Essay Example on Digital Hacking: Growing Threats in the 21st Century

Introduction

Digital hacking involves illegally accessing information or data without permission with the use of digital technological tools. The government plays a huge role in the control of digital hacking, especially in the 21st century, when hackers have grown high in number. Still, the government hacks people's and organization data that could be useful in investigations and other matters. Today, the FBI, NSA, CIA, among other security forces, often hack criminal information or data to meet their needs. Consequently, the government gets hacked by organizations and individuals. Generally, anybody can be a victim of digital hacking, no matter what measures they take to protect their data. In this paper, I will summarize and compare two unbiased articles; "Government Hacking and Subversion of Digital Security" written by EFF organization and "The U.S. Government Is Utterly Inept at Keeping Your Data Secure" written by Matthew Gault on 12TH June 2019.

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Summary of "Government Hacking and Subversion of Digital Security"

According to EFF, changes in policies and practices could cause disaster in security. The efforts to weaken the law of encryption can make technological devices unsafe for everybody. The government agencies can copy, delete, access, or even infiltrate data and information in devices. They can do this for the investigation needs or their own needs. The government uses malware such as state-sponsored, stockpiling vulnerabilities, malicious hacking, and promoting crypto backdoors to access or damage data in devices (EFF, n.d). This does not happen just in the United States but also in other countries. The government is also exposed to similar hacking as it also uses the same digital devices. Therefore, the government is very vigilant while passing security policies because it is accountable to its citizens.

Summary of "The U.S. Government Is Utterly Inept at Keeping Your Data Secure"

The NSA claims to be the world's best in cryptology. It has employed tens of thousands of people to protect people's data and information. However, the agency has been doing little or no of its allocated work. In 2017, the agency admitted having its hacking tools stolen and exposed to the internet. The tools made using taxpayers' money were picked and used by Russia and North Korea to attack the U.S. some of the NSA agencies have disregarded the course saying that NSA stood for "No Such Agency" (Gault, 2018). On a different case, Customs and Border Patrol reported having been hacked and having lost photos and license plates to a dark website. Therefore, since the U.S government cannot keep the data safe, the best way to keep it safe is not to collect it at all. The internet and mobile phone users have been feeling insecure, thus had to take personal measures to protect their data. President Donald Trump was last month intended to announce a cyber state of emergency to look for the best measures to secure data (Gault, 2018). However, the executive who was given the orders took the president's reaction as a joke. Indeed, the U.S populace, political class, and military are all terrible in securing the information. From history, the American Military is known to be careless with information, and nothing has changed over the years. Hackers have accessed data regarding pentagon and missiles, among others, thus giving the enemy easy access to destroy American people.

Conclusion

From the EFF article, I have learned about various tools the U.S government uses to access and secure data and information. Also, the article makes it clear that nobody is safe from hacking because hackers develop every day as well as digital technology. Besides, the passing policies that loosen the encryption law make American data unsafe. On the other hand, Gault is bitter with the U.S government and takes every chance to blame it. The article is full of criticism of how the government is weak and terrible, thus making its opinion biased.

References

EFF. (n.d.). Government hacking and subversion of digital security. Electronic Frontier Foundation. https://www.eff.org/issues/government-hacking-digital-security

Gault, M. (2018, June 12). The U.S. government is utterly inept at keeping your data secure. The New Republic. https://newrepublic.com/article/154167/government-nsa-inept-protecting-cyber-data-whatsapp