Societal Impacts, Cyber Safety, and Ethics
Societal Impacts, Cyber Safety and Ethics covers how computers affect work and society, and how to behave and stay safe online. Questions ask you to identify a crime type, choose a safeguard, or explain a term such as digital divide, plagiarism or e-waste.
Societal issues
The digital divide is unequal access to devices, connectivity and skills. Automation changes employment patterns, and e-waste from discarded electronics needs authorised recycling. Intellectual property covers copyright (automatic on creation), patents and trademarks. Open-source licences permit use and modification under stated conditions, while proprietary software does not.
Cyber threats and safeguards
Phishing tricks users into revealing credentials; ransomware encrypts files and demands payment; identity theft misuses personal data; cyberstalking and cyberbullying target individuals. Malware includes viruses, worms and trojans. Safeguards include strong unique passwords with two-factor authentication, updated software, firewall and antivirus, checking HTTPS and the padlock, regular backups, and never sharing OTPs. In India the Information Technology Act, 2000, amended in 2008, addresses offences such as identity theft and publishing obscene material.
Worked example. A message says your bank account will be blocked in 2 hours and links to http://bank-verify-login.xyz. Reasoning: urgency, a non-bank domain, plain HTTP instead of HTTPS and a request for credentials are classic phishing signals. Verify by typing the bank's official address yourself or calling the branch.
Traps. HTTPS means the connection is encrypted, not that the site is honest. Freeware is not the same as open source. Citing a source does not license copying a whole work; plagiarism is using others' work without attribution.