Security and Privacy Awareness: for Software Creators and Users

Information technology (IT) has far-reaching impact on society. Its security and privacy aspects are now under intense scrutiny. In this work we examine how we got where we are today. We focus on the Internet and related applications and review its evolution. We show that there was lack of security awareness among the innovators. The technology and its applications grew with minimal regulations, unfettered. When technical security awareness dawned for engineers and knowledgeable folks, users at large either remained unaware or they could not be weaned from the attractive and easy to use insecure applications. Without enough social awareness of the implications of the Internet based tools and systems, the Networked Society now has gigantic pools of information most of it without much protection for security and privacy. We discuss the importance of social checks and balances to ameliorate the situation.