This assignment required for me to create a review about a scholarly article concerning cybersecurity. I was to connect the paper with elements learned in my class and also was directed to summarize parts of the article. This is article 1 of 2.

Connection to social sciences (3) 

This article connects to the social sciences of determinism, objectivity, and relativism. Relationships and behaviors in relationships are studied and analyzed with as much objectivity as possible throughout the article. Determinism is implied as the article tries to connect certain behaviors or traits like jealousy or possessiveness to the reasons as to why privacy threats happen in intimate relationships, and relativism is presented by relating the use of monitoring devices or applications to privacy threats. 

Research question/hypothesis 

The research questions of this article are if intimate threats can be considered a class of privacy problems, and if so then what are the common features of intimate threats that can make this category more easily identifiable to recognize and take seriously?  

It also addresses how privacy threats in intimate relationships can be handled by system designers in the future. 

Research methods 

The article analyzes the relationships and dynamics between intimate attackers and victims then highlights the common features of intimate threats. They use sources from trusted journals and provide sources or links to the type of spyware they talk about when addressing privacy concerns in intimate relationships. 

Types of data/analysis done 

Analysis is done by using privacy invasion incidents to detail how intimate relationships can be concern of privacy threats. Several articles that report abuse of spyware or physical tools used for tracking are used as example, the authors use these incidents to detect common features of relationships. 

Concepts in class relative to article (4) 

Some concepts in class that can relate to this article are knowledge of victimization, neutralization theory, behavioral causes for cybercrime, and individual motives. The concept of knowledge of victimization is presented throughout the article, victims most likely being unknowing of spyware being implemented on their phones, or perpetrators implementing weight tracks on mattresses to “record suspicious bed activity”. The neutralization theory can also be connected to the article as parents could use denial or injury or victim to justify the use of spyware or tracking devices on their children, claiming that it was for their safety or that the children would not be physically harmed due to the tracking devices. The mentioning of jealousy and possessiveness in intimate relationships can also be linked to behavioral causes of cybercrime and individual motives for cybercriminals. Parents can be overly worried about their adolescent child to the point of privacy breaching, or partners could be overly untrusting of their significant other enough to implement tracking without their significant other’s knowledge. 

Challenges/concerns/contributions to marginalized group (2) 

The article relates to romantic relationship abuse victims and how tracking devices can be used as privacy threats against them. It also mentions the over monitoring of children, especially teenagers, and how applications and tracking devices can be privacy threats to them too, even though these devices were implemented by parents.  

Contributions to society (2) 

By addressing the privacy threats that intimate relationships can pose and clearly drawing out some common features that these relationships may have, researchers may use this article to more easily recognize intimate threats when it comes to cyberprivacy. The article also calls for a balance of privacy and monitoring, suggesting that system and software designers should strive to keep all potential users’ privacy in mind. 

Citation 

Karen Levy, Bruce Schneier. 2020. Privacy threats in intimate relationships, Journal of Cybersecurity, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1093/cybsec/tyaa006