Social Media and theft of data

Another concern that the public have voiced is the fact that these companies collect, store, and use user data in ways that are extremely unclear. The spread of misinformation on these social communication tools often leads to skewed views and negatively impacts conversations around important topics, as seen with the spate of misinformation found on social media, regarding the Covid-19 pandemic.

It is suggested that blockchain technology could help address some of the issues that centralized social platforms find themselves grappling with. Decentralized social networks or federated networks could give users more control over their network, posts they see, as well as their data, which would, theoretically, do away with censorship, and myriad other issues.

Decentralized Social Media

A decentralized social network is a social communication platform that runs on blockchain technology.  As opposed to your run-of-the-mill social platform, which stores information on a central, company-owned server, and whose policies are governed by a few – their decentralized counterparts store information on a globally dispersed, network of, independently owned servers.

In decentralizing a social platform, developers hope to democratize the social media experience, allowing users to have a say on policy, control what content they view, as well as do away with political censorship, and other platforms. With greater autonomy, it is hoped, more robust conversations can be had, without the worry of Big Tech curating their communication with over users.

By running decentralized platforms on blockchain, much of the policy enforcement work can be handled automatically, by code. Decentralization also carries the added benefit of cross-platform communication.

The Good, The Bad

As with every new idea, there are issues that arise which the creators could not have expected, though it addresses an existing issue. Social networks – the decentralized variant – can, like centralized counterparts, foster the growth of the community and the sharing of information in a way that can affect social and political change in unprecedented ways. Except, the moderated nature of decentralized platforms can also lead to the exacerbation of both negative and positive issues.

On The Plus Side of decentralized networks, there is communication, the sharing of knowledge, the promotion of social/political awareness, which could help raise money for causes or simply sell a product or service to new customers.

On The Negative end of the spectrum, social media is a favorite tool for the spread of misinformation, cyberbullying, and actual criminal activity. Without humans to actively watch this problem, they could lead to hate groups using social media to openly organize a disruptive activity.

Closing

Decentralized networks offer many advantages over their centralized counterparts, such as more control over personal data, as well as the content that one is privy to once on the platform. Humans being humans, however, this approach to social media could have effects that ripple into analog society.

A careful approach to a social platform where users have free reign will need to be carefully thought out before being rushed into the market. It has the potential to do as much harm as it does good.

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How does gaming affect peoples’ minds?

Sage Journals conducted an online survey asking gamers how they think gaming has affected them. The results showed that the majority of people felt that gaming had a positive effect on their mental well-being during the pandemic. This is because gaming gives opportunities to socialize, blow off steam, and help deal with the anxiety that the pandemic causes. Many parents believe that the increased time spent playing video games causes an increase in cases of depression and anxiety in younger people. However, many studies disprove this statement and suggest quite the opposite. Psychologists have conducted numerous studies (even before Covid-19) that proved that gaming does have a positive effect on someone’s well-being.

This said, the positive effect has transcended into the Covid-19 pandemic and really has helped many people deal with stress and anxiety. They have reported that gaming was one of the main reasons for being able to cope during the lockdowns.  Players also claim that they started to play multiplayer games to socialize. This helped them meet new friends online who had similar interests and also kept them entertained.

Financial effects of Covid-19 on the gaming industry

The gaming industry was worth around 120 billion USD in 2019 (right before the pandemic). It surged to a staggering 160 billion USD. This is an increase of 40 billion USD in the span of one year. To put the numbers into context, the increase in the gaming industry’s value from 2018-2019 was 15 billion USD. Experts estimate that 75% of people who started playing mobile games during the pandemic will stick to them even after the pandemic.

The pandemic has affected the mobile gaming industry the most. This is because a lot of people did not own a gaming console before it. So, they turned to mobile gaming. 48% of the gaming industry’s value is mobile gaming. Analytics only expect it to grow.

Esports is another region of gaming that has seen major growth during the pandemic. Although esports have only generated 1 billion USD, the shorter end of the gaming industry, it is only headed up. This is because a lot of esports fans have discovered it during the pandemic. Analytics and a popular gaming marketplace estimate that the revenue for esports is going to drastically increase from now since it’s a very new industry.

Closing thoughts

However many parents claim that gaming causes their child’s brain to rot, the statistical facts are inarguable and the benefits overwhelmingly outweigh the cons of gaming. Gaming is a relatively new industry and it is only expected to grow from here. This is because newer generations are generally more inclined to spend their free time playing video games than older generations. Covid-19 has only helped the growth of the gaming industry as it snatched the spotlight during 2020 and 2021 and is expected to hold the spotlight through 2022.

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Developed by US-based mobile games outfit, Innersloth, the social guessing game, Among Us tooke the world by storm in 2020. Though being much older than it’s hype – it was released in 2018 – the game became the darling of 2020, it’s gameplay format somehow providing social interaction for a global population adhering to social distancing protocols. 

The Game

The game is simple enough in it’s design , in both, look and feel. It went for a simple, cartoonist look, which appealed to people in lockdown. So much so that it blew past more graphics intensive titles, PUBG, or Fortnite. Gameplay is far simpler as well, with the title’s format being similar to a whodunnit game like Mafia. 

The game splits players into two groups, “Crewmates” and “Imposters”. Crew members are tasked with doing gamified maintenance tasks on “vital equipment” across various space themed maps, while identifying Imposters, and staying alive. Imposters -, on the other hand – have to run around sabotaging maintainance work, killing crew members, and not getting caught. 

A simple enough set up that gets complicated by the fact that one cannot communicate in game, and must call an Emergency Meeting, which only Crew can call. Crew members call emergency meetings to report matters, and discuss who they suspect of being the Imposter. 

Crew members win by completing all assigned tasks, or booting out all Imposters. The other side wins by killing all crew, or doing irreparable damage to to vital equipment. Players who are killed, or booted out continue to play on, but in limited capacity.

Players who find themselves murdered, or voted out of play keep playing on in their respective roles as ghosts. Crew ghosts still continue to aid living crew member from the great beyond, by doing repairs. Dead imposters can still go around doing damage, and killing Crewmates. The only limitation is that they cannot communicate with ‘living’ players, or participate in – or call – emergency meetings. Meaning they have no way of alerting them to who the imposter is. 

The Hype 

Innersloth released AmongbUs in 2018, – as previously mentioned – but the game went passed-up for more popular, and “explosive” titles. It wasn’t until the chance occurance of  global Covid-19 pandemic lockdown regulations that the, previously unknown title took the spotlight. What appealed most to masses, about the game – perhaps – is that it may have offered a simulation of a relaxed social environment, where there are simple tasks to be done, and much time for chitchat. 

Among Us went from social guessing-game to social nework-like phenomenon on the back of social distancing induced isolation. All it took was for Twitch influencer, Sodapoppin’ streaming the game to his fans last July, for a game who’s parent company almost pulled the plug on – were it not for an outcry from a few devoted fans – to become the most popular game of 2020. 

By the end of last year, the game had become so popular that YouTube influencers, TikTok Influencers, Hollywood celebrities, as well as Politicians were streaming live footage of in-game action to viewers, who guessed along with them as to who the Imposter was. The game had taken on a life of it’s own, with millions of memes, parodical videos, and merchandise proliferating the internet. 

The hype hasnt abated much in 2021, with the game having set a new paradigm for social interaction. Allowing people to connect with strangers, as with – now heavily restricted – social gatherings, from the comfortable setting of one’s own home. 

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The, up to, 20 Gigabyte per second data transfer speeds, high capacity, and low latency that 5G connectivity offers promises to revolutionize human day-to-day existence and be the backbone of the Internet of Things (IoT). The lightning fast download speeds are made possible by 5G technology’s use of high frequency millimeter radio waves as opposed to the congested centimeter waves of its predecessors.

“I think 5G will have a transformational impact on our lives and enable fundamentally new things..What those types of applications will be and what that impact is, we can’t say for sure right now. It could be something that takes us by surprise and really changes something for society. If history has taught us anything, then 5G will be another example of what wireless can do for us.”– Harish Krishnaswamy, associate professor of electrical engineering, Columbia University,New York, USA.

Because millimeter frequency waves are shorter (ranging from 1-10 millimeters), they theoretically allow for high speed data transmission. This means that large data files (like movies, or the entire Bruce Springteen album catalog) can be transmitted or downloaded almost instantaneously. The thing is, short wave frequencies like ultraviolet light can be harmful to DNA.

That, and a possible misunderstanding of the term “radiation” has the internet up in arms, with claims of 5G being behind the recent Covid-19 outbreak. Reports have come in of people in some territories going as far as setting 5G towers on fire.

Now every evolution in mobile connectivity technology has been met with opposition based on the fears that the radiation these devices emit could be harmful to human health. A decade long study by the US health authority’s National Toxicology Program found that 2G and 3G waves emitted on rats and mice, over an extended period of time, resulted in adrenal gland tumors developing in the male rats.

Note that the rodents were exposed to 4 times the regular radation emitted by handheld devices in human use. A senior scientist on the project even stated that “exposures used in the studies cannot be compared directly to the exposure that humans experience when using a cell phone”.

Yes, cellular connectivity emits radiation, but cellphone radiation is non-ionizing. Ionizing radiation can displace the electrons in atoms and can potentially harm DNA. People have probably nitpicked a study for the parts that support their opinion and used it to feed the panic and cause hysteria, as always.

In fact, the World Health Organization, although having officially classified 5G as potentially carcinogenic (about as carcinogenic as eating pickled vegetables), the health authority has stated that there is no conclusive evidence that the technology is, at all, harmful to humans.

The UK government has stated that the radiation emitted by 5G towers (which use far less power than 4G network towers) are far below guideline levels.

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Telecommuting/working, or remote work is not a new phenomenon, and has seen an increase in recent years, as cost cutting and emissions concerns have become large parts of our collective social conscience.

In fact, a study conducted by the serviced workspace provider, International Workplace Group, in 2018, found that about 70% of employees spent at least 1 day, a week, working from home. The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have accelerated the trend, however. With over 2.5 million infection cases recorded globally, governments have urged citizens to remain home and adhere to strict social distancing protocols – in an effort to mitigate the effects of Corona. The organizations that can, have responded by continuing to operate through a remote staff.

Security Risks Of Having Remote Staff

In many cases – even if firms already had protocols in place, that accommodated remote staff – global businesses were taken unawares by a crisis of this scale and likely scrambled to ready staff for the new conditions. Probably with scant (if any) regard to the cyber-security attached to such an undertaking.

Although some companies may already have a portion of their staff working from home some of the time, government enforced quarantine measures have given firms little time to equip whole staffs to continue productivity from home. These are some of the risks posed by the migration of whole offices to a remote-work model, from a cyber security perspective.

Access To Company Network

In a remote-working arrangement, key staff are not within close proximity of each other, as in an office situation. This means that much of the firm’s processes will need to be conducted online, with employees accessing its internal network from business and personal devices. This increases an organization’s cyber security threat surface, putting endpoints, connectivity, and other enterprise architecture and infrastructure at risk of exploitation by malicious actors.

While large multinationals would have some degree of security in place to ease the transition to remote work, smaller firms are probably at a higher risk of attack, as servers, collaboration tools, firewalls etc. may not be ready for such a shift, leaving them vulnerable to cyberattacks.

Internal network infrastructure taking excess strain from multiple devices accessing it simultaneously, carries risks to productivity, as well as cyber security. Companies pursuing a work-from-home strategy will have to scale their networks accordingly.

Devices

IT departments tasked with managing a remote network of employees, all accessing the organization’s internal systems on various devices will have a number of challenges to contend with.

On one hand, users might access the enterprise network or cloud via a company issued device – in which case, all necessary safeguards should be in place – on the other hand, employees could try to use their own devices to get work done. Which heightens the risk of bad actors surreptitiously getting to company data through phishing.
Additional risk factors to consider when regarding the security of devices that staff use for work is theft/damage. If an employee’s devices are lost, stolen, or damaged, valuable work time could be lost, not to mention the danger of company information being compromised. These factors are further exacerbated by the fact that members of staff likely share their living space with friends or relatives, who might gain access to said devices.

Internal Threats

This refers to human error and the potential for an organization’s staff to inadvertently allow bad actors access to the firm’s systems. This could occur through an act as simple as clicking a link on a solicitous email while cyberslacking, or using a business device for personal means, or vice versa. Cyber criminals tend to use current events to trick users into clicking or downloading content which secretly plants data-stealing software onto web-connected devices, these actors will be out in full force during the Covid-19 lockdown period.

With employees not being within close proximity of one another, communication becomes a big concern. As employees will mostly be communicating by digital means, in many cases, messages could be intercepted by cyber criminals. Authentication, authorization as well as measures to prevent fraud and data theft will have to be considered.

Beefing Up Security

There are measures that companies can put in place to sure themselves up against cyber attacks or data loss while ensuring that they remain operational through a remote staff.

Businesses will have to gain an understanding of their threat surface and work with their IT, or Cyber Security team to identify attack vectors, and make securing their most sensitive data a priority.

They will need to provide their staff with clear remote working policy and give instructions on how employees can make their homes’ working environment more secure. In addition to making sure they have consistent access to IT support.

Investment in security solutions like customer identity and access management for customer-facing applications is critical. Cutting costs in this area is not viable if companies wish to remain protected against online threats.

Ensure that the devices and systems staff will be using are equipped with appropriate security capabilities; VPN, MFA and encryption, where necessary

Employees, on the other hand, will need to maintain clear, and strict, working hours to establish work/life balance. Remote staff will also need to be especially wary of Covid-19 related solicitations coming in the form of emails, calls, or text messages, as well as never mixing business and pleasure (Keeping work devices strictly for work, and personal devices strictly personal).

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