Question

Suppose one day after taking care of some errands, you friend reached home in the evening. After she got home, her sister asked “Where have you been?! We were worried sick about you! We couldn’t reach you through your phone and some very embarrassing and uncomfortable contents are being shared from your facebook account!” After hearing that she quickly searched her bag for her phone but it wasn’t there. She realized at some point of the day, her phone went missing. Attempting to calm herself, she tried to trace back all the things she did today. First she went to a friend’s house to watch Netflix together. She remembers she had her phone then because she took a selfie with her friend and posted it on Facebook. She doesn’t like using biometric locks on her phone because it takes more time to unlock and she wants to share her pictures on Facebook as soon as she can. However, she can’t recall if you still had her phone when she left her friend’s house. Then she remembers she went to a local cyber cafe where she was reading an interesting blog about digital footprints, cookies and VPNs. She also went to Facebook from the pc in that cyber cafe to share the blog and it’s possible she forgot to log out. That’s all she could remember.

a. What are digital footprints and how are we leaving them behind all over the internet? Provide logical examples and relate them with your personal life.

b. When do you think your friend lost her phone? Explain the precautions she could’ve taken before losing her phone and all her online class notes.  

c. Who are the possible suspects that are using your friend's Facebook account and how could she have ensured that the thief could not access her Facebook even after losing her phone or forgetting to log out from the cafe? Explain with logical reasoning

Answer 1

Solution:

a. Digital Footprint refers to the information that a person leaves on Internet after doing an online activity. For example, the comments on Social Media, the online history and app use. The following example can be taken from one's personal life:

i) Advertisements on every website according to the search history of the user

ii) The comments on Social Media and reference to the Pages and Channels according to our search preferences

iii) The Google Search History, which keeps a record of our search and provides options to search for based on that history.

b. She might have lost her phone after leaving her friend's home while she was on her way to the Cyber Cafe or it is also possible that she might have forgot it at the Cyber Cafe.

The precautions that she could have taken before losing her phone are:

i) She might have locked her phone so that she could not have lost her data to an unknown person

ii) She could have kept her phone in her pocket instead of keeping it in a bag or might have continuously checked her bag in order to make sure that her phone was not lost.

iii) She could have logged out of all the applications and deleted her search history from her phone after using an application.

c.  The possible suspects might be hackers or thieves. She could have ensured that no thief has access to her Facebook Account in the following ways:

i) Putting a passcode on phone.

ii) Downloading a mobile security app.

iii) Enable two-factor authentication so that even if someone discovers your password, they can’t access your account without access to your phone.