12. Elastic Extension Beyond the Traditional Computer Network

This chapter—Ethical, Privacy and Security Issues in the Mobile Ecosystems begins by presenting rather a frightening and quickly evolving mobile telecommunication and computing technologies, their unprecedented global reach and inclusion, unparalleled social, financial and cultural prowess and the yet to be defined social, moral and ethical value systems. We discuss the crucial role of the mobile operating system and survey the current mobile devises and their anchoring mobile operating systems. The discussion then settles on the main themes of the book, that is the ethical and security issues in the mobile ecosystem. We focus on the most troubling issue of the mobile ecosystem, the location –based tracking system (LTS). This technology, in three types, is troubling because it is being used by merchants, law enforcement agencies and almost everyone else who needs to know where you and your smart electronic device are. We note that while users of smart devices may not be aware, these technologies have huge ethical and privacy implications to users of these devices. In our discussion, we focus on the security and threat to individual privacy, for even in public places individuals deserve some privacy, through the collection, aggregation and centralization of personal information, without user consent of the user, and also on the absence of applicable laws. Use of LTS technologies increases the risks to the privacy and security of individuals. On security issues in the ecosystem, we note that mobile devices are increasingly holding and storing more private data like personal and business and they are roaming in public spaces on public networks with limited security and cryptographic protocols to protect the data. Also because of the fact that these devices have the ability to roam on several networks, there is a wider sphere of attack beset by geographical, legal and moral differences. We note that the penetration trend of these smart mobile devices is not limited to far away rural places but more scaring is their rapid penetration on enterprise IT spaces where security is paramount for any device.