Protecting users' privacy
By Sharifah Kasim
18th February 2002 (Computimes) MICROSOFT has recently acknowledged that its instant messaging programs, namely MSN Messenger and the Windows Messenger, included in the Windows XP operating system, can allow users' names and electronic mail (e-mail) addresses, and those of their chat buddies, to be viewed. Discovered by Richard Anthony Burton and first posted on the Bugtraq security e-mail list on Feb 2, the flaw enables a JavaScript placed on a Web page visited by an MSN Messenger user to access the user's display name and names of all his or her contacts using the messenger programs. If there is no display name, the JavaScript can get the user's e-mail address instead. Burton claimed that several Web sites owned by Microsoft are able to access the e-mail addresses of users and all their contacts primarily to monitor user visits. Rated by Microsoft as low risk, the flaw can be addressed by the new version of Messenger products. Users of these messenger programs in the country will probably not be as alarmed by Burton's discovery as their counterparts in the more mature Internet markets. This reaction is a result of a lesser need to privacy, treated almost as a religious virtue in the Western community. Here, offering identity cards or driver's licence for temporarily keeping by security guards (some looking notably foreign) is considered a standard procedure while visiting premises like apartments or office buildings. Thus, providing personal details in exchange of free online services such as e-mail or e-magazine subscription is often considered a non-issue and carried out without hesitation by local Internet users. There is a need to educate users here on matters pertaining to online privacy to protect them from malicious use of information they provide online. Internet users will have to learn which information they can provide and which they should decline to comment on. The proposed Data Protection Act, which intends to cover the basic issue of privacy pertaining to activities on the Internet, is a positive direction towards protecting online users. Due to an increasing number of Malaysians getting on the Internet, it is thus pertinent that this proposed Act soon become a reality. |
