Social Engineering Task # 5

My task was to find “What is Helion Black’s date of birth?

This is a very interesting task, we barely know each other and start the conversation with what’s your date of birth doesn’t seem right. Even if I could ask him after number of blah.. blah.., nobody will ever reveal his/her date of birth unless to a confidential person. So, my approach was take my time (six days) and try to find it through various social media, online, and other methods; rather than directly engage in conversation to make him suspiciously aggravate him.

First of all I researched for real name of Hellion Black. Then searched him online in every possible ways. I was right there, found almost every other detail but the date of birth. I was okay with online search until the point where that online site asked me to pay for specifics which I was looking for, I’m not going to do that. My best possible other option was through his social media pages and among them I found only Facebook as somewhat useful. I worked hard on that, I created a brand new Facebook page which almost resembled his Facebook friends. I was able to get connected to many of his friends and finally sent him Facebook friend request. I was hoping I could get some clue from his Facebook page, unfortunately didn’t get any response. I looked for some clue from his friends (mutual on Facebook) Facebook pages, that wasn’t helpful.

My strategy was effective and thought that can produce me some result. But even after waiting six days for his response on Facebook, I didn’t get any desired outcome. Interestingly I was able to connect to other person with the same name and almost similar appearance from his surrounding area and got the information I needed (I know that’s not good enough).

There was no moral stakes involved. I was too hesitant to make calls to the numbers even though I got as possible telephone numbers of Hellion Black. I value privacy and believe family should not be dragged unnecessarily for our school or business (personal) affairs.

I want to give my full credit to Hellion Black for keeping his online life reasonably secure. His LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram (if any) account won’t reveal any valuable information. It is better to keep our online profile secure, at the same time I acknowledge the fact that because of job nature and social responsibilities that won’t always be very possible for everybody.

When I got this assignment, I was like … not again… This was my fourth out of five task related to the players from our class. Then I said to myself okay, I can try it. I had very good plan on my mind and felt I could execute that. I tried and fell short of what I had to achieve. 

Ethics Assignment #4

The FBI vs. Apple Corp

            “Governments have been frothing at the mouth hoping for an opportunity to pressure companies like Apple into building backdoors into their products in an effort to enable more sweeping surveillance” says Evan Greer, Fight for the Future Internet rights activist group. I couldn’t agree more and truly believe James Rachels would also agree whole-heartedly as well.

In his 1975 essay “Why Privacy is Important”, James outlines the importance of having a sense of privacy as he explains that in order to be able to control the relationships that we have with other people, we must have control over who has access to us. James goes on to mention the moral issues of revealing one’s deepest feelings to strangers. He states that our aspirations, our problems, our frustrations and disappointments are things that we may confide only to our wives and husbands and dearest friends, but it is absolutely out of the question to speak of such matters to people we don’t even know. Privacy, as James states, is all about respecting and promoting individualism.

In respect to the tech world, Apple’s Tim Cook states in his press release to customers the fact that smartphones have become an essential part of our daily lives. People use them to store an incredible amount of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos, our music, our notes, our calendars and contacts, our financial information and health data, even where we have been and where we are going.” Personally, I do not want pictures of myself naked to be seen by anyone, except maybe a girlfriend. That’s why agreeing with James Rachels and Tim Cook to me is essential, I just don't want anyone collecting information about me, without my consent to do so. I believe James Rachels would absolutely agree with this argument. He goes on to state in his essay: If a person has a reasonable desire to keep something private, it is disrespectful to ignore that person’s wishes without a compelling reason to do so.

It seems to me in this case is yet another damn attempt for the government trying to over-reach the boundaries of citizen privacy, yet again. The government will have you believe that creating a backdoor would be limited to cases such as the San Bernardino shooting and realistically that’s so far from the truth. There have been dozens of cases in the past couple decades in which government employees, in particular the NSA, have been caught utilizing the intelligence gathering system to snoop on their love interest. In a 2004 case, a civilian employee told the NSA security that she had spied on a foreign phone number because she found it on her husband’s cell phone and she suspected he was being unfaithful and she collected his phone calls. The employee’s infraction was deferred to the Justice Department, but she resigned before she could be fired. Which is the issue with many other similar cases in which government employees who intentionally abuse the available technology for their own agenda and simply either resign before they could be punished or were demoted in rank.

Let’s face the truth, the more someone knows about us, the more power they can have over us. Personal data is used to make very important decisions in our lives. It can affect our reputations and it can influence our decisions that shape our behavior. It can be used as a tool to exercise control over us. And in the wrong hands, personal data can be used to cause us great harm.

I agree with Reverend Cyan about this whole Apple vs. FBI being a sham. Snowden released information back in 2014 pertaining iPhone/Android Smurf kits that were being used by government agencies. They’re just simply upset that Apple closed the door on them after spending a billion dollars on the program. This is just another sorry ass attempt by those uptight government officials to know more about us so that they can impose more power over us. Honestly, what they should do is simply hire better staff as proposed by John McAfee, you know, the crazy looking hackers with earrings and facial tattoos that demand half a million and the freedom to smoke pot while on the job, you know the really talented ones…lol.

The sad thing is that we were told way back in the 70’s and 80’s that the USSR was terrible because the KGB had spies everywhere and that they would listen to everyone’s conversations and so no one could truly ever be free. Sound familiar? Because it’s happening as we speak here in America!

As Eddy Snowden puts it – “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say”.

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcafee-apple-fbi-13th-amendment-2016-2

http://ethicalhackingbhcc.blogspot.com/2016/02/for-this-weeks-assignment-applicable.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WARRIOR_PRIDE

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Rachels

https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2016-02-17-rallies-planned-at-apple-stores-nationwide-to/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/02/22/fbi-director-urges-apple-to-help-unlock-killers-iphone-in-passionate-statement-its-about-the-victims-and-justice/

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/

FBI v Apple

Justice Brandeis, in his dissension of Olmstead v. United States, in which the case revolved around whether wiretaps collected by the government without a court order were a violation of the 4^th and 5^th Amendments, reference his Right to Privacy by stating that “…They conferred against the government, the right to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” In The Right to Privacy, the crux is that the 4^th Amendment means that an individual has “a right to be left alone,” free from the peering eyes of other individuals, corporations, and governments. But Brandeis also poses the question: does the right to privacy have limits when what’s private is in the interest of the general public?

That is what the FBI is arguing: that it’s in the interest of national security that the courts compel Apple to eliminate the mechanism on the iPhone which prohibits the FBI from brute forcing the PIN without the data being deleted on the 10^th try. Should Apple comply or fight the court order? For the sake of argument, let’s say that Apple claims the right to privacy as a reason to not comply with the court order, what does have Justice Brandeis have to say? Towards the end of the Right to Privacy he states that “Any rule of liability adopted must have in it an elasticity which shall take account of the varying circumstances of each case, a necessity which unfortunately renders such a doctrine not only more difficult of application, but also a certain extent uncertain in its operation and easily rendered abortive.” So, if he were alive today, Judge Brandeis would argue that due to national security, Apple’s claim of privacy does not apply and thus must follow the order.

Justice Brandeis also notes that “Still, the protection of society must come mainly through a recognition of the rights of the individual.” That is what Apple CEO Tim Cook argues in his letter to customers when he writes that “The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers — including tens of millions of American citizens — from sophisticated hackers and cyber-criminals.” Apple is arguing that circumventing the iPhone’s protections this one time will pose a future threat to the privacy of not just iPhone owners but to every single person that values their privacy.

In the end, I believe Brandeis would agree with Captain Spock that “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” To which Captain Kirk answers, “Or the one.” I also believe that rights have limits (yelling "fire" in a theater), and so does the FBI, as they have picked the perfect case to argue about the balance between privacy and public safety.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmstead_v._United_States

http://www.apple.com/customer-letter/