Do not throw your life into the Internet

Protect the things most precious

An Internet user is threatened with numerous dangers resulting from neglects relating to protection of personal data and privacy. The dangers include among others:

- abuse for marketing purposes, consisting in collecting information by marketing companies by means of creating a user profile, shopping-assisting software. (One of the biggest Internet advertising companies – DoubleClick – applied so-called cookies without the knowledge of the users. The company concluded an agreement with 11,000 owners of websites, tracking 100 million users. In 2000 it was revealed that the company has increased its database with the information on user behaviour also outside the Internet). Problem with DoubleClick?

- violation of privacy resulting from non-commercial actions, such as: monitoring of employees and control of citizens by governments of some countries.

- threats resulting from criminal activity, identity theft, property theft, swindles, exploitation – crimes basing on the gullibility of the youngest users of the Internet.

Polish portal komputerswiat.pl announces “7 deadly sins you can commit when surfing the network”. They inculde: 1) Checking password and loging remembering options on public computers; 2) No updating of Windows and other software (including antivirus); 3) Using unsecured wireless networks; 4) Searching illegal and forbiden content; 5) Using online games and p2p networks; 6) Using the same password for all accounts; 7) Incorrect privacy settings in social networks.

How to avoid threats? How to protect our children from them?

From my point of view the key to success is always the proper and early education continued on all school levels, resulting in gaining comprehensive competences with regard to using media.

In Poland there is more and more activity visible from services like helpline.pl. The webservice creates and posts educational animations on the Internet, like: Sieciaki whose purpose is to accustom children and young people to safe and legal behaviour in the Internet. Materials created by the webservice are attractive for the young user, which is enhanced by involvement of celebrities in the project, like: Polish racing driver K. Hołowczyc. The helpline.pl service promotes and encourages children to talk about the threats in the network and offers help in a situation of encountering a hazard.

Intellectual property - helpline.pl

There are many methods of protecting personal data and protecting one’s privacy. I think however, that the best solution is to use personal judgement and a rational justification why we should make a specific thing public. It has been true for ages that sometime it is enough just to think something over to avoid serious consequences of one’s actions.

Driving or braking?

Does the intellectual property right drives or hampers social development?

Intellectual property is a result of artistic, scientific and inventive human activity, it does not have a material form but using it is regulated by an intellectual property law. The intellectual property laws in Poland usually include regulations concerning copyright, patents and trademarks.

On the one hand the intellectual property right is a protection of the uniqueness of a human product, grants the author of a piece of work an exclusivity for full use of, not allowing other people do it. On the other hand, however, we  hear voices from libertarian circles which reject the intellectual property rights. As quoted by Wikipedia, they believe that so formed law “violates the freedom of other people as it deprives them of the right to freely dispose with their property (e.g. construction of a machine – with their own means – in accordance to a patent, or recording a piece of music that is protected by copyright, on a data carrier)”. Additionally, “arbitrary adopted protection periods suggest that the intellectual property does not stem from natural law, but is an artificial concept”.

Libertarianism upholds unrestricted freedom of life and action, as long as they do not restrict other people’s freedom in life and actions. One of the principles of that philosophy is: “Your freedom stops where mine begins”. However, how does this relate to the intellectual property right? One way or another… international agreements on intellectual property protection are in force in almost all the countries in the world.

Protect your intellectual ownership at each opening!

Anti-plagiarism programmes? Is this necessary?

Polish pedagogical universities have implemented a cycle of obligatory lectures on intellectual property for students who are about to commence writing their MA theses. Many times the issue of intellectual property is discussed during diploma seminars where students learn how to legally make use of other people’s texts (using literature is a condition and an asset of a diploma thesis, but it is a requirement to make proper notes informing on the source of specific information). When a paper is ready, a student signs a statement declaring that they have written the thesis by themselves and in compliance with the intellectual property right. The theses are stored in the university library and archives and in case a plagiarism is detected, an author of a forged work is threatened with loss of the title they obtained thanks to it. Lecturers in Polish universities use anti-plagiarism software, papers are randomly checked by the universities themselves who spare no expense to use the services of the plagiat.pl website.

Does the phenomenon of MA theiss plagiarism is specific for Poland only, or is this a problem in your country, too? Is anti-plagiarism software a solution to this problem?

Numerous laws concerning intellectual property include also those especially important from the point of view of each student. This is certainly the copyright that protects various types of students’ theses, from the very moment of their creation.