costs.

Sustainability:

• The excessive use of computers in companies and businesses means that a large amount paper is used, which isn’t environmentally friendly.
• Reduce, reuse, recycle is used to break products down and turn them into something new.

Legal aspects of IT:

Copyright: Something that you are assigned ownership of, a piece of work when fixed upon something real. Any conceptional idea fixed on something tangible are automatically copyrighted.

Copyright infringement is using work protected by the copyright law without the owner’s permission or checking who owns it. This is also referred to as piracy.

It goes on your record for a lifetime. (about 50-70+ years)

Fair use: Complete rework but the original owner must take some credit e.g. comedy purposes, schools etc.

Plagiarism: Plagiarism is stealing a piece of work or a file which somebody owns and claiming that it is yours without giving credit. It is an act of fraud, academic dishonesty or theft.

It is against the law to print the author’s work as your own without permission, or not making payment when it has been asked under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

Consequences of Plagiarism:

• You can get arrested for fraud.
• You could be fined.
• It can affect your chance to get a job based on IT in a negative way.
• You can go to court.
• Goes on your criminal record for the rest of your life.
• Can get removed from a college/school or university

These are important things that you need to learn about because it is to make people aware that using someone’s idea without permission or giving the author credit is copyright and copying an idea from an author and completing as yours is classed as plagiarism.

Ethical aspects of IT:

Privacy of information:

• Everybody is entitled to the privacy of their information.
• People who holds your data must keep it safe by Law.
• It works with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations).
• Computer misuse act falls into four different parts: 1. Unauthorised access. 2.Unauthorised access with intent. 3.Unauthorised access and moderation. 4.Creating any hardware and software that allows those unauthorised accesses.

Unequal access:

• It can either be a good thing or a bad thing.
• It is a good thing because it protects Data of your e.g. school, University, Employment, etc.
• However it can stop you from accessing data that you made or a guide you need.

Why is the blog good at conveying information to a wide audience?

• Who can access this blog? Anybody can access this blog as long as they have internet access and a link to the blog. They can learn about the social, ethical and legal aspects of IT.
• What type of features you can add? In addition to text, you can include multimedia in your blog. It is important to embed features like graphics, animations, movie clips, links to other sites. This makes it more interesting and engaging for the reader.
• What is Editing? Editing is when the author can change and modify his/her work. The owner of the blog is in control and can delete or add as required.
• How is the blog published? The owner can decide when to publish work. He/she can decide when it becomes available to read by clicking the publish button.

Is there anything that the blog does not do well?

• It is straight forward to make a blog entry. You simply need to write, check, edit and then publish.
• It is very easy to update an existing entry. All you have to do is access the text, select the update button, make any necessary changes then click the publish button.

Safety & security.

• Password & login details: Password and Username verifies that it is the appropriate user. It protects the users data as long as it is a strong password e.g. a mixture of upper case, lower case and numbers. A password is only known by the user. The username is something you are given and known by other people.
• Emails to register your account:When you are setting up a blog you need to declare your e-mail address. A link will then be sent back to verify it is you and not a fraudulent user.
• CAPTCHA is a test that the user must read, interpret & type the answer into another box . It is distorted so that other computers or bots cannot read the text.

What makes emails safe to use?

• Securing the personal data: When you use emails you actually send it to another user and not share that piece of information to the public, so that way you are actually securing it from the public.
• Data protection: Emails have the capability to protect your data against unauthorised users, any loss or compromise. This is also to prevent malware such as virus, Worm, Trojan horse, etc.
• Firewalls: It is security on your computer that monitors the number of network traffic based on the rules from security.

Improving accessibility in a blog:

• Choice of colours: There are about 3 colours maximum that can be used to update the blog or it will be too busy to handle. The theme must be with a certain purpose and the colours that was chosen will have to have someone ‘in state’. They help make an engaging description.
• Choice of text size: There are six of the best fonts for accessibility, These fonts are:Arial, Calibri, Century Gothic, Helvetica, Tahoma & Verdana.
• Contrast of text & background: It will effect the user’s information perceive ability to be able to be visually seen.
• Choice of text font: The text font makes it have an extra modern design and makes it look as good, even with the computer or the design is in low resolution. some of the designers use some of the very most common/popular fonts e.g. Ariel, Veranda and or Futara.
• Inclusion of images: including the images makes the blog more interesting and more eligible for the user to see the website.
• Tool-tips for text readers:
• 1. don’t use the tool-tips for the information for task completion to be vital
• 2. You have to provide a brief and much helpful content that can be used inside and tool-tip helps to hover the keyboard and mouse
• 3. you must use the tool-tip arrows where there are nearby and use it consistently through your site