Impact_of_the_Internet_on_Society

Essay on the Social Impact of the Internet Internet Gambling According to the Encarta online dictionary, gambling is a noun which means “betting money: the practice of playing games of chance or betting in the hope of winning money.” Online or internet gambling is this practise using the medium of the internet. Gambling has been an important part of Australian life since European settlement in 1788. Early settlers played various card and dice games, this later being complimented by different types of games being introduced from other settlers from Europe and Asia. Horse racing was the first form of organised gambling in Australia. By the late 19th century it had become so popular that there were race tracks in every major town with race meeting being held every week. Poker machines were introduced into registered clubs in NSW by the mid 1950’s, giving revenue to the clubs to help them improve their facilities for their members. Poker machines grew popular over the decades and by the 1980’s had replaced lotteries and betting as the most popular form of gambling. Today poker machines fill just about every pub and club in NSW, and are to blame for the financial ruin of many, many people. You just have to walk into your local pub to see the effect of gambling on the people in Australia – a dedicated area for people to bet on horses, greyhounds, football etc, compliments the bright lights and the repetitive music of the “pokie room”. Like the vast majority of countries in the world, the United States was not immune to the gambling epidemic. With the evolution of the technology industry and the internet growing in popularity, it was only a matter of time before gambling moved to the World Wide Web. The true extent of the popularity of online gambling is best summed up below: “The first online casino began operation in 1995 with an offering of eighteen online games, and since then the industry has boomed at such a rate that an estimated 30 million gamblers visited internet gambling sites in July of 2005 alone. While data about revenues is varied, even conservative estimates have the industry growing from $1 billion in profits in 1997 to a staggering $10.9 billion in 2006.” (D Smatthe 2006). According to an article in the New York Times, the article in which I will base my essay around, internet gambling will “surpass $20 billion in 2008” (J Drape 2008). This article, written by Joe Drape of the New York Times in May 2008, suggests that our technological advances in this field have not only made gambling more convenient, but it has also helped to bring to light match fixing in a wide range of sports. It goes on to say with online gambling becoming such a lucrative commodity and its unbelievable growth in popularity over such a short time, it should come as no shock that there more people than ever trying to influence the outcomes of sporting events. With more and more games, from soccer to cricket and probably more surprisingly tennis, being shrouded in match fixing controversy, it very understandable that people are starting to lose faith in the validity of the average sporting match. At first it may seem that this article is describing a social problem, as match fixing goes against the whole spirit of sport and leads to dishonest people making large profits, but what the article is actually reporting is that because online gambling offers a lot more transparency into people gambling habits, it allows the match fixing to be exposed. The article explains that UK online gambling company Betfair first exposed the problem when it started to notice unusual betting patterns. “The match fixing might never have been discovered had it not been detected by Betfair, which has revolutionized online wagering since its Web site started in June 2000. At any moment, Betfair’s customers have $360 million on account and are at their keyboards, matching odds with fellow bettors in 80 countries. It is eBay for gamblers, with wagers being made in real time, usually after the matches have begun.” (J Drape 2008) The article goes on to say that Betfair has been the focal point for a large number of match fixing scandals and has exposed many these in sports such as horse racing, soccer and now tennis. “Last Monday, a report commissioned by the major tennis governing bodies recommended that 45 matches played in the last five years be investigated because betting patterns gave a “strong indication” that gamblers were profiting from inside information. And those matches, the report said, may be only the tip of the iceberg.” (J Drape 2008) Just as stock markets have a Securities and Exchange Commission that watch over the financial transaction, Betfair has become a de facto watchdog for sports. With the sporting bodies uninterested in collaborating with Betfair, it has been up to them to blow the whistle on suspicious betting practices. So is the Betfair solution a feasible one' I think so. Online gambling allows companies like Betfair to see every single bet that is laid in real time, so with the assistance of the authorities, it will help stamp out match fixing. This is what the article had to say: “What Betfair brought to gambling was transparency. It has agreements with 32 sports governing bodies and is seeking more, promising to share in real time any unusual betting activity. “We can tell you every single bet ever placed and who made it, from what funds and where those funds are going,” said Mark Davies, a Betfair managing director and a former bond trader. “It is a complete audit trail, and we want to share it with the governing bodies of sport.” (J Drape 2008). But with Betfair’s self imposed role as police officer in the world of sport comes with an obvious downside. The disrupting of match fixing rackets leaves a lot of people out of pocket, and this can lead to many security threats to Betfair. I came across an interview with Adrian Asher, the head of security for Betfair in SC magazine, a magazine for IT security professionals. In the article, written by Paul Fisher, Adrian explains some of the security problems that are faced by the Betfair security team. "Attackers will try and hit a specific page, like logon, or 'market view' in our case, to see whether or not they can make you do lots and lots of database calls or CPU-intensive processes. It may only be one request, but that request might take a couple of seconds to honour, and then they start sending thousands of them. Because we execute tens of thousands of transactions a second, it's very hard to differentiate between an attacker trying to overwhelm you and one of our bigger users that's trying to get the market prices as quickly as they can. But a lot of the stuff that would cripple other companies we don't even notice because it's just part of the background noise." (P Fisher 2008) Adrian goes on to say that the reason that Betfair is so successful at keeping these security threats at bay is a combination of a lot of things. Not only has he got many resources at his disposal but he has managed to convince the senior management of the importance of security. This has allowed them to be the first online gambling company to gain an ISO/IEC 27001:2005 standard for information security management systems. According to the iso.org web site, the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 is designed to ensure the selection of adequate and proportionate security controls that protect information assets and give confidence to interested parties. So to conclude, both articles are discussing a social benefit. One is discussing the exposing and prosecuting of match fixing through the transparency of online gambling. The other is discussing the security of online transactions. They are both technically feasible as the company can monitor all online transactions in real time because every bet that is made is processed through their servers and implementation of cutting edge technology to protect their organization means that they are always one step ahead of the attackers.