Security Policy Institute (SPI)
JINSec
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The Journal of the Centers for Information and National Security (CINSec) is
a scholarly reviewed academic journal dedicated to information security, organizational preparedness, and operational recovery
issues.
We invite you to join our committed staff of reviewers! Contact us by email at:
info[at]cinsec[dot]org.
Coming soon from eAselworx Press!
Selected editorial notes from our recent Thought Forum: The Wannabe: What would make a person leave the impression on a website of being a professor, when in reality he has only lectured occasionally as a guest at a university? What reason could account for someone who does not have a doctoral degree claim online to be a research scholar? Why would someone with an undergraduate degree in religious studies purport to be an expert in data visualization? These questions have little significance in the academic literature, except when such a person sets about to cybersmear a company, company principals, customers, and/or academic researchers in order to damage their reputations or attempt to prevent a company from selling its product -for some reason. When such a person creates many web pages, multiple links from high-volume web pages, distributes messages in distribution lists -to elevate the visibility- we might wonder about the motives and the psychological state of mind of the cybersmear attacker! We take this context from an actual event and put the question to managers -what should be done? Companies and people are increasingly the targets of personal attacks on social network sites and in blog postings by “trolls” and “cyber bullies.” Research shows that people who defame others in this way often rank high on narcissism and neuroticism, are rashly impulsive, and have exploitive tendencies. We announce our special issue on this little investigated question. As special issues editor for the International Journal of Management and Decision Making (IJMDM), we published scholarly research on "Cyber Harassment Impacts on Corporations and Corporate Valuation" ... See the issue at the following link: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=19&year=2011&vol=11&issue=5/6. The IJMDM is a top-tier reviewed research journal: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=19 Take away -Beware of the blog troll -Tversky and Kahneman showed that frequency of occurance (e.g. cross-site listings and promotions in Web search engines) does not equate to truth -see the "availability bias". Just because someone proclaims him or herself an expert in a blog or Webpage does not make it so. For example suppose a blogger or Website owner has an undergraduate degree in theology and religious studies and then attacks reviewed academic research into an area of computational sciences: let the "buyer beware". These kinds of "self-promoters" do this often to try to increase a consulting business or to promote an ego. Techniques such as making many postings and cross site linkages on high volume Websites elevates the blog or Website so that it appears near the top of a search list from a search engine such as Google, but the frequency of dogmatic claims does not mean he or she knows "anything" about the topic beyond having a mere opinion (it may only seem so). The SPI attempts to promote Informed decision-making!See: Workman, M. (2010). A behaviorist perspective on corporate harassment online: Validation of a theoretical model of psychological motives. Computers & Security, 29, 831-839. Also See: Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430–454. The Naïve Protester: In a review of a book that had large sections copied verbatim off of the Internet, a blogger wrote: "Taking material from one source is copying, taking material from two sources is plagiarism, and taking material from many sources is research." My first reaction to this comment was that this shows an appalling and even breathtaking lack of understanding about copyright law, and also complete ignorance of the ethical conduct as outlined in that book. My second reaction was that it is an affront to all those who abide by that ethical conduct. My third reaction was despair for this ignorance that seems rampant! Our conclusion: Copying verbatim complete volumes of text authored by others without citation and claiming (or implying) those as one’s own is not only a violation of US copyright law (including taking into account the "fair use" clause), but it is also a violation of 4 of the 10 points in the very set of ethics noted in that same text regarding ethical standards, reference the Brookings Institution (2006), ethical admonitions against: -Using
a computer to steal. In Dr. Ryan’s manuscript “Plagiarism, Education, and Information Security” published in IEEE, she eloquently articulated the problem with this mindset among students and how this plays out in practice. Yet life seems to have gone on as if nothing wrong has happened among many in the virtual community, including apparently the blogger, judging by his ridiculous comments that urge students and professionals alike to copy and claim as their own so long as they copy from many others. Take away -In sum, academics and organizational developers must do better than this at inculcating ethical conduct in our students and our professional affiliates. The SPI sees this as one of the next big challenging issues for resolution in security research toward seeking recommendations for ethical practices in information security. See: Ryan, J.C.H., (2007). Plagiarism, education, and information security. IEEE - Security and Privacy, 1540 (September/October), 62-65.
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