Lane Jennings article "From Virtual Communities to Smart Mobs" stated the good the bad and the ugly about information sharing. One example of the good occurred on September 11, 2001, when passengers aboard United Flight 93 learned about the other hijackings and was able to take action. Other types of information sharing including P2P may seem like the all winning approach to problem solving, but in reality P2P has created easier ways for hackers to store their files on your computer. How would you feel if a hacker decided to leave his pornography and virus files on your computer?
Not only can a hacker store files on your computer, but a hacker could also gain access to files on your computer. There are always pros and cons to technology, but information sharing can be potentially very dangerous when you think about what hackers could get their hands on. If we think there's a problem with availability of information now, just think about how the problems could expand with the use of P2P technology and other types of information sharing. Is the benefit of this kind of technology worth all of the possible harm?
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