Globalization of Information Systems: Communication, Security and Privacy Issues

1. Globalization of Information Systems: Communication, Security and Privacy Issues Adelphi University Alireza Ebrahimi, Ph.D. School of Business State University of New York Old Westbury

2. Abstract Today, whatever happens in one part of the world will inevitably impact other parts of the globe. Information Systems have played an important role in making this new World of globalization happen and continue to reshape it. On the one hand, it seems that the rules of dominant powers and large companies are lessened as they explore ways to deal with the culture, norm, social values and local needs. On the other hand, there is a threat that hinders the existing infrastructure of global Information systems. The private will become public and the public will become private. What is the role of globalization and its influence on Information systems and what is the role of Information Systems indicating globalization? How do we deal with security and privacy of global Information systems and what are the costs?

3. What is Globalization? The process of developing, manufacturing, and marketing software products that are intended for worldwide distribution. This term combines two aspects of the work: internationalization (enabling the product to be used without language or culture barriers) and localization (translating and enabling the product for a specific locale).

4. Define: Globalization

5. Globalization Definition: Googlization Related phrases:   economic globalizationglobalization management systemglobalization indexglobalization of marketsanti-globalizationglobalization of wineglobalization of productioncontent globalizationlinguistic globalization • Definitions of globalization on the Web: • The process of developing, manufacturing, and marketing software products that are intended for worldwide distribution. ...www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/glossaries/unicode.html • Worldwide economic integration of many formerly separate national economies into one global economy, mainly through free trade and free movement of capital as by multinational companies, but also by easy or uncontrolled migration.www.ecoagriculture.org/page.php • "Globalization refers in general to the worldwide integration of humanity and the compression of both the temporal and spatial dimensions of planetwide human interaction. ...www2.truman.edu/~marc/resources/terms.html • Globalization and Environment, Globalization and Labor Issues and Impact Migration, Politics of Globalizationwww.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Peterson-Institute • The process of tailoring products or services to different local markets around the world.viewpointbank.mediaroom.com/index.php • The Marxist critic of postmodernism Fredric Jameson argues that American capitalism, in the form of huge multi-national corporations backed by the Western media, is (re)colonizing the world. ...royalholloway.org.uk/ltsn/english/events/past/staffs/Holland_Arrowsmith/Critical%20Concepts%20edit.htm

6. Globalization • 1. The increasing world-wide integration of markets for goods, services and capital that began to attract special attention in the late 1990s. 2. ...www-personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/g.html • A process whereby an increased portion of economic or other activity is carried out across national borderswww.developmenteducation.ie/glossary/ • Trend away from distinct national economic units and toward one huge global market.enbv.narod.ru/text/Econom/ib/str/261.html • the movement toward markets or policies that transcend national borderswww.wcit.org/tradeis/glossary.htm • The effort to standardize consumer habits, values, and ways of thinking that contributes to the development of global markets, greater efficiencies and profits; politically, it is based on neo-liberal values and assumptions that justify this latest expression of Western colonization; undermines ...www.ecojusticeeducation.org/index.php • A set of processes leading to the integration of economic, cultural, political, and social systems across geographical boundaries.www.gemi.org/hsewebdepot/Glossary.aspx • A complex series of economic, social, technological, cultural, and political changes seen as increasing, integration, and interaction between people and companies in disparate locations.www.scrippscollege.edu/about/strategic-plan/glossary.php • A global movement to increase the flow of goods, services, people, real capital, and money across national borders in order to create a more integrated and interdependent world economy.globaledge.msu.edu/resourcedesk/glossary.asp • doing things on a global scalelibrary.thinkquest.org/06aug/00863/glossary.htm

7. return to the discussion ’what is globalization?’www.genderandhealth.ca/en/modules/globalization/globalization_glossary.jsp • This term is used to describe a contracting method by which an entire claim/encounter is paid under a single flat fee regardless of how many or how few services were performed and regardless of any complications may arise. ...www.mhdpc.org/presentations/Glossary_of_Medical_Claims_Common_Terms.doc • The process of worldwide integration of economic or political systems. Economically, globalization is driven by free trade and foreign investment. The concept of globalization can also be applied to cultural products (such as movies or music) or values (such as beliefs about human rights).www.icons.umd.edu/reslib/display_glossary • is a term used to refer to the expansion of economies beyond national borders, in particular, the expansion of production by a firm to many countries around the world, ie, globalization of production, or the "global assembly line. ...colours.mahost.org/faq/definitions.html • the expansion of international business and trade between countries by transnational firms; customers, suppliers, distributors, retailers and competitors exist all over the world for any type of businesswww.321site.com/greg/courses/mis1/glossary.htm • growth to a global or worldwide scale; "the globalization of the communication industry" wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn • Globalization in a literal sense is international integration.It can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and functioning together. This process is a combination of economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces. ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization • Alternative spelling of globalisation en.wiktionary.org/wiki/globalization • Find definitions of globalization in:  Chinese (Simplified)Chinese (Traditional)EnglishSpanishall languages

8. Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter[2] Competing for global leadership requires that companies learn to navigate in unfamiliar waters. For incumbents, the emerging MNCs represent the threat of displacement. For the emerging challengers, globalizing is new and risky. But the greater openness today of both developed and developing economics to foreign trade and investment means that the best opportunities for growth in sales and profits are increasingly available to companies of all origins. Further, ongoing changes in the location of market growth, the shape of global supply chains, and the emergence of new global business models suggest that the conditions are right for aggressive global players to move outside their comfort zones. Industry may have been destiny thus far, but it is unlikely to remain so[3] – HBR November 2008

9. What is information Systems From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: The term information system (IS) sometimes refers to a system of persons, data records and activities that process the data and information in an organization, and it includes the organization's manual and automated processes. Computer-based information systems are the field of study for information technology, elements of which are sometimes called an "information system" as well, a usage some consider to be incorrect.

10. Different Languages that Google Provides for its users

12. Google offers local language support in India • Google technology lets users type search queries in 14 Indian languages and also generate content in local languages

13. Communication The Internet Helps Bridge the Digital Divide in Villages, long isolated by distance and deprivation, are gaining cell-phone access to the internet. In the process, millions of people who have no land-line telephones and who often lack electricity and running water are able to utilize services that people in developed countries consider to be basic, such as weather reports, e-mail, and a second opinion from a physician

14. Internet growth in Bangladesh Now has about 16 million cell phone subscribers- and 2 million new users each month-compared with just 1 million land-line phones to serve a population of 150 million people. About 500 Internet centers have been opened in places where there are no land lines, so the connections can be made exclusively over cell phone networks.

15. Bangladesh: GrameenPhone Internet cell provider and Grameen Bank • The Internet centers are being setup by GrameenPhone, a cell phone provider partly owned by Grameen Bank. • Grameen Bank has sometimes been accused of charging relatively high interest rate and putting people in debt-trap.

16. Villages and Information Systems People now download job applications, check news stories and crop prices, make inexpensive internet calls, or use web cameras to see relatives. Student from villages with few books now have access to online dictionaries and encyclopedias. One of the most popular services is videoconferencing, which involves using a Web camera on top of a computer monitor, and video conferencing with relatives living overseas.

17. Russia Vs. Georgia Web Turned Battle Ground • Weeks before physical bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace. • Cyber attacks are so inexpensive and easy to mount, with few fingerprints, that they will almost certainly remain a feature of modern warfare. – Bill Woodcock http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/12/europe/cyber.php

18. Russia & Georgia Web Infrastructure • In the wake of the Russian-Georgia conflict, a week worth of speculations around Russian Internet forums have finally materialized into a coordinated cyber attack against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure. The attacks have already managed to compromise several government web sites, with continuing DDoS attacks against numerous other Georgian government sites, prompting the government to switch to hosting locations to the U.S, with Georgia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. undertaking a desperate step in order to disseminate real-time information by moving to a BlogSpot account. • Who’s behind it? The infamous Russian Business Network, or literally every Russian supporting Russia’s actions? How coordinated and planned is the cyber attack? And do we actually have a relatively decent example of cyber warfare combining PSYOPs (psychological operations) and self-mobilization of the local Internet users by spreading “For our motherland, brothers!” or “Your country is calling you!” hacktivist messages across web forums. Let’s find out, in-depth. • The attacks originally starting to take place several weeks before the actual “intervention” with Georgia president’s web site coming under DDOS Attack from Russian hackers in July, followed by active discussions across the Russian web on whether or not DDoS attacks and web site defacements should in fact be taking place, which would inevitably come as a handy tool to be used against Russian from Western or Pro-Western journalists. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1670

19. Privacy • Today’s war on privacy is intimately related to the dramatic advances in technology we’ve seen in recent years” (Gurfinkel, 2001, p. 5). Advocates of privacy warn that the conflation of the disregard of the general populace and unrestricted technology seriously threatens individual privacy (Marshall, 2001).  Whether you use the or not, whether you are aware of the or not, they are out there. We have become a surveillance society What technology are you referring to?  Consider the Internet and computers for one. “Each time you log in to the Internet you are involved in a much broader information exchange than most people realize” (Lyon, 2002, p. 345).  According to a 1998 report by the Federal Trade Commission, approximately 98% of websites collect personal information (Masci, 1998). What do websites do with this information? What’s a good question as only 14% of the websites that do harvest information reveal the whom and why regarding the collection (Masci, 1998). Geocities was accused of just this by the FTC in 1998. In exchange for personal information, this company offered free emails. Geocities then sold this web data, the information amassed, without consent to advertisement companies (Masci, 1998).  In fact, data sharing is still a rampant practice among corporations (Marshall, 2001). But what happens when your medical information is shared with you potential insurer? Or when your finances are shared with your potential employer? What happens on the net doesn’t stay on the net. Run a quick search on your computer for cookies. Unless you cleaned them out recently, you probably found a lot. Cookies are “self-contained bits of computer code that are employed by websites as markers or tokens of identifying information” (Campbell & Carlson, p. 598, 2002). While these codes may be used to keep track of things such as personal preferences or items in an on-line shopping cart, they can also be used to stalk someone online. How would you like your on-line visits to websites tracked?

20. Youth Privacy Issues • Description of issue. • Children and youth are vulnerable to a number of privacy threats. • Their marketing profiles are highly prized. And since children are avid Internet users, marketers have attempted to capture data from their web surfing. • Children watch a lot of television. With TV going "digital," (see below) marketing information is likely to be compiled from such new technologies as TiVo and Replay TV. • State education departments are developing databases that track students throughout their K-12 school years. • States are developing databases to track children's vaccine inoculations. • Students are often asked to complete surveys that ask sensitive questions about themselves and their families. • Given the incidents of violence in schools, administrators and school psychologists have the incentive to use profiling tools (Mosaic is one example) to attempt to identify individuals who are supposedly predisposed to violence, and then share that information with local law enforcement. • Looking ahead. • While these threats do not necessarily interrelate with one another, it is evident that children and youth are the targets of a great deal of data collection. Congress has acted to limit online data collection from children under age 13 by passing the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, implemented in April 2000. And the Bush Administration signed into a law a provision to require that schools give parents the opportunity to opt the student out of participation in marketing related surveys that collect personal information. This is part of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. But as we've seen with the other issues discussed in this report, laws are not able to keep up with the fast pace of technology. Children are early adopters of computer and wireless technologies, and are far more skilled than many of their elders in using them. Children are also voracious consumers of the latest trends in clothing, music, sports, and entertainment. Marketers are not likely to bypass the opportunity to collect data from children and to solicit both them and their parents. The tension between laws and technology regarding children will persist for time to come. http://www.privacyrights.org

21. Conclusions Plan to Design the information systems in mind Outreach to all human potential World partnership, Good Deed Business and Marketing (consumer and producer relationship) Cost, quality and/or speed Build continuous trust which leads to security, privacy IS advantage versus IS disadvantage Build multipath ways with a cross over when is safe Global election

22. Cultures and Norms • Culture sets our values and norms. It is a way of thinking that determines our behaviors, decisions, actions and knowledge. Technology transfer and integration are basically the exchange of the knowledge, know-how and skills through which technology was created and on which its use depends. Culture is deeply rooted in ourselves. We are usually unaware of its influence on our professional activity. Cultures are diverse, and their encounter through technology exchange triggers conflicts that are expressed in objective terms. We need to detect and resolve those conflicts at the right level, i.e. at the cultural level instead of only focusing on the visible 'obstacles' to the deployment of telematics applications. This paper summarizes the basic concepts on which we ground a practical approach to detecting and resolving culture-based conflicts in technology transfer and integration. It investigates the relation between cultural preferences and actions. Culture is translated and reduced to a seven dimensions framework. Cultural preferences influence the decision-making process that leads to tangible actions. The structure and dynamics of that process are described as a Change Governance Framework. It considers the control aspects of decision making that are sensitive to cultural preferences, i.e. the way decisions are taken, why, by whom. References: http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1372084

23. So What's Y2K? • The year 2000 bug arose from the fact that most old mainframe computers still running keep track only of the last two digits of the year. The computer assumes the first two digits are 1 and 9. To the computer, 1999 is just 99. That means the computer will interpret 00 not as 2000 but as 1900, throwing the date calculation off by 100 years. The problem dates to the 1960s and 1970s, when computer memory was scarce and expensive. Computers filled entire rooms and cost millions back then, so smart programmers squeezed every last bit of memory from the systems. They didn't foresee all the problems that only using two digits for the date would cause in the future. Programmers who built the old mainframe computers didn't anticipate the problem because they never thought these machines would last 20 years. But today, these mammoth computers are still running great portions of society. Because the two-digit method for dates became standard for computers, the bug also exists in the software of many personal computers made before 1997, and in the computer chips embedded in many products, ranging from automatic coffee makers to nuclear power plants. To fix the problem, every computer system's software must be checked and tested. Multiply this by the millions of computers around the world and the hundreds of billions of lines of computer code, and you can see how immense the project is. In the United States, there are about 157 billion software functions that need to be checked, according to Capers Jones of Software Productivity Research. The 30 most industrialized countries have a total of 700 billion vulnerable software functions. Every one of them must be checked, Jones said, and estimated the global bill at around $3.6 trillion. • http://www.countdown.org/y2k/what_is_y2k.htm

24. Y2K Cost in Perspective World War II:  $4200 billion***Millennium bug (Y2K): $600 billionVietnam conflict: $500 billionKobe earthquake: $100 billionLos Angeles earthquake: $60 billion • Sources: Gartner Group andCongressional Research Service

25. Globalization of technology Privacy Issues Internet privacy consists ofprivacy over the media of the Internet and the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. Privacy measures are provided on several social networking sites to try to provide their users with protection for their personal information. On Facebook for example privacy settings are available for all registered users. The settings available on Facebook include the ability to block certain individuals from seeing your profile, the ability to choose your "friends," and the ability to limit who has access to your pictures and videos. Privacy settings are also available on other social networking sites such as E-harmony and MySpace. It is the user's prerogative to apply such settings when providing personal information on the internet. * This slide was written in my own words/my ideas*

26. Advantages of Globalization • Goods and people are transported with more easiness and speed • the flexibility of corporations to operate across borders increases • the communication between the individuals and corporations in the world increases • environmental protection in developed countries increases • the possibility of war between the developed countries decreases

27. Disadvantages of Globalization • Increased flow of skilled and non-skilled jobs from developed to developing nations as corporations seek out the cheapest labor • Threat that control of world media by a handful of corporations will limit cultural expression • Decreases in environmental integrity as polluting corporations take advantage of weak regulatory rules in developing countries

28. Problems associated with globalization and information technology “Most of Africa is being left in a technological apartheid, and the same could be said of many other regions of the world. The situation is difficult to remedy when one third of the world’s population still has to survive on the equivalent of one dollar per day. “

29. Security on Globalization and Information Technology Globalization has put tremendous pressure on businesses in the form of new competitive threats and onerous regulatory requirements. Businesses have responded by focusing on their core competencies and markets and have in turn raised the bar for IT by demanding ever increasing levels of responsiveness, stability and efficiency. The ever increasing demands placed on IT means that IT management has little choice but to consider adding outsourcing to its delivery mix. In other words it is important for people around the world to know about outsourcing and information technology so purchasing and communicating something on the web can be more secure.

30. Protecting your Privacy on the Internet • Do not reveal personal information inadvertently. • Turn on cookie notices in your Web browser, and/or use cookie management software or infomediaries. • Keep a "clean" e-mail address. • Don't reveal personal details to strangers or just-met "friends". • Be conscious of Web security. • Use encryption! • Be conscious of home computer security.

31. Privacy North American analyses of privacy construct it as a human right that is inevitably violated by advanced communication technologies. Growing exposure is expected to become the fate of more and more people as globalization expands. However, studies of surveillance practices elsewhere suggest alternative interpretations of information disclosure, and developments in globalization theories highlight complicated relationships between the global, the local, and their mediators. This study adopts an agential approach to explore the encounter between Israeli and North American concerns over web privacy as they are mediated through local journalists' introduction of the new medium. The analysis identifies three arenas in journalists' discussion about web privacy: The U.S., Israel, and the global community of surfers, attending both to the predominance of the U.S. in this discourse, and to the absence of local structural accounts. The analysis proposes that by Americanizing the concern over privacy violation and by constructing it as paranoia of the technologically inept, the text neglects to contextualize privacy violation, and privatizes the struggle against it.

32. Culture Norms and Values that affect Globalization and Information Technology • As the sophistication of contracting technologies increases, the normative content of those de facto regulations will increase, and potential for conflict between diverse local law and business culture on the one hand, and contracting norms embedded in networked commercial transaction systems on the other will increase. • The development of contracting technologies that can accommodate diverse contracting regimes may reduce potential conflicts between the mandates of the global trading architecture and the social norms of local economic culture. Flexible technologies may be easier to develop for use in countries where contract law is highly formal in content; Islamic law may provide an example of a contract law regime that is highly formal and thus can be more readily accommodated by computerized contracting systems. • They may be harder to develop in countries where institutionalized informality is an essential element of contract law and practice; some East Asian countries may provide examples of contract law regimes that are difficult to accommodate with computerized contracting systems because of the central role played by informal social norms in some economic activities.

33. References • [1] Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming business (Reiner & turban 2008) • [2] Tomorrow’s Global Giants: Not the Usual Suspects (Ghemawat, P., Hout, T. Harvard Business Review, November 2008) • [3] Redefining Global Strategy: Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter (Ghemawat, P., Harvard Business Press, 2007) • Google