As the world of information technology says goodbye to 2011, it also welcomes the new year of 2012. There was big news in IT within the last year, and there are high hopes that the coming year will yield even bigger news. There are technological changes that happen every day, and analysts expect some of these to happen sooner or later. To them, the next major events and developments in IT will be driven by these three: big data & analytics, security and cloud computing.

There is an expectation that the role of social media in big data and analytics will grow and broaden. Given that there will be new data sources, more organizations will use these in order to generate their transformations. After all of this has been done, there will be more considerable benefits gotten out of social networking. The growth in the number of organizations using the social media command center in 2011 was remarkable. The number is expected to grow even more in the coming year. The familiar use of marketing services agencies is slowly replaced by the more advanced, and more effective use of social media.

A majority of the world’s population today is connected to the internet for many different purposes. There are those who find that social networking can be an effective tool for individuals, organizations, schools, institutions, businesses, governments, etc. Along with this are the billions of devices that are interconnected via an array of wired and wireless networks. These devices come in a wide range of sizes, including those that are small, hand held gadgets to bigger devices that are powerful enough to get connected to the whole world. It is much easier now to communicate with anybody, anywhere in the cyber world.

Behind the scenes of the beneficial effects of internet technology are those unscrupulous criminals who use that same technology to carry out their own agenda. There is a very high risk of cyber attacks, coming in different forms. There is espionage, malware, denial-of-service, cyber war, and terrorism that lurk behind the interconnected systems. This is one concern that needs to be addressed not only by individual networks, but by the cooperative effort of all.

Network protection is becoming more and more important, and researchers in Germany have proposed a new approach to it. They believe that the risk of cyber attack could be reduced by rewarding those organizations that support their own network security. They have observed that those organizations who have implemented this strategy have greatly reduced the spread of malware and other problems. Today, communications that are internet and computer-based are, for the most part, done anonymously. This results in systems becoming ever more vulnerable to cyber attacks and harassment.

The internet has been laden with numerous privacy problems for many years. Despite the efforts to enforce privacy laws, the nature of internet technology quickly outdates these legislations. After a year or two of its implementation, a privacy law is made “useless” by the rapidly changing technology. There has to be a plan that will always be in pace with the real-time circumstances. Privacy advocates now say that self regulation is the best solution to privacy problems.

Self regulation is the self-imposition of privacy related measures so as to avoid privacy invasion. Even without a law, it is the limiting of the use of gathered personal information by companies or groups that collect such information. It is a voluntary action that follows a clear set of guidelines about how a certain company can protect privacy. Such actions could be done by website advertisers, ISPs, data brokers, social networking sites, apps providers, etc.

The idea of self regulation began in the U.S. in 1997. Since then, this idea has been promoted by way of distributing information and encouraging websites to make it their commitment. However, history shows that not one self-regulatory effort has had prolonged success. There were attempts that were initiated, but failed in one or more significant ways. Others never got the chance to show what they had all about before they disappeared. Although it is believed that self regulation can really help solve privacy problems, reforms in its implementation are needed. There is a strong opinion that consumers themselves have the greatest responsibility in protecting their own privacy.

Google has just presented its users the 2-factor authentication. This requires the user to provide his or her cell or landline telephone number. This is done so that Google can send the user a one-time authentication code to log in to his or her gmail account. This new service has raised apprehensions and doubts on consumers as to Google’s real purpose.

Once a user tries to log in to his or her account, he or she will be given the option between a cell or a landline number. After which Google will send through the provided number an authentication code. This code will be entered in the prompt box provided for the purpose and sent to Google. Only then will the user be able to log in. It is a simple process which seems harmless, but a closer look at it would raise some doubts.

Phone numbers are private properties. In the internet, uploading of cellular or landline phone numbers could pose danger. Doing such with Google’s new technology is not an exception. Collecting such valuable data from users just for authentication is not good enough reason. It can be imagined how much numbers can be collected from the millions of users even for one-time use only. Where would these data be stored? Would they be immediately deleted? How sure can the user be that these data will not be stored for future use?

One of the purposes why privacy laws exist is to give adequate protection to personal information. Today, millions of users share their personal data in social networking. These data are then collected in the database of these companies. Without adequate protection, these data could be abused. The results could be detrimental to these data owners. To avoid such consequence, users need to set limits as to which information is to be shared and which is not.

Privacy laws remained the same for more than twenty years. Considering the present status of technology, these laws have been outdated. They can no longer give full protection to personal information. If ever, these laws would have loopholes and thus could be questioned.

Just recently, Twitter disclosed an incident that illustrates the inapplicability of existing privacy laws. It received a federal order requiring it to submit its stored users’ data to authorities. Although the company questioned such action, it cannot say “no” because privacy laws would “allow” such. Users of the digital age would always be violated if the same incident happens continuously. Internet users of today need more protection that those in the past. It is because today, there are many ways that these data could be used for self-vested interests. One more thing about today’s users is they have lesser limits in data sharing. This fact validates the need for a revised implementation of privacy laws.

Internet piracy; although it has nothing to do with the swashbuckling scallywags that ride around on big ships and steal and plunder from innocents, the concepts are similar. Online piracy deals with a bunch of different things, be it music, games, movies, documents, or any other online media strata. These pirates, who are often just kids sitting in their rooms downloading music for free, are actually doing more than damage than they know for everyone.

The biggest detriment these pirates do to the world is the hurting of the economy. First of all, the music industry is hit the hardest. These kids and their stealing of the songs means no money for the bands, and without this money, the bands have no motivation or any means to make any new songs. There was a time was CD and record sales were through the roof, and since then, online sales have skyrocketed. Now though, neither is doing well because people are just sharing the music for free on peer to peer networks instead of legally going out and buying it.