In 2024, Fall semester of my sophomore year, I took CYSE 200 because I felt that in the global sphere today, issues of cybersecurity are becoming an increasingly threatening global influence. Because of this, I feel as a Global Affairs/International studies major, it’s important that I can understand these topics. 

On this page you will find samples of some of the work I did while in this class.

 Discussion Post Opportunities for Workplace Deviance

How has cyber technology created opportunities for workplace deviance?

   In the past if you wanted to sabotage or steal from the company you work at, you would have to physically go and do it. But now you can do this with just the click of a button as long as nobody is monitoring super carefully. For example, at the restaurant I work at we get no free food. But managers who work in both the restaurant and the hotel do get free food. The only person who can  ring in managers food to the system is me: the hostess. Its quite simple to knock of the total and make the meal free in the system and I don’t need manager approval to do this. Of course I’m the only one who is supposed to know how to do this. But a couple months ago one of the servers figured this out and started ringing in free food for himself. He told another server and she told the managers. He got fired. But, if he had never done this then the managers never would have secured a method to prevent people from stealing. 

          The point being that now their are more ways to steal or sabotage your workplace. Other ways people have stollen at my job include writing in tips on customer checks, physically stealing leftover food from the breakfast buffet, “Accidentally” putting in the wrong order, and the cooks always steal because they have direct access to the food. But because of the technology we use people have the opportunity to steal without really having to sneak around. If that original server never told anybody he probably would have gotten away with it. Then I have to think if its that easy to steal food, then how easy would it be to steal actual money from the restaurant. In fact the more I think about it, there are plenty of opportunities for me to steal. For example, people get vouchers from the hotel all the time and they don’t use the full amount on the voucher. I could add all that extra money to my tip. Or I could ring in food under someone else’s number and never pay for it. 

         As and employee, you have access and trust that nobody outside of the company has. Because of this its a lot easier to pull of crime. One of the biggest issues being access control and people having information that they don’t need to have. The main point is if their is no reason that an employee should have access to some information, then they should not have access and there should be no way for them to gain access. My ex-coworker should not have been able to ring if free food because there is no reason for him to do so.  At the end of the day I think companies have the potential to be losing just as much money from minor employee cyber-theft and deviance as they do from mass, corporate-level attacks. Of course the reasonings for these crimes are different but generally it seems most employees commit these crimes for personal gain. 

Bushnell, M. (n.d.). Top 5 restaurant employee-theft scams. business.com. https://www.business.com/articles/stop-employee-theft-restaurants/Links to an external site. Links to an external site. 

Discussion Bord Post

How should markets, businesses, groups, and individuals be regulated or limited differently in the face of diminishing state power and the intelligification (Verbeek, p217) and networking of the material world?

 Due to the nature of the networks and technology today, it is imperative that we can understand its power. The problem lies in the fact that the government is slow to act and those who work in government generally know very little of the technology of today and its capabilities due to their old age. With the slowness of the government, and the fast paced qualities of tech, the government has been losing power and influence to its biggest competitor: unregulated free will of the governed. So in the face of this untouched power of digital networks l, how can we work to regulate this realm of chaos. 

           In the case of markets and businesses, there should be clear ethical standards upheld by both the customers and the partnering organizations. In other words, businesses and markets should make sure the other organizations they work with uphold a standard of security and ethics of information in order to protect the business data, integrity, and finance. Because of this motivation there should be a board of people in charge of these markets and businesses that can ensure safe and ethical practices of the member organizations. Customers should also have a little responsibility in this regard but still should not be held accountable for the ethical and safety failures of these organizations. The major problem with this system is there is still very little regard for the individual people and their privacy and security. Because of this, individuals have a personal responsibility to themselves to protect their privacy. Without government regulation it’s hard to stop the markets and businesses from taking advantage of the individual. Using intelligent technology, although convenient, can be a serious threat to an individual’s privacy. Because of this and the combination of low government involvement in intelligent tech, consumers need to be especially cautious and aware especially when dealing with intelligent tech. Pretty much, until the government can catch up, it’s open season for this type of technology. Not to mention the implications of new possible cyber crimes that could be committed using this technology by third party actors and even non third party actors. 

      This conversation reminds me of my international relations theory class I took last semester. Comparatively you could say we are entering a stage of anarchy. In IR theory’s realism the idea is: there is war because there is anarchy. Anarchy meaning a lack of central government. In this case: there are threats due to a lack of regulation. There are many theory’s of mitigation in ir theory, a notable one being the idea that international organizations can mitigate anarchy. This is why I proposed the board of ethical organizations for market and business practices. The only problem is that these international organizations are often seen as ineffective and powerless and it would likely be a similar case for my proposed solution. Another possible mitigation in IR theory is the idea that if all countries were democratic then there would be peace (democratic peace theory). If we were to implement this in markets and businesses, then all businesses and markets would have to be democratic in nature. Maybe that could work but we will never know because it’s never going to happen in politics or in business. But at the end of the day, similar to IR theory, the topic of technology and government and how to deal with it will always be heavily disputed with multiple approaches and none of them will ever feel totally effective or reasonable.

       In conclusion the combination of fast paced development in technology and slow paced government has created a developing anarchy. With the continued development of AI and intelligent technology the big question is how can we mitigate these risks with an increasingly powerless government? The answer is not a simple one. There is not a clear and perfect solution. All solutions would take a longer time than we have to risk. But still we must do something.