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Midterm
Learning Module B

Information, Control, and Privacy

Lesson Nos. Topics Coverage Period Pages

2 Information, Control, and Privacy
A. Introduction to Information
B. Information as a Resource
C. Information Economics
D. Information overload
E. Information Control
F. Information Privacy

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A. Books:
Cashman, S. 2012. Discovering Computers – Fundamentals: Your Interactive Guide to the Digital World.
Course Technology. Cengage Learning
O’Leary, T.J. & O”Leary, L. I. 2010. Computing Essentials Introductory. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Tayuan, R. and Eleazar, M. 2019. Living in the Information Technology Era. C & E Publishing, Inc.

B. Online References:
Basic Computer Literacy Program. 2009. Comprehensive List of Search Engines, 2015.
DOI=http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/#a
GCFLearn. 2016. Email Basics: Introduction to email. Retrieved from
http://www.gcflearnfree.org/email101/introduction-to-email/1/
Pearson Education Inc. (2010). Computer Concepts. Upper Saddle River, NJ.
DOI=http://www.ualr.edu/gblane/book/

Typographical Conventions
Note
General note to the teacher and additional information

Tip
Teaching tips and supplemental materials
Activity
Activity for the students
Video
Watch video on link or on file

Lesson 2. INFORMATION, CONTROL, AND PRIVACY

I. Learning Outcomes: At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
a. Distinguish a physical resource from a conceptual resource
b. Identify the characteristics of information as a resource
c. Analyze the phenomenon of information overload brought by high penetration
d. Explain the major points of the revised Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (Republic Act
No. 10372)
e. Highlight the importance of information control and privacy by creating a video advertisement or
awareness campaign

II. Key Concepts:

INTRODUCTION TO RESOURCES
 Organizations treat company assets, such as buildings, equipment, and their manpower as important
resources.
 Resources are the total means available to a company for increasing production or profit, including
land, labor, capital, and raw materials.
 Without resources, organizations would cease to exist.
 Imagine a bank without money, a manufacturing plant without forklifts, or a school without teachers.
 These resources are known as physical resources.
 They are tangible and can be easily identified.
 Physical resources usually start form acquisition and are then assembled to be available for use when
needed.
 Very often, the assembly process entails converting an essentially raw material into a refined form,
such as wood, cement, and steel for building construction.
 Once these resources have been assembled, a manager strives to maximize their use; this includes
allocating space for office use and identifying key areas in the building plans.
 Finally, the manager asks for replacement or repairs and maintenance of these resources at a critical
time-before they become inefficient or obsolete.
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 The other type of resources is called conceptual resources.

 Conceptual resources are non-tangible and are considered valuable for what they represent rather
than their physical make-up.
 Money is considered a conceptual resource as each paper bill represents a specifics monetary value as
opposed to the paper where it is printed.
 The same goes for human resources.
 While everyone can be considered employees in a company, their skills, knowledge, and job
experience set them apart from one another, thus identifying the staff, managers, executives, and
laborers.
 Managers use conceptual resources to manage physical resources or vice versa.
 One such example is the use of computers in organizations.
 A computer unit, by itself, may cost thousands of pesos.
 However, once used, the content saved in those computer units become even more valuables
resources, making the computers unit irreplaceable.
 The integrity of the saved files may be compromised, so security checks are often identified on the
computer units--e.g., firewalls, anti-virus, biometric access, etc.--to make sure they will not be lost. In
this case , the saved files (conceptual resource) identify how the computer units (physical resource)
will be managed.
 The same applies to personal assets such a s smartphones.
 Losing a mobile phone is considered a tragedy, especially if ti contains personal data, such pictures,
videos, and numerous contacts.
 The pictures, videos, and contact list saved in the phone are considered conceptual resources while the
smartphones is the physical resource (managing the conceptual resources). In both instances the
conceptual resources identified are called information.

INFORMATION AS A RESOURCE
 Information can be simply defined as “facts about something or someone that are provided or
learned.”
 Facts are considered relevant truths which have been validated and identified.
 Data are considered facts; therefore, processed data are considered as information as they
organized in such way that they have additional value beyond the value of the facts themselves.
 Unlike other organizational resources, information is considered.

→EXPANDABLE
 Information can be expanded without compromising its integrity.
 In fact, by having additional information, much more can be understood from it .
 An example is a person’s personal information.
 While knowing his or her name , contact details and current work may be useful, having the person’s
full curriculum vitae becomes more useful for those in, for example, the HR Department.

→COMPRESSIBLE
 Although expanded information can give a more detailed explanation, it may not always be needed. An
example of this is in news sites.
 Instead of a barrage of details, news sites would often give one-liner headlines that provide enough
information about the news.
 Another example is research abstracts. An abstract is normally a half- or a one-page summary of the
entire research.

→TRANSPORTABLE
 Information, especially digital information, is easily transportable. With the use of the internet and
various technologies, information can be sent though any of the following:
 Send via email
 Share via Facebook
 Copy onto a flash drive
 Upload on YouTube

→DIFFUSIVE
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 Gossip or rumors tend to spread easily.

 Unfortunately, the same applies to any kind of information-be it true or not.

→SHARABLE
 Since information can be easily spread, it is considered sharable as well. Information can be kept
calling it a secret.
 However, once a person decides to tell it to someone, then he or she will no longer have a control over
it. In some cases, certain parts of the secret can be kept.
 One such example is the secret recipe of KFC. It is known that there are 11 secret herbs and spices,
but as to what these herbs and spices are, people can only guess.

 Information is not all different from other resources.

 Similar to how physical resources are managed, information is considered valuable and also has a life
cycle.
 It begins with transforming raw materials into finished product-- processing data to come up with
valuable information. Weather forecasting is one such example.
 Scientists use statistical data from previous days to predict possible weather conditions the next day.
Another example is the academic grades of students in a university.
 By determining the students’ weighted average from first year to senior year, the school can identify
valedictorians and salutatorians based on their academic standing.
 Information can also be available in different grades and types, and prices can be measured in
monetary equivalent.
 There are two options in acquiring software applications online: free or trial version version or a full
version.
 Free versions have limitations in functionally.
 To maximize the full range of functions of a certain application, one should pay a certain amount
depending on the type of upgrade need. A certain software can have personal editions and enterprise
editions, among other which cost more as the functions become broader in scope.
 Depending on how it is used, information can be substituted and its consumption can be either
expanded or capitalized.
 An individual can search for a person’s contact number through a telephone book. The same
information may also be found by need details.
 But nowadays, you can also search for the contact details of people through the internet, specifically
through social media such as Facebook and twitter.
 Thus, contact details are no longer restricted to just phone numbers. A person’s contact details can
now also include email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and even Twitter handles.
 And just like physical resources, the cost of information can be controlled through various accounting
techniques.
 An example is the price difference of DVD movies in different countries like the Philippines and the U.S
DVD prices are controlled based on the region codes set by each country.
 Basically, a DVD can only play on a DVD player with the same region code setting (Hedden,2017). This
is to prevent people from say.
 The Y.S., buying DVD’s online from an e-commerce site in China.
 DVD’s on countries like China are much cheaper than those in the U.S. due to “production costs.”
 However, bear in mind that the “production costs” Mentions here are not the costs in making that the
movie, but rather the costs in mass- producing the DVD.
 Just like physical resources, managing information is just as important as managing any other
resource in the organization, such as people, money, and equipment. Information, information-related
activities, technologies, and personnel are also important organizational resource.

VALUABLE INFORMATION
 Let us say that I assigned you to search on the different parts of a computer system. You plan to look
for information online through search engines such as Google. How can you tell if the information you
get is useful, or in this case, valuable for your search?
 Information is said to be valuable if it has the following characteristics (Stair & Reynolds, 2016):
 Accurate
 Accurate information is error-free
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 In some cases, inaccurate information is generated because inaccurate data was processed.
 Analysts call this as “garbage-in-garbage-out.”
 By typing “part of a computer” in the search bar, Google gives you a list of several Web sites
which contain the information you are looking for.
 However, how do you determine which are accurate and which are inaccurate?
 Usually, it is better to trust sites that are formal in nature rather than informal ones such as
blogs or forums.
 Formal information for your work could come from technical Web sites as well as academic
Web sites.
 Pieces of informal information can still be considered accurate as long as they provide enough
reference and the data can later be verified from the said reference
 Bits of informal information include those from blogs, wikis, social sites, and public forums
 Nowadays, the use of wikis has become a norm when it comes to information search.
 The most popular wiki today is Wikipedia.org.
 The question, however, is: How accurate is the content in Wikipedia.org?

NOTE: The table below presents a summary of the Formal Information vs. Informal Information

Formal Information Informal Information

It is official and authoritative. It is more causal, and less authoritative.
It is meant to be taken seriously and is presented in a It is presented in a less formal manner.
formal manner.
It is usually more carefully prepared and verified than It is possibly less reliable.
informal information and its accuracy and reliability
should also be higher.

 Complete
 Complete information contains all the important facts.
 This is especially important in the field of medicine
 Missing information could spell disaster, or worse, lead to death.
 If the information regarding allergies has been left out, doctors might inadvertently give
wrong medication that could cause severe allergic reactions to the patient.

 Economical
 Information should be relatively economical to produce
 Decision-makers must always balance the value of information with the cost of producing it
 With the spread of the internet, information dissemination has become easier, faster, and a lot
cheaper.
 However, is the price worth it for the integrity of the information?

 Reliable
 Reliable information can be depended on
 In many cases, the reliability of information depends on the validity of the data collection
method
 In other cases, reliability depends on the source of information, which brings us back to
valuable information being economical
 Torrent sites offer pirated software, music, and movies for free
 However, the resolution of the movie downloaded, for example, might not be clear and might
even contain malware and virus that could infect the computer system

 Flexible
 Flexible information can be used for different purposes
 Depending on the situation, personal information can be used for a variety of ways
 A school ID can be used to enter the school premises
 The same ID can be used to transact business with the registrar’s office during enrollment
 It can be used to open a bank account or to apply for a student driver’s permit
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 Relevant
 Relevant information is important to the decision-maker.
 For example, your assignment calls for searching “parts of a computer” online
 You do not visit sites that tackle “parts of the human body” because they are irrelevant to
your search topic.

 Simple
 Information should also be simple, not overly complex.
 Sophisticated and detailed information may not be needed.
 Complex information may sometimes lead to confusion which could result in inaccuracy of
details

 Timely
 Timely information is delivered when it is needed.
 This is true in the case of weather predictions, stock market forecasts, and traffic
management

 Verifiable
 This means that information can be checked for correctness and authenticity
 Most authors include references, bibliography, or citations in their works to enable readers to
verify the content.

 Accessible
 Information should be easily accessible by authorized users to be obtained in the right format
at the right time to meet their needs
 A mobile phone can be used to pay for day-to-day transactions
 A mobile pay app can be downloaded on the smartphone in which the user’s credit card or
debit card is enrolled
 Samsung Pay, Apple Pay, and Google Pay all use near-field communications (NFC) technology
so instead of swiping the physical card for payment, the mobile phone is simply tapped on the
card reader or terminal and payment is immediately recorded.
 Similar Apps used in the Philippines are Paymaya, GCash, Coins.ph, Squidpay, Grab, and
more.

 Secure
 Information should be secure from access by unauthorized users.
 Mobile pay systems use biometric authentication, typically a fingerprint scan, before a
transaction is made.
 Other apps make use of the QR codes during the payment transaction

VALUE OF INFORMATION
 Information is considered valuable mainly for business purposes as businesses depend on it to produce
quality products and services
 This helps organizations become globally competitive and be up to date with the latest trends and
technology
 With businesses gearing towards IT automation, the strategy now is to come up with business
activities that shorten time frames while increasing productivity
 All of this is possible if companies have access to valuable information.
 Valuable information helps managers make good decisions which is why valuable or useful information
is called knowledge
 Some pieces of information have entertainment value, and some have business value, but regardless
of the source of value, people are willing to pay for information
 Many strategies for purveyors of information are based on the fact that consumers differ greatly on
how they value particular information goods
 Some information is given away for free
 Examples are weather forecasts, stock index, and personal information
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 However, as valuable as it may be, a phone number cannot be sold

 But some information is costly such as cable TV subscriptions - the more channels, the more expensive
the monthly cable bill
 So how much will valuable information cost you?
 Information, as a resource, has four characteristics:
 Zero-marginal cost
 The cost of producing the first copy of an information good may be substantial, but the cost of
producing (or reproducing) additional copies is negligible.
 Avengers: Age of Ultron released in 2015 is one of the most expensive Hollywood movies ever
made with an estimated budget of US$250,000,000.
 However, buying a DVD copy of the said movie today would cost about $20 in Amazon.com

 Non-rivalrous
 Simultaneous consumption of information by consumers is possible
 Movies nowadays are sold not only as DVD copies
 There are also digital formats which anyone can watch online or download on their mobile
devices, either as a rental or paid subscription

 Non-exclusive
 Exclusion is not a natural property of information goods, though it is possible to construct
exclusion artificially
 However, the nature of information is that if it is known. It is difficult to exclude others from
its use
 Through emails and SMS, one can identify only intended recipients of the message through a
specific email address or a phone number
 However, emails and SMS have the capability of forwarding the exact information to other
recipients, without the original sender knowing it.
 This is much more evident in social media such as Facebook, in which a “share” automatically
means sending to everyone

 No transparency
 To evaluate the information, the information must be known, so one has to invest in learning
how to evaluate it
 A programmer undergoing boot camp training to learn a new programming language needs to
invest time, money, and effort
 The more complicated the training, the more expensive the cost and the longer the time
needed to learn it

INFORMATION ECONOMICS
 Since people have widely different values for a particular piece of information, value-based pricing
leads naturally to differential pricing
 In economics, a good is considered to be an experience good if consumers must experience it to value
it
 Virtually any new product is an experience good, and marketers have developed strategies such as
free samples, promotional pricing, and testimonials to help consumers learn about new goods
 Information, on the other hand, may be treated differently, since it is not the asset that provides value
in today’s economy: what provides value is the information about the asset
 When buying a shirt, customers are given the opportunity to try it on prior to deciding if they want to
buy it or not
 Food catering companies offer free taste tests of their complete menu so their customers get to
experience the food they offer prior to reserving for an event
 With information, organizations cannot give the full experience to customers as this could mean lost
interest afterwards
 Imagine you are in a movie theater and you are choosing from two movies to watch
 If the movies are to be be treated the same way as the shirt and the food, that would mean you need
to watch both movies in their entirety before you decide which one is good to watch
 The decision would make no sense anymore as you were able to watch both movies anyway
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 To avoid this situation, organizations use various strategies to get wary customers to overcome their
reluctance to purchase information before thy know what they are getting
 The tension between giving away your information - to let people know what you have to offer - and
charging them for it to recover your costs, is a fundamental problem in the information economy
 These strategies include previews, branding, and reputation
 Browsing previews
 An example of this strategy is movie trailers
 Movie trailers that normally run from 1 to 3 minutes give viewers a glimpse of what the film is
all about
 Trailers normally include highlights from the film which can leave the audience excited to
watch the entire film later on
 Another example is music downloaded from iTunes. A 5- to 15-second preview of the song
can be listened to prior to buying it.
 This gives the user an idea of the song he or she wants to download if it is worth the amount
to be paid

 Branding
 Big names such as Microsoft and Apple have no issues when it comes to launching new
products as people have already established their trust on these brands
 According to American telecommunications (telco) company, Sprint, when Apple introduced
iPhone 7 in September 2016, pre-order sales shot up by 375% compared to the launch of
iPhone 6.

 Reputation
 When a movie is announced, people would often be skeptical if it would be good enough
 However, the reputation of directors and the case of actors and actresses normally remove
this skepticism
 For example, Michael Bay is know for successfully directing the Transformers movie franchise
 This reputation has made his movies blockbuster hits as people have made a connection that
if it is a Michael Bay film it must be good
 This is the reason why his films would often include an introduction as a “Michael Bay film”
instead of just the movie introducing itself
 In the digital world, an experience good may not necessarily translate into a good which is
physical or directly used by consumers
 With mobile games becoming more popular, users feel the need to excel in them, in which the
need for more equipment, higher experience levels, and better gaming results become more
of a necessity
 For this reason, game apps offer virtual goods such character gears, equipment, and even
level-up boosts in exchange for virtual money
 However, there are cases in which some would pay real money usually in US dollars, in
exchange for a virtual item
 In general, people value an organization’s ability to make their lives easier and better by using
information about their products and operations
 This includes providing pre-determined information to lessen the decision-making of
individuals
 Think of it as providing additional information regarding the information itself
 Google.com is an example
 Whenever you try to search for something in Google Search, it gives you a list of websites
that pertain to the keywords you have typed it
 This means that Google has provided you with a list of information regarding the information
you are looking for
 Another example is buying online via Amazon.com
 When you browse through different items, Amazon would also suggest at the bottom of the
screen other items related to what you are looking for, or inform you about what other items
people who bought the item you are looking at also bought.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD
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 Information is now available so quickly, ubiquitously, and inexpensively

 Last March 2016, Cisco conducted a study that by the end of 2016, global internet traffic will have
reached 1.1 zetabytes per year, and by 2019, global traffic is expected to hit 2 zetabytes per year
 Just how big is 1 zetabyte?
 A typical external drive is 1 terabyte in size
 One zetabyte is equal to 1,000,000,000 terabytes or one billion external drives
 This is because information is produced at rapidly-increasing rates due to the following reasons:
 Easy duplication and transmission of information
 A picture posted on Facebook which is also posted on Instagram and Twitter means that the
same picture has been posted three times on three different sites
 Increase in communication methods
 What used to be mobile phones for SMS and computers for emails are smartphones that can
do both
 Also, a simple text message is no longer restricted to SMS via telco providers
 Through mobile apps such as Viber and Messenger, people can now send private messages
(PM) or direct messages (DM).
 Growth archives of historical information
 Print or hard copies are now being replaced by digital ones
 These digital copies are stored on cloud servers that offer maximum storage capacity for end
users
 One such example is libraries which contain not only physical books but also computers and
other mobile devices to access e-books, e-journals, electronic readings, and other online
resources
 So where does all this information come from?
 Who and where are these producers and consumers of information?
 More than half the world now uses the internet (up to 7% year-on0year)
 Qatar and United Arab Emirates top the internet penetration ranking with 99% of their total population
using the Internet
 For three years in a row, Filipinos have been spending the greatest amount of time on social media
with an average of four hours a day
 More than two-thirds of the world’s population now has a mobile phone, with most people now using
smartphones
 More than half of the world’s web traffic now comes from mobile phones
 More than 60% of all mobile connections around the world are now “broadband."
 More than one in five of the world’s population shopped online in the past 30 days
 With the overwhelming “amounts” of data brought about by the exponential growth of internet users -
both producers and consumers of information - information overload, as in dealing with too much
information for one to absorb, happens

Mobile Social Media and Mobile Commerce

 The abundance of mobile devices has greatly changed the way people manage their day -to-
day activities
 In business, for example, having a shop where customers can easily go to used to be
enough
 However, with the introduction of the Internet, market shifted from a brick-and-mortar
setup to an online operation more commonly known as e-commerce.
 And now with mobile internet, people can access internet services without the need for
personal or desktop computers
 They have their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices connected to the network to
send and receive information wherever they are and whenever they want to
 This connectivity has paved the way to two new scenarios in communication:
 Mobile social media
 Mobile social media is the accessing of social media sites, such as Facebook and Snapchat,
using a mobile device
 The device may have an app installed to open Instagram, for example, or it can use a browser
built-in the mobile device to open Twitter

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 A study conducted by ComScore in 2016 reveals the impact of social media on internet users.
The same study also shows that nearly 80% of individuals browse through their social media
accounts using their mobile phones.
 Noticeably, people are using their desktops less and less in accessing websites
 Mobile has grown so fast that it’s now the leading digital platform, with a total activity on
smartphones and tablets accounting for 62% of digital media time spent, and apps alone now
representing the majority of digital media time at 54%
 M-commerce
 M-commerce or mobile commerce was a term used during the 1997 Global Mobile Commerce
Forum by Kevin Duffey
 He described it as the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into the consumer’s
hand, anywhere, via wireless technology
 However, do not be confused that this is different with e-commerce. It is just the same but
then the only platform used is changed to mobile, thought it still make use of the internet to
do business or commerce
 The use of mobile device has paved the way for data to be transmitted and received much
faster, without compromising security and scalability
 The global trend in suing mobile devices for socializing and doing commercial transactions is
increasing
 Companies are now using digital platform to market their products and services
 Industries that are now embracing m-commerce include
 Financial services
 Mobile ticketing
 Service/retail
 Information services

INFORMATION CONTROL
 With so much information around, how do you make sure they are safe from illegal activities? A large
requirement for information control comes from commerce, industry, and copyright owners in general
 Information control comes in the form of keeping secrets inside a business or selling Intellectual
Property Rights (IPR) to those prepared to purchase it
 Information control is about allowing those who have appropriate authority access to and use of
information on the basis of the authority that they hold
 But why is there a need for control in the first place? The concept of information being non-rivalrous
and non-exclusive has been discussed earlier in this module.
 An example is movies being sold in different formats - DVDs, MP4, etc
 If that is the case, how can you make sure that the said movie will not be distributed illegally?
 Let’s say you wanted to watch the latest movie showing in the cinemas.However, you decided to save
the money instead, so you bought a pirated DVD copy of the film in one of the market places you
passed by on your way home. Upon watching it, you noticed the film was taken by a video camera
inside the cinema and you can hear the audience laughing, and see shadows walking back and forth,
which obviously were not part of the film. In the end, you decided to download a torrent file of the
film, hoping for a better quality, only to discover that it was the same pirated video you saw in the
pirated DVD
 This typical scenario boils down to the fact that information is difficult to control
 Four issues, which further complicate the problem on information control are the following
 Convergence
 Technological advancements and social media have paved the way for media content such as
music and movies to be distributed from their “traditional” distribution platforms
 What consumers used to buy in the form of CDs or DVDs, media content can now be
searched, accessed, and consumed using multiple devices and even through different
distribution networks
 One such example is Spotify
 Consumers before would buy physical albums in the form of CDs, then later transitioned to
digital copies typically bought via iTunes Store for Apple. However, with social media having a
big effect on song reviews and recommendations, a mobile app such as Spotify is able to
create playlists which can be listened to, and if wanted, downloaded for a fee
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 As a result, it is now possible to disseminate, find, or consume the same content/information

via multiple devices or distribution networks
 This convergence of devices and networks, according to Thierer (2011), has created issues
instead of maintaining an effective information control policy

 Scale
 For those who like to watch Japanese anime and Korean dramas, English subtitles are a must
 Before, fans would wait days or weeks before the subtitles become available for viewing
 This is because the subtitles are actually translated, edited, and embedded by fans of the
show, most of whom are not professionals.
 Majority of them are students and young adults who simply like watching the series
 With technology and fast internet connectivity, viewers no longer need to wait days to watch
the foreign shows with English subtitles
 Oftentimes, the subtitles are ready within a few hours after the show has been aired in its
local country
 This is because the internet has given everyone access to anything they would like to search,
upload, and download anywhere in the world
 Technology such as Google translate has also helped make translation of these shows much
faster
 Concerns regarding copyright have greatly increased because of this. But while some
countries such as China and North Korea impose certain restrictions on what their citizens can
and cannot access online, the scale of modern digital speech and content dissemination
greatly complicates government efforts to control information flows
 Volume
 Nowadays, news and media outlets abound in print and online
 News agencies such as Manila Bulletin or The Philippine Star have not only print copies of
their news (i.e. newspapers) but also digital copies which can be accessed through their
websites mb.com.ph and www.philstar.com, respectively
 Broadcasting companies such as GMA7 and ABS-CBN also have television broadcasts, radio
broadcasts, TV radios, and news websites, most of which have the same content
 This development can be attributed to the increasing volume of media content and
communications activities happening across the world, greatly complicating government
regulatory efforts to control information

 Unprecedented individual empowerment

 The popularity of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram has made it possible
for individuals to post anything they want
 This also includes creation of blogs which have become mainstream media for individuals to
showcase their talents, skills, and hobbies
 This creates issues when it comes to content restriction as most people are doing this using
their private accounts
 Unless reported, the said content will be difficult to control
 Organization such as The Software Alliance, software industries such as Microsoft and IBM, as
well as government entities in countries across the globe, are working hand in hand to solve
the issue of software piracy
 One solution they have come up with is identifying exclusive rights to information, as with any
given physical asset. This has led to the identification of Intellectual Property rights (IPR)

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (IP)

 IP refers to a number of distinct types of intangible assets for which a set of exclusive rights are
recognized.
 It refers to unique and original works such as ideas, inventions, art, writings, processes, company and
product names, and logos.
 IP is any created or product of the human mind and may be expressed in the form of original ideas,
expressions, and processes.
 Intellectual property rights (IPR) are the rights given to persons over their creations. They usually give
the creator an exclusive right over the use of his or her creation period of time
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 IP includes musical, literary, and artistic works such as Taylor Swift’s new album, J.K Rowling’s new
book, and the latest iPhone
 According to the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines (Republic Act No 8293 s. 1998), IPR
consists of the following:
 Copyright and related rights
 Trademarks and service marks
 Geographic indications
 Industrial design
 Patents
 Layout designs (topographies) of Integrated Circuits (ICs)
 Protection of undisclosed information
 The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IP Philippines) is the government agency in charge
of the implementation of the law protecting intellectual property rights in the Philipp ines as provided
for under R.A. 8293, or the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines, and the revised Intellectual
Property Code of the Philippines known as R.A. 10372.
 Certain issues arise surrounding IP today because many of these works are available digitally.

COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS

 Copyright is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to the creator of an original work on their
assignee for a limited period of time exchange for public disclosure of the work or their assignee for a
limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of the work, and includes the right to copy,
distribute, and adapt the work.
 Copy owners can license or permanently transfer or assign their exclusive rights to others.
 A copyright gives authors and artists exclusive rights to duplicate, publish, and sell their materials
 A copyright protects any tangible form of expression.
 Digital rights, on the other hand, is the permission granted to individuals to legitimately perform
actions involving the use of computer, any electronic device, or a communications network.
 It is particularly related to the protection and realization of existing rights in the context of new digital
technologies, especially the internet.
 Copyright provides protection for original expression which includes literary, artistic, scholarly, and
scientific creations such as illustration, maps, photographic works, advertisements, computer
programs, etc.
 In the Philippines, all copyrighted material are recorded and stored at the National Library or the
Supreme Court Library (R.A. 10372, 2013).
 A common infringement of copyright is piracy.
 People pirate (illegally copy) software, movies, and music.
 Many areas are not clear-cut with respect to the law, because copyright law gives the public fair use to
copyrighted material.
 The issues surround the phrase, fair use, which allows use for educational and critical purposes.
 This vague definition is subject to widespread interpretation and raises many questions:
 Should individuals be able to download contents of your Web site, modify it, and then put it on the
Web again as their own?
 Should a faculty member have the right to print material from the Web and distribute it to all
members of the class for teaching purposes only?
 Should someone be able to scan photos or pages from a book, publish them to the Web, and
allow others to download them?
 Should students be able to post term papers they have written on the Web, making it tempting for
other students to download and submit them as their own work?
 These issues with copyright law led to the development of Digital Rights Management (DRM), a
strategy designed to prevent illegal distribution of movies, music, and other digital content

DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

 Digital rights management (DRM) is used to describe the processes by which the author or publisher
of a work exerts his or her rights to control what the publisher of the work is entitled to do.
 This represents the control which one can prevent a person or an organization from copying, printing,
editing, or otherwise making the privileged information available to other people.

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 With the introduction of technology and the internet, the print age is slowly becoming obsolete with
publishers shifting to the digital age.
 Before, a person needed to copy or re-print a physical book for additional copies.
 With digital technologies, copies are made at zero cost with minimal detection.
 And it is not just books, Movies, music, software applications, etc.
 Can now be copied and shared faster with less cost. With this set-up, the prevalence of peer-to-peer
(P2P) and torrent sites have made information control much harder.
 While information gets to be disseminated faster to consumers, control as to how it is shared becomes
an issue.
 Downloading pirated music online does not help the music artist as they are deprived of the royalties
they are entitled to.
 At the same time, getting the music for free does not mean being safe from malicious software and
hacking attacks.
 Thus, companies and organizations have come up with possible solutions to this digital dilemma.
 The following are techniques designed to control access and reproductions of online information:
 Encryption
 Encryption is the process of converting data or information in such a way that only authorized
parties can be understand.
 Its primary purpose is to protect the confidentiality of digital data stored on computer systems
or transmitted via the internet or other computer networks.
 Encryption occurs every time someone uses an ATM or buys something online with a
smartphone, makes a mobile phone call, or presses a key fob to unlock a car. This is done so
that information being sent kept safe and secure.
 DRM systems for multimedia often encrypt material in such a way that only a particular device
can play or retrieve it, enforcing constraints on how it is used.
 DVDs use an encryption scheme to prevent users from viewing discs on unauthorized players.
This is the concept of region coding discussed earlier. Region coding prevents discs sold in
one part of the world from being used on players sold in another.

 Serial keys
 Also known as a product key or a software key, it is a series of alphanumeric characters
acting as a key to denote that the product or software is original.
 In some cases, product keys are used for products activation.
 One such example is Microsoft Windows OS.
 A product key is used to activate the operating system online.
 Online activation helps maintain software authenticity by making sure no one else has used
the same product key.

 Scrambling
 Data scrambling is done to hide sensitive information from unauthorized users.
 Scrambling is accomplished by the addition of components of the original signal or he
changing of some important component of the original signal in order to make the extraction
of the of the original signal difficult.
 It is often done with the aid of encryption.
 While region coding identifies which players can only play certain DVDs, computers with DVD
drives become another option for would-be pirates.
 Thus, the content scramble system (CSS) was introduced to restrict access to content only for
licensed applications.
 Meaning, even if the DVD was recognized by the DVD player in a computer, certain
applications or programs needed to play the video might not allow it.

 Tag embedding
 Similar to how pictures can include watermarks to denote information on the owner of the
picture, tag embedding does the same to information content.
 Watermarks are not complete DRM mechanisms in their own right, but are used as part of a
system for copyright enforcement,such as helping provide prosecution evidence for legal
purpose, rather than direct technological restriction.
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 In terms of data embedded into the actual content, the use of metadata is included to identify
the owner’s name, author, and data of purchase, among other pertinent information

INFORMATION PRIVACY
 Information privacy refers to the right of individuals and companies to deny or restrict the collection
and use of information about them.
 In the past, information privacy was easier to maintain because information was kept in separate
locations.
 Each retail store had its own credit files.
 Each government agency maintained separate records.
 Doctors had their own patient files.
 Today, huge databases store this data online.
 Much of the data is personal and confidential and should be accessible only to authorized users.
 Many individuals and organizations, however, question whether this data really is private.

TIP: Techniques to keep personal data private

 Electronic Profiles
 When you fill out a form such as a magazine subscription, product warranty registration card, or
contest entry form, the merchant that receives the form usually enters it into a database.
 Likewise, every time you click an advertisement on the Web or register software online, your
information and preferences enter a database.
 Merchants then sell the contents of their databases to national marketing firms and Internet
advertising firms.
 By combining this data with information from public sources such as driver’s licenses and vehicle
registrations, these firms create an electronic profile of individuals.
 Critics contend that the information in an electronic profile reveals more about an individual than
anyone has a right to know.
 They also claim that companies should inform people if they plan to provide personal information
to others.
 Many companies today allow people to specify whether they want their personal information
distributed.

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 Cookies
 E-commerce and other Web applications often rely on cookies to identify users.
 A cookie is a small text file that a Web server stores on your computer.
 Cookie files typically contain data about you, such as your user name or viewing preferences.
 Many commercial Web sites send a cookie to your browser, and then your computer’s hard disk
stores the cookie.
 The next time you visit the Web site, your browser retrieves the cookie from your hard disk and
sends the data in the cookie to the Web site.
 Web sites use cookies for a variety of purposes:
 Most Web sites that allow for personalization use cookies to track user preferences. On such
sites, users may be asked to fill in a form requesting personal information, such as their name,
postal code, or site preferences. A news Web site, for example, might allow users to
customize their viewing preferences to display certain stock quotes or local weather forecasts.
The Web site stores their preferences in a cookie on the users’ hard disks.
 Some Web sites use cookies to store users’ passwords, so that they do not need to enter it
every time they log in to the Web site.
 Online shopping sites generally use a session cookie to keep track of items in a user’s
shopping cart. This way, users can start an order during one Web session and finish it on
another day in another session. Session cookies usually expire after a certain time, such as a
week or a month.
 Some Web sites use cookies to track how often users visit a site and the Web pages they visit
while at the site.
 Web sites may use cookies to target advertisements. These sites store a user’s interests and
browsing habits in the cookie.
 You can set a browser to accept cookies automatically, prompt you if you want to accept a cookie,
or disable cookie use altogether.
 Keep in mind if you disable cookie use, you will not be able to use many of the e-commerce Web
sites

TIP: How Web sites work with cookies

 Spyware and Adware

 Spyware is a program placed on a computer without the user’s knowledge that secretly collects
information about the user.
 Some vendors or employers use spyware to collect information about program usage or
employees.
 Internet advertising firms often collect information about users’ Web browsing habits by hiding
spyware in adware.
 Adware is a program that displays an online advertisement in a banner or pop-up window on Web
pages, e-mail messages, or other Internet services.
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 To remove spyware and adware, you can obtain a spyware and adware remover that can detect
and delete spyware and adware. Some operating systems and Web browsers include spyware
removers.

 Spam
 Spam is an unsolicited e-mail message or newsgroup posting sent to multiple recipients or
newsgroups at once.
 Spam is Internet junk mail.
 The content of spam ranges from selling a product or service, to promoting a business
opportunity, to advertising offensive material.
 One study indicates more than 92 percent of e-mail is spam
 Users can reduce the amount of spam they receive with a number of techniques.
 Some e-mail programs have built-in settings that allow users to delete spam automatically.
 Users also can sign up for e-mail filtering from their Internet access provider.
 E-mail filtering is a service that blocks e-mail messages from designated sources.
 An alternative to e-mail filtering is to purchase an anti-spam program that attempts to remove
spam before it reaches your inbox.
 The disadvantage of e-mail filters and anti-spam programs is that sometimes they remove valid e-
mail messages.
 Thus, users should review the contents of the spam messages periodically to ensure they do not
contain valid messages.

 Phishing
 Phishing is a scam in which a perpetrator sends an official looking e-mail message that attempts to
obtain your personal and financial information
 Some phishing e-mail messages ask you to reply with your information; others direct you to a
phony Web site, or a pop-up window that looks like a Web site, that collects the information.
 If you receive an e-mail that looks legitimate and requests you update credit card numbers, Social
Security numbers, bank account numbers, passwords, or other private information, the FTC
recommends you visit the Web site directly to determine if the request is valid.
 Never click a link in an e-mail message; instead retype the Web address in your browser.
 A phishing filter is a program that warns or blocks you from potentially fraudulent or suspicious
Web sites.
 Some Web browsers include phishing filters.
 Pharming is a scam, similar to phishing, where a perpetrator attempts to obtain your personal
and financial information, except they do so via spoofing.
 That is, when you type a Web address in the Web browser, you are redirected to a phony W eb
site that looks legitimate.
 The phony Web site requests you enter confidential information.
 Clickjacking is yet another similar scam.
 With clickjacking, an object that can be clicked on a Web site, such as a button, image, or link,
contains a malicious program.
 When users click the disguised object, for example, they may be redirected to a phony Web site
that requests personal information, or a virus may download to their computer.

 Social Engineering
 As related to the use of computers, social engineering is defined as gaining unauthorized access or
obtaining confidential information by taking advantage of the trusting human nature of s ome
victims and the naivety of others.
 Some social engineers trick their victims into revealing confidential information such as user names
and passwords on the telephone, in person, or on the Internet.
 Techniques they use include pretending to be an administrator or other authoritative figure,
feigning an emergency situation, or impersonating an acquaintance.
 Social engineers also obtain information from users who do not destroy or conceal information
properly.

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 These perpetrators sift through company dumpsters, watch or film people dialing telephone
numbers or using ATMs, and snoop around computers looking for openly displayed confidential
information.

 Privacy Laws
 The concern about privacy has led to the enactment of federal and state laws regarding the
storage and disclosure of personal data.
 Common points in some of these laws include the following:
 Information collected and stored about individuals should be limited to what is necessary to
carry out the function of the business or government agency collecting the data.
 Once collected, provisions should be made to restrict access to the data to those employees
within the organization who need access to it to perform their job duties.
 Personal information should be released outside the organization collecting the data only
when the person has agreed to its disclosure.
 When information is collected about an individual, the individual should know that the data is
being collected and have the opportunity to determine the accuracy of the data.

 Employee Monitoring
 Employee monitoring involves the use of computers to observe, record, and review an employee’s
use of a computer, including communications such as e-mail messages, keyboard activity (used to
measure productivity), and Web sites visited.
 Many programs exist that easily allow employers to monitor employees.
 Further, it is legal for employers to use these programs.
 A frequently debated issue is whether an employer has the right to read employee e-mail
messages.
 Actual policies vary widely.
 Some companies declare that they will review e-mail messages regularly, and others state that e-
mail is private.
 In some states, if an organization does not have a formal e-mail policy, it can read e-mail
messages without employee notification.
 Several lawsuits have been filed against employers because many believe that such internal
communications should be private.
 Another controversial issue relates to the use of cameras to monitor employees, customers, and
the public.
 Many people feel that this use of video cameras is a violation of privacy

 Content Filtering
 One of the more controversial issues that surround the Internet is its widespread availability of
objectionable material, such as racist literature, violence, and obscene pictures.
 Some believe that such materials should be banned.
 Others believe that the materials should be filtered, that is, restricted.
 Content filtering is the process of restricting access to certain material on the Web.
 Content filtering opponents argue that banning any materials violates constitutional guarantees of
free speech and personal rights.
 Many businesses use content filtering to limit employees’ Web access.
 These businesses argue that employees are unproductive when visiting inappropriate or
objectionable Web sites.
 Some schools, libraries, and parents use content filtering to restrict access to minors. Web filtering
software is a program that restricts access to specified Web sites.
 Some also filter sites that use specific words.
 Others allow you to filter e-mail messages, chat rooms, and programs.
 Many Internet security programs include a firewall, antivirus program, and filtering capabilities
combined

Key Terms:
 BSA - Business Software Alliance
 CSS - Content Scramble System
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 DRM - Digital rights management

 DVD - Digital versatile disc
 IPR - intellectual property rights
 NDA - Non-disclosure agreements
 NFC - Near field communications
 PM - Private message
 Conceptual Resources - are non-tangible and considered valuable for what they represent
 Copyright - a is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to the creator of an original work or his or
her assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for public disclosure of the work, and includes the
right to copy , distribute, and adapt the work.
 Data scrambling - is done to hide sensitive information form unauthorized users.
 Digital rights - pertain to the permission of individuals to legitimately perform actions involving the
use of a computer, any electronic device, or a communications network.
 Digital rights management - is used to describe the processes by which the author or publisher of
a work exerts his or her rights to control what the purchaser of his or her work is entitled to do.
 Facts - are considered relevant truths which have been validated and identified.
 Information - refers to processed data.
 Information control - is allowing those who have appropriate authority access to and use of
information on the basis of the authority that they hold.
 Intellectual property - is a number of instinct types of intangible assets for which a set of exclusive
rights are recognized.
 Knowledge - refers to useful information.
 Metadata - is used to idemtify the owner’s name, author, and date of purchase, among other
pertinent pieces of information.
 Mobile commerce (m-commerce) - is the delivery of electronic commerce capabilities directly into
the consumer’s hand, anywhere, via wireless technology.
 Patent - is a set of exclusive rights granted by a state to an inventor for a limited period of time in
exchange for the public disclosure of an invention.
 Personal data breach - is a subset of a security breach that actually leads to accidental or unawful
destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure of, or access to, personal data transmitted,
stored, or otherwise processed.
 Physical resources - are tangible and can be easily identified.
 Scrambling - is accomplished by the addition of components to the original signal or the changing of
some important components of the original signal in order to make extraction of the origilan signal
difficult.
 Security incident - is an event or occurrence that affects or tends to affect data protection, or may
compromise availability, integrity, or confidentiality.
 Software piracy - is the unauthorized copying or distribution of copyrighted software. It can be
done through copying, downloading, sharing, selling or installing multiple copies of software onto
personal or work computers.
 Trade secret - is the term used for any method, formula, device, process, or any information that
gives the business a unique competitive advantage over its competitors.
 Trademark - is a distinctive sign used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to
identify products or services to consumers. The mark comes from a unique source, and it distinguishes
its product (trademark) or services (service mark) from the others.

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III. Learning Tasks or Activities

A. Checking for Understanding:The checkpoint exercises test your knowledge of the lesson concepts.
Multiple choice: ENCIRCLE the LETTER of your answer.

1. Unlike other organizational resources, information can be described as follows, except:

a. Transportable b. Compressible c. Diffusive d. Expandable

2. When compared to other resources, information is similar to them in terms of the following except:
a. Its cost can be controlled with the help of accounting techniques
b. Can be substituted
c. Is available in a standard type, grade, and price
d. Has a life cycle

3. Mr. Puti recently found out his email was hacked and said that the hacker has been sending spam emails
to all his contacts. Which of the following regulations needs to be enforced in this issue?
a. Content control b. Defamation control c. Privacy control d. Copyright control

4. Ms. Dilaw has a blog which she updates with photos and videos of her day -today activities. She recently
received a personal message demanding that the pictures of certain images she took in an art museum be
removed from her site. Which of the following regulations did she not follow?
a. Content control b. Defamation control c. Privacy control d. Copyright control

5. MP3 files fall under the category of:

a. Digital files b. Patent rights c. Copyrights d. Trademarks

6. Mr. Berde recently subscribed to a cable TV provider and bought a smart TV along with it. Her smart TV
gives her the capability to record shows she might miss every now and then. Which control issue could be
found in this case?
a. Convergence b. Scale c. Volume d. Unprecedented individual empowerment

7. Ms. Bughaw is an active Facebook user. She recently posted a picture of herself with her friends getting
drunk during a party. Her boss saw it on her profile and said it was very unprofessional and asked her to
take it down. She did, but, her friends uploaded the same picture and tagged her, making her picture still
appear on her profile. Which control issue is shown in this case?
a. Convergence b. Scale c. Volume d. Unprecedented individual empowerment

8. These are also called conceptual resources.

a. Tangible resources b. Non-tangible resources c. Complex resources d. Simple
resources

9. Information that is Important and useful when it is needed is considered

a. Reliable b. Accessible c. Relevant d. Complete

10. A movie being sold in different formats and mediums such as in DVDs, Google Play, iTunes, etc. Means
that the movie is considered as:
a. Non-rivalrous
b. Non-exclusive
c. Not exhibiting high degree of transparency
d. Having zero-marginal cost

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B. Enhancement Activities

B.1. Case Analysis

The Scenario:
Compared to the year 2017, 2018 has seen exponential growth in terms of digital information. This
could be attributed to the fast growing internet as well as to the latest technological advancements,
especially in mobile devices. The infographic above shows the number of internet users, active media
users, unique mobile users, and active mobile social users. The study also highlights how social media has
crated a big impact on internet usage with Facebook dominating the global social landscape, reaching more
than 2 billion users at the start of 2018. This report reveals that while the Philippines has one of the
slowest fixed internet connections in the world - 4.2 Mbps compared to the global average of 6.3 Mbps, the
country has one of the fastest mobile connection speed, averaging at 13.9 Mbps. This is probably the
reasons why more Filipinos like to spend their time online through different social media sites such as
Facebook and YouTube.
This report further reveals that the Philippines topped ranking for time spent on social media among
other countries, with Filipinos spending almost four hours a day on social media compared to people in
other countries.

Task: Create your implication of the scenario discussed. What do you think about the situation discusse d?
Write your implication on the box provided below:

B.2 PROBLEM SOLVING:

In the real world, practical problems often can be solved in multiple ways. Provide one solution to each of
the following problems using available resources, such as articles on the Web or in print, blogs, podcasts,
videos, television, user guides, other individuals, and electronic and computer stores. You may need to use
multiple resources to obtain an answer. Present your solutions in the form of your choice such as but not
limited to the following: brief report, presentation, discussion, vlog, or other means. For written brief reports,
you could make use of the back part of this page or make use of a separate sheet then just attach it here
when you submit. Make sure to write your name.

1. Infected File Detected. A message appears on your computer screen stating that your antivirus program
detected an infected file on your computer and is unable to move it to quarantine. What are your next steps?
2. Password Management. Let us say that you are already employed in a particular company to manage
the user accounts in your Learning Information Management System or Hotel Information System. You must
remember multiple user names and passwords to access various computer resources within your company.
Each time your company introduces a new system, you must remember a new user name and password,
some of which you are unable to customize. What steps will you take to manage your passwords?

IV. Assessment:

Activity 1: This will test your knowledge of the lesson concepts. Answer the following.
A. TRUE or FALSE. Find the true statement below. Write “USTO YAN” if the statement is correct. Then
REWRITE the remaining false statements to that they are true. Write your answers on the space provided.

1. Factors that cause CVS include prolonged typing, prolonged mouse usage, or continual shifting
between the mouse and the keyboard.
2. Phishing is the discovery, collection, and analysis of evidence found on computers and networks.
3. Spam is Internet junk mail.
4. You can assume that information on the Web is correct.
5. Information is the right of individuals and companies to restrict the collection and use of information
about them.
6. Adware is a file that a Web server stores on a computer to collect data about the user.

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ACTIVITY 2. Do what is being asked below. Place your answers on the space allotted below each item.

1. Give examples of Physical resources and Conceptual resources (five for each type)

2. Based on the notes on information value, give what type of information are valuable to you and what makes them
valuable to you.

3. Identify a game you are familiar with and have played frequently online or on your mobile phone. Explain briefly
the mechanics of the game and the reasons why you like playing this game. List the game items that players often
buy to either improve their gaming skills or upgrade their avatars.

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology – IT Era