discussing the relevance of ‘hidden information’ in comp sci

In the words of the Office’s Dwight K. Schrute, “Identity theft is not a joke.” Though this quote originates from a television sit-com, it is not false. With this week’s re-reading of Blown to Bits Chapter 3, and in the hypothetical situation that a tech-savvy intruder were to access my documents - I believe that the main two concerns would be the metadata on certain documents as well as browser saved passwords and logins. As seen in Chapter 3, metadata or previous edits of certain documents may have sensitive information underlying, information that the creator of the document may not even realise was once there. Depending on the type of information, this may lead to the sale of my information online. Additionally, another concern when it comes to metadata on documents may lie in the ‘deleted’ files section. As stated in the textbook, “ (...) But “deleting” a file in this way merely removes the index entry. The information is still there on the disk somewhere.” (101) This means that the intruder will still have access to potentially sensitive files that I deleted on purpose, but are not actually deleted. The second example may be the access to passwords and logins saved onto my computer and browser settings. This not only allows spam (because of the access to my email and all of my contacts), but this also means that any accounts linked to a mode of payment are at risk. Examples include an Amazon or PayPal Account. With all of this information, it comes back to Dwight’s quote, the intruder may use the sensitive data on the ‘deleted documents’ such as ID number, phone number, etc… to commit identity theft and fraud. Similarly the following would be replicated with the use of your credit card information, or simply with your email address.