16. Mobile Systems and Their Intractable Social, Ethical and Security Issues

This chapter 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 devices 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 discuss the 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. In our discussion, we focus on the security and threat to individual privacy, for even in public places individuals deserve some privacy, resulting from the collection, aggregation, and centralization of personal information, without user consent of the user and also in the absence of applicable laws. 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 faraway rural places but more scaring is their rapid penetration on enterprise IT spaces where security is paramount for any device.