With the evolution of the technology industry every year, new inventions and discoveries have brought new developments into various areas and make life easier and better for society.
Here are some of the biggest tech controversies that shook the world ….
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Blasts
Samsung – The South Korean technology giant, following the launch of their flagship smartphone – Samsung Galaxy Note 7 in 2016 did not have a similar experience as their predecessors. These smartphones have defective batteries which caused several incidents when the faulty batteries were overheated and exploded. Several airlines are also banned a particular device from their flights.
Due to several of these incidents, Samsung had to call back more than 2 million smartphones and also shut down the product. It is estimated that it costs Samsung more than $5 billion to recall its smartphone.
This greatly affects Samsung’s reputation. Although, Samsung had released the Fan edition of a similar version of the smartphone which had no problems like the original.
But in such difficult times, Samsung works brilliantly and quickly solves problems and also ensures that their upcoming products will come with more quality assurance and with improved design. This will give their customers the confidence they need in their products.
Silk Road – DarkWeb Market
Silk Road, a dark web-based online marketplace. These market places were only accessible through dark web browsers like Tor, in which websites without worrying about tracking by external sources. Silk Road was a controversial site where all illegal activities such as buying illegal drugs, illegal arms, jewelry, artifacts were sold.
The site finally caught the spotlight in 2011 when the FBI tracked down Tor Routers and they shut down the site. The person behind the whole thing is “Dead Pirate Roberts” who was later arrested by the FBI. Silk Road 2.0 also came into existence later in 2013, but the FBI closed it again in 2014.
Yahoo! Data Breach
In 2016, the Yahoo! data breach occurred in which more than 3 billion accounts, including e-mails, Tumblr, Fantasy, and Flickr were breached. This includes name, email, and passwords that have been breached, which does not include financial information.
This information was submitted for sale on the darknet market website by the vendor known as “Peace_of_Mind”. The company believed that the breach was committed through a cookie-based attack that enables hackers to authenticate themselves without using user passwords.
This breach significantly affects Yahoo as Verizona Communication’s plan to acquire Yahoo! for about $4.8 billion led to a decline of only $350 million as the final price of the deal. “This was the biggest security breach in the history of the internet world”, experts said.
Mobile Benchmark Cheating
Mobile hardware is compared using reference tests which are carried out on synthetic reference tests. The most famous comparative analysis software is Antutu and GFXbench.
Certain Samsung smartphones achieved spectacular scores, people were suspicious whereas some other smartphones with similar hardware, but didn’t score well in these benchmarks. Some other companies are used with the same software as well, but with a different name.
Other brands like OnePlus have been accused of manipulating benchmark scores a few years back. Like some reports, the OnePlus 3T has achieved very impressive benchmarking results.
When other companies are also found the same mechanism for different phones certain other manufacturers, including HTC, LG, and ASUS have been found in the cheating benchmark as well. These devices are later withdrawn from the list by benchmark companies.
Net Neutrality Debate
Net neutrality is the concept that service providers are required to treat all traffic equally and not charge differently based on content. The debate about net neutrality rules around the world as the quality of the connection that includes the restraint and routing report should be the same. In 2017, the U.S Member Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) presented the Save Net Neutrality Act of 2017 to Congress. This will strengthen net neutrality because ISPs have been forced to enforce these laws.
In India, where more than 600 million users use the Internet, that will have an impact on net neutrality issues. India has adopted recommendations in support of net neutrality that experts believe could be the “strongest” in the world.
Moving forward, net neutrality may change the world of the Internet. The debate would end in the recent when appropriate laws were implemented to seek net neutrality.
Xiaomi caught sending user data to China
Xiaomi was charged with sending the user’s personal information to Chinese data centers without obtaining permission from their smartphones. A warning was also sent to the Indian Air Force personnel regarding the data breach.
But later, the problem was caused by an opt-in function that lets the company collect user data. The Chinese firm Tech acted swiftly and spoke with the Indian government.
Ultimately, the Chinese brand migrated all data from their Indian users to data centers in the United States and Singapore.
In a blog post, Xiaomi said the researchers “misunderstood what we communicated regarding our data privacy principles and policy.” It further added, “User’s privacy and internet security is of top priority at Xiaomi.”
Nokia Fake Ads
Back in 2012, when Nokia launched Lumia 920 and try a re-entry into the smartphone market. With its commercials showcasing video quality and its stunning optical imaging stabilization (OIS) feature.
But later, when it was checked out that the advertisements were found to be fake. They use professional cameras to shoot these ads which produce excellent results in real photos. Following the incident, the Company issued an apology. The ads were filmed to simulate the benefits of the OIS features that eliminate blurred images and enhance snapshots in low conditions.
Later, they also released another video that featured genuine shots taken from Lumia 920.
iCloud Photo Leak
Back in 2014, Apple iCloud’s – cloud service leaked more than 100 nude photos of Hollywood celebrities spread across the Internet. Hackers broke into Apple’s iCloud system released naked pictures of some famous Hollywood celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Kirsten Dunst, and Mary Eliza are some of them.
Photographs have also begun to appear on other websites like Reddit, Imgur, and Tumblr. Other personal information, such as text messages, calendars, address books, and phone records, was disclosed alongside the pictures.
It was later found that hackers may have gained access to the iCloud accounts through a security hole in the online storage service’s “Find My iPhone” feature which allowed them to conduct brute-force attacks.
The photos were eventually taken from online storage which serves as a backup for photos from iOS devices such as iPhone. In this incident, celebrities need to be cautious while using services on the Internet. They could come across these situations in the future.
Facebook – Cambridge Analytica Controversy
Social Media Giant, Facebook accused of allowing Cambridge Analytica, a London-based political firm to collect user data for its platform. More than 80 million user data were collected. It also serves to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. However, the company denies that it used the data.
Following the spotlight, Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SLC Group were subsequently shut down.
In India, the company is also accused of influencing the elections and user data has been violated, but later they denied these accusations.
As a result of the ensuing controversy, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to be questioned before the U.S. Senate. This greatly damaged the company’s reputation and caused the market value to fall by more than $120 million.
Huawei’s battle with the U.S.
One of the biggest technological controversies in recent years has been the continued war between the U.S. government and China’s smartphone manufacturer, Huawei.
After the U.S. government banned China’s technology giant, Huawei on US national security or foreign policy interest. This blacklist also affects the commercial war between the United States and China. Following the announcement, several U.S. companies withdrew from their business relationship with the Chinese company.
With this blacklist, Huawei has significantly affected as Huawei smartphones use Android OS within their smartphones. Following this ban, Google did not provide its Android operating systems for the Huawei smartphone which requires a license.
This means that Huawei’s smartphones were unable to run Google’s applications such as Google Maps, Gmail, Google Drive, and so on. But Huawei has developed their Operating System(OS) called ‘Harmony‘ which is emerging to compete with international standards.
Huawei is now exploring alternative and voluntary suppliers in other countries.
The constant evolution of technology also reveals a certain contradiction between right and wrong technologies. It is up to us to choose among different technological ideas and support them to make society and the world better.
