Data Communication Networking Issues in Real World

DATA COMMUNICATION
AND NETWORKING ISSUES
IN REAL WORLD
H.M.V.T.W BANDARA
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL SCIENCESS AND TECHNOLOGY
FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCES
SABARAGAMUWA UNIVERSITY OF SRI LANKA

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Content
1. Introduction
2. Data Communication and Networking Issues in Real World
2.1 Security Issues
2.2 Transmission Impairments
2.3 Social Issues
2.4 Health Issues
2.5 Environmental Issues
3. Summary & Discussion
4. References

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Introduction
Communication is simply the process or act of transferring data, information, ideas, thoughts or
any other important evidence from one place to another through speech, writing or any other
medium. Importance of Communication has increased expressively in the recent times with the
invention of computer or information age. There the word “Communication” does not exist as a
single word but, terms “Data Communication and Networking” are also integrated in to
communication. That is in the today’s world, field of networking gets an equal important place
with the communication. In other words with this integration of computer and networking into
data communication has brought immense level of changes into lives of people, industries and
businesses around the globe. It is because the world has become more competitive than ever, where
decision making is very important in every aspect of life. Access to accurate, reliable and timely
information is the key to success in decision making and therefore Data Communication and
Networking gets a prominent place in the world.
As stated above Data Communication and
Networking has really revolutionized the lives
of people. It has allowed people to change their
lifestyles, and to live in a global village. When
defining the terms Data Communication,
technically it refers to the movement of
encoded information from one place to another
via an electronic transmission system. In another words it is the exchange of data between two or
more devices by means of a form of transmission medium of either wired or wireless. In data
communication and networking for the information to be shared, there should be a sender, receiver,
medium and information to be transferred and a protocol which governs the data transmission. In
data communication system, direction of data flow are important to data transmission and they are
simplex, half duplex and full duplex. Networks are needed for communicating data where they
provides the platform for the data communicating system. A network can be called as a set of
nodes or devices connected by communication links and it contains a source node and a destination
node. At both ends of source and destination, data present in the digital form and in the process of
transmission, this may change according to the mode of transmission. A node is any device such

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as computer, printer, smart phone or any appliance which is proficient of sending or receiving data
generated by other nodes connected in the network. Networks can be categorized according to the
area a network is distributed into. That is Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network
(MAN), and Wide Area Network (WAN). Network topology is the geometrical representation of
all links and linking devices to one another in a network and the types of topologies which exist
are bus topology, ring topology, star topology, mesh topology, hybrid topology. There exists some
standards created by different entities which allows heterogeneous networks to be communicated
with each other. Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model and the Internet Model are the best
known standards available in the networking and they help in continuously improving the quality
of data communication through networks.
Networks are becoming more and more advanced and user-friendly day by day due to the fact that
needs and necessities of computer network users are becoming more complicated. But practically
there exists some issues and challenges in the data communication and networking field which
brings a gap in between the advancements in the technology and the users . These issues may be
Security risks and threats, social issues, transmission impairments, computer literacy issues and
digital divide or technological availability. This report will be a comprehensive documentation of
the real world issues that exist it the data communication and networking field and the precautions
that can be taken in mitigating those issues and challenges. .

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Data Communication and Networking Issues in Real World
o Security Issues
One of the biggest challenges that prevail with networks is to secure the data and information
in communication via the network. That is why it is not possible to refute importance of
implementing safety mechanisms in data communication and networking. Networks face
different kinds of threats and susceptibilities which are all consequential due to the core models
of computing, communication and information system security. That is these security issues
are formed by the interlopers, attackers or hackers with the usage of computers itself and
knowing advancements in the network security arena. This brings out the idea that, people who
tries to break in into an information system or a network must have a good knowledge on the
system safety field and then ambiguities in network security.
Any kind of network system is vulnerable to any kind of security risk at any time. This implies
the idea that no network system can be made 100% secure against vulnerabilities. But several
types of security mechanisms can be adopted in reducing the risks of such attacks. With regard
to networking and data communication, security risks may get raised against the major aspects
of security concerns such as confidentiality, availability, integrity and reliability. Following
discussion will be important in identifying the potential security issues that prevail with data
communication and networking and precautions taken to avoid those risks.
 Denial of Service (DoS) Attacks and Distributed Denial of Service attacks(DDoS)
Denial of Service attacks are a type attack which results in affecting the availability of
network resources and services to its legitimate users who need access to those. Unlike
other security threats, DoS attacks does not depend on specific programs to run on network
devices. Instead it tries to take the advantage of inherent vulnerabilities in the way
computer networks. DoS attacks commonly are of two types, either Flooding attacks or
Crash attacks.
Flooding is the most common type of DoS attacks. It happens when the networked system
or the web system is overwhelmed by huge amounts of traffic which is inflexible for the

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server to handle. Result is due to the overloading of services system eventually stops. Ping
flood or ICMP flood is a type of DoS attack which directs spoofed IP packets to every
computer in a targeted network, in order to take advantage of the network
misconfigurations. SYN flood is also a variation of flooding attacks which exploits a
vulnerability in the TCP connection sequence. This is happening as a three-way handshake
connection with the host and the server where the targeted server will get a request to begin
a handshake. But this handshake will be never finalized in SYN flood attacks and it will
leave the connected port as occupied and unapproachable to process additional requests.
At this type of a time the cybercriminal who attempts to shut down the server will send
more and more requests overwhelming all open ports and eventually the server will be
down as intended by the attacker.
Crash attacks are not much usual and what happens there is cybercriminals try to diffuse
bugs that exploit flaws in the targeted system resulting the system to crash. For an example
if we take an incident of DoS attack that happens in an E-commerce website, it will happen
like this. When a user wants to visit the E-commerce website, user’s computer sends a
small packet of information which works as a “Hello” to the server of the website. That is
this packet contains a message like “Hi, I’d like to visit this website, Please let me in”.
When this message is received by the server, it will reply back “Are you real” and the
computer will again respond saying “Yes”. After this kind of a procedure a connection will
be established. Then the homepage of the website will appear on the web browser of the

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user and user will be able to explore the E-commerce website. So for a this type of a web
based networked system an attacker can send above mentioned type of introduction
messages (Hello messages)to the server in hundreds or thousands. The sever which cannot
understand this behavior from the attacker will send back the usual response, waiting up to
minute in each case to get a reply, the server will shut down the connection. But attacker
will repeat sending bunch of fake requests allowing it to crash.
Distributed Denial of Service attacks signify the resulting step in the evolution of DoS
attacks as a way of disrupting the internet. DDoS attacks became a popular weapon of
attackers to disrupt networks, servers and websites since the year 2000. This type of attacks
use enormous number of compromised computers and also some other electronic devices
such as smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, webcams which increases the facilities of Internet
of Things, to force the shutdown of the targeted website, server or the network. Here with
the use of large number of computerized devices, cybercriminals launch attacks which are
impossible to stop simply as in DoS attacks. In addition to the terrific effect of multiplicity
in DDoS, there is a serious problem as these attacks can be launched easily with scripts.
With a collection of DoS attacks and a Trojan Horse propagation method associated with
this type of attacks, an intruder can write a procedure to plant a Trojan horse with no trouble
that can launch a series of denial-of-service attacks.

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In preventing these type of attacks several types of steps can be followed. They are use of
anti-DDoS services, notifying the ISP as soon as possible if the network or the network
based system is found to be under any such attack, use of “black hole routing” which directs
excessive traffic into a null route and prevent the targeted website of network from
crashing, configuring security devices and services such as proxy server, firewalls, IPS and
IDS etc. By implementing these type protections in the network environment DoS and
DDoS attacks can be mitigated without causing any difficulties to the service.
 Man-in-the-middle Attack
A man-in-the-middle attack is a form of attack in which one entity intrudes in between
two other. That is it requires three players namely the victim, the entity with which the
victim is trying to communicate and the man-in-the-middle, who’s interrupting the
victim’s communications. This is that Victim and the other party will be not aware that
an intruder is trying to interfere in between their communication. Cybercriminals or
attackers generally try to carry out this type of attacks in two distinct phases called
interception and decryption. What happens here is that cybercriminal tries to get access
to an unsecure Wi-Fi router and tires to scan the router for vulnerabilities. These kind
of poorly secured connections are available in public places and also sometimes with
private routers at homes. When the attacker finds such a router, he/she will try to deploy
tools and techniques to intercept and read victim’s transmitted data. Then the attacker
also can insert their tools in between the victim’s computer and the websites that the
user visits and get the log in credentials, banking information and other personal
information. At this point decryption happens with finding out the encrypted data by the
attacker.

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In order to protect from this type of attacks, following types of steps can be followed. It
is always advisable make sure that URL of the website is always consisting with HTTPS.
Being aware of potential phishing emails and spam email that are received to the inbox
asking to change the passwords of emails, social media accounts and bank accounts. It
is always good to use secure Wi-Fi networks at homes and when using public Wi-Fi it
is not good to login to our personal accounts via them.
 IP Spoofing
IP Spoofing is a technique which is associated with gaining unauthorized access to
machines, whereby the intruder or the attacker illegally take off another computer by
gaining access to the IP packets. This involves altering the packet header with fake
source IP address, a checksum and the order value. As internet is a packet switched
network, it causes the packets which leaves source machine, arriving at the destination
machine in a different order. Receiving computer reconstructs the message back in order
based on the order value which is implanted in the header of the IP. IP spoofing deals
with solving the algorithm which is used to select the order sent values and modify it as
needed by the attacker. What happens here is that attacker will identify the host and
finds the IP address trusted by the host and send data packets to the host which seems
to be originating from the trusted source, but actually it is not so.
ARP spoofing attacks and DNS server spoof attacks are two common types of spoof
attacks. In ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) spoofing attacks the malicious party tries

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to send spoofed ARP messages across a local area network in order to link the attacker’s
MAC address with the IP address of a genuine member of the network. Result of this
type an attack is ultimately, the data which are wished-for for the host’s IP address
getting received by the hacker. Attackers make use of ARP spoofing when it is needed
to steal information, modify data-in-transit or stop traffic on a LAN. In DNS server
spoofing attack, malicious parties try to modify the DNS server in order to reroute a
definite domain name to a different IP address which is actually controlled by the
attacker.
When dealing with spoofing attacks there are many tools and best practices in
networking which can be used such as implementing packet filtering, use of spoofing
detection software, use of cryptographic network protocols such as TLS, SSH and
HTTPS etc.

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 Eavesdropping and Wiretapping
Eavesdropping is involved with the unlawful instantaneous interception of a private
communication which may be a telephone conversation, instant message, email, fax
message or a videoconference in order to steal information illegally from the
communicating parties. Attackers make use of unsecured weak networks when
launching eavesdropping attacks where data and information being sent over the
communication channels are vulnerable due to this. Detection of eavesdropping attacks
is not easy due to the fact that they do not cause the network communications to look as
if they are irregular. Normally what attackers do is they install some sort of a network
monitoring tool which is called as sniffer on a computer or server connected to the
network and try to intercept data during transmission by identifying the weakened spots
in the network.
Eavesdropping on a conventional telephone line through technical methods can be
referred as wiretapping. Basically wiretapping is achieved by the attackers through
engagement of a monitoring device on the communication medium. The telephone
transmission system is a very simple system which is easy to install and maintain. At
the same time it is very easy for the attackers to abuse it by placing a device (load) that
can help them listen to the conversations going on via the telephone network.

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 Port Scan
Port scan is a method which is used to gather network information by making use of a
program. What happens in port scan is that intruders try to find out which ports are free
and responding for a particular IP address. If a certain port is responding to a port
scanning software, it means that there exists some vulnerabilities with the particular port
and this port will be utilized by the intruding person to attack the network. Port scanning
will inform an attacker about the standard ports or services which are running and
responding on the target system, the type and information of the operating system
installed in the target computer system and what applications and versions of
applications are present on the target system. After gaining these information by
performing a port scanning, the attacker will utilize these facts for launching an attack
against the targeted system. To overcome this type an attack it is advisable to enable
only the traffic which is needed to access internal hosts and deny every other sorts of
traffic. Also configuring firewalls can be done to avoid a potentially malicious behavior.
 Social Engineering
Social engineering involves manipulation of people in order to reveal personal and
confidential information. Computer criminals try to reveal various types of information,
but most of the times individuals are tricked by the criminals to provide passwords, bank
information, network information or trying to access the computer by deceiving the user.
Also sometimes by installing malicious software attackers will try to install malicious
software which will help the attacker in getting access to the accounts and passwords as
well to the bank account information. Cyber-criminals are using social engineering
tactics as it is much easier to exploit someone’s natural inclination to trust than finding
ways to hack the credentials to gain access. That is t is easier to fool a person into
providing their password than trying to hack their password except the user has set a
weak password.
When performing a social engineering attack by a hacker, as the initial step the attacker
will try to gather information about the target as much as possible by doing some

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research work. If the target is an organization, the criminal may try to gather information
such as the structure of the employee hierarchy, business functions, internal operations,
possible business partners and employee information who can be manipulated into
getting done their work. After that the hacker will try to design and launch an attack
based on the gathered information. The common types of social engineering attacks are
as follows.
 Baiting - Attacker leaves a malware infected physical device such as USB flash
drive in a place where it is easily found. When the victim finds it and plug it into
a computer, an unintended program will load into the computer and will provide
the interface for the attacker to hack it.
 Phishing - Malicious party sends a fraud email which seems to the victim as it is
coming from a trusted source and tricks the victim to reveal personal and
financial information.
 Vishing - This is referred to the voice-phishing which is a form of social
engineering which takes place over the phone to collect private and financial
facts of individuals.
 Pretexting - Attackers try to get access to the privileged data of another party by
pretending to be an authorized party who needs to confirm the identity of the
victim.
 Scareware - Involves tricking the victim into thinking that the victim’s computer
is infected with some sort of malware and the attacker offers a solution fix the
problem. But what happens in reality is that attacker’s software will be installed
in the victim’s computer to gain access to the private information.
 Honey Trap - An attacker pretends to be a friend or any sort of useful person to
be interacted online and tries to start a relationship with the victim in order to
gain access to the sensitive data.

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In preventing social engineering attacks it is advisable to carryout penetration testing
which uses social engineering techniques in networks and computer systems and
providing awareness on this subject to the users to delete any fake requests to provide
financial information or passwords, reject requests for help or offers for help, setting
spam filters, securing computing devices by installing anti-virus software and email
filters which are updated frequently etc.
 Masquerade
This is a type of attack where the attacker act as a lawful user of a system who has access
to a system and gain greater privileges than they are authorized for. This type of an
attack may be launched with stolen IDs and passwords, through discovery of security
gaps in programs or through avoiding the tools of validation and verification. Such types
of attacks are launched by someone within the organization (insider) or by an outsider
when the organization is connected to the public network.
Variations of this type attacks are phishing attacks and in some other forms attacker
exploits the flaw in the victim’s web server and gets access to overwrite the web pages
of the victim’s website. In some other way an attacker can register for a domain name

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similar to an existing website and develop a website similar to the actual website. Then
if the users are sent with requests to change the username and passwords of their
accounts with the fake website. Users may not identify this fraud and if they change it
attacker will be able to get the user credentials. After collecting some personal
information from several users, attacker will drop the connection of the fake website.
Then the users will not be able to identify what really happened.
To avoid this type of risks users must be aware of the requests which comes to user
accounts and web pages when accessing internet. Also users must check whether the
connection is a secured one before login to their personal accounts in different websites.
 Session Hijacking
Session hijacking is a type of web based attack to networks which is working based on
the concept of sessions. This type of attacks take advantage of the active sessions by
intercepting and carrying on a session started by another entity. The session refers to a
certain amount of time period which two computers or two parts of a single system takes
place. When a user logins to a certain system which is protected with passwords, session
will be used and it will be valid until the end of the communication. When two parties
are carrying out communication by entering into a session and if a third party intercepts
the active session then, there might be a session hijacking taking place. For a secured
internet communication, authentication is needed. Therefore there is a need to complete
a successful authentication in starting a session. When a session is started and active an
attacker may try to take the advantage of the active session. This type of an intrusion is
not detectable sometimes, but if the website does not respond as intended or stops
working for no reason, then it can be due to some sort of a session hijacking.
In http communication many TCP connections are used so that the server requires a way
of distinguishing every user’s connections. In such cases the most used way is the
process of authentication and the server sends a token to the client browser. This token
can be used in different ways such as in the URL, in the header of http requisition as a
cookie, in other part of the header of the http request or in the body of the http requisition.

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Session hijacking attack involves stealing or predicting a valid session token to gain
unauthorized access to the web server.
Best way of preventing session hijacking is enabling the protection form the client’s side
by implementing efficient and updated antivirus, anti-malware software etc. Also there
is a technique that uses engines which checks all requests during each session. These
engines can track the IP address and SSL session id and also are capable of tracking the
http headers. If there is a alteration in the header, penalty points will be added to the
session and if the limit is exceeded, the session gets terminated. This method is effective
in the event of intrusions as there will be a different http header order available at each
session.

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o Transmission Impairments
In communication systems transmission can be defined as the process of communication of
data and information by the propagation and processing of signals via a data transferring
medium. There are two types of transmissions available based on the signal type used for the
transmission. That is analog transmission and digital transmission. Analog transmission
involves transmitting of analog signals without any regard to their content. These signals may
be analog data (voice) or digital data (binary data that pass through a modem). In contrast to
that in digital transmission signals composes of the binary content and these signals can be
transmitted only to a limited distance when compared with analog signals. These signals which
travel through transmission media are not actually perfect and due to this signal impairments
can be resulted. In simple terms when the signal received at the receiver’s end is not the same
signal which was sent at the beginning, there is a transmission impairment in that type of a
transmission. The types of impairments associated with data transmissions are attenuation,
distortion and noise.
 Attenuation - It is the loss of energy of signal waves and as a result, strength of the
signal decreases with increasing distance which causes loss of energy due to the
resistance from the medium. This type signals are referred as attenuated signals and
to get the original signal back by amplifying, amplifiers are used.

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 Distortion - Change of shape of signals which is generally seen with composite signals
with different frequencies is the distortion. Each of these signals which are
propagating through media are having their own propagation speeds and due to that
there is a specific delay for every signal component in arriving at the final endpoint.
Then it causes each component arriving at different times. Therefore at the receiver’s
end there will observe a different in phase than the original phase which was observed
at sender’s end.
 Noise - When unwanted random signals are mixed with original signals, it is referred
to as a noise. There exists various noise types such as induced noise, thermal noise,
crosstalk noise and impulse noise. Induced noises are created from different sources
such as motors and appliances where those devices act as sending antenna and
transmission medium acts as the receiving antenna. Thermal noise is due to the
movement of electrons in wires (transmission medium) which generates an additional
signal. Crosstalk noise is happening when two wires which transmit data affects the
other wire creating an unwanted signal generation. Impulse noise is due to the high
energy which results for a very short period of time, that generates from huge electric
sources such as power lines and lightings etc.

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o Social Issues
Computer Science and related data communication networks has formed, at an amazing and
breathtaking pace, technologies beyond the beliefs which has transformed the human lives with
a weighty economic and communal impact. In that sense we are living in a modern
technological era, where the advancements and newly emerged improvements in the fields of
data communication and networking are playing a vital role of the human society. With the
unrelenting connectivity accelerated by the propagation of mobile communication and mobile
computing technologies and also with the advent of social media to the combination, an
emergent new global culture is obvious. Current society is consisting of a complicated
combination of individuals which brings a huge variety for it and also a set of irregular
collaborations. Due to this fact, although data communication and networking which has
brought in many efficiencies, enhancements and reliabilities for the people may create many
issues for the society too. This is mainly due to the fact that society is having a complex variety
of multicultural and multiethnic behaviors. Nature of the people who are living in the society
is that they will try to grab the chances of accessing data and information with the availability
of unrestricted and adequate facilities or even without having those. Thus when communicating
with digital means and modes there could arise issues and contradictions which can work for
driving away the efficiencies and productive factors of data communications and networking.
In current society the young generation or the youth who are the major population group are
the most interested with the use of emerging technologies and have the necessity of getting
updated with technology. Therefore most of the young people try to access all kinds of data
and information in the world via networks to achieve the requirement of updating with
knowledge and going after the curiosity factor. This has made the parents of this young children
and youth generation to come up with many objections and criticisms against the use of all
these digital forms of communication. With the studies carried out it has been revealed that
due to the rise of long distance relationships which are carried with the aid of new technologies
have effected to reduce and damage the bond between family members and also between
individuals in the society. Social values and morals have been increasingly getting reduced
with it. Culture of going on with the expression of ideas, feelings, and values while moving
with each other has terminated due to the availability of technological means of making
relationships.

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Digital divide can be seen as a major social issue which arises with the improvements in the
technologies of data communication and networking. We are living in a very unequal and
stratified world whether we like it or not. That is inequality is coming inherently for every
corner of the society. As people we have made movements to reduce inequality with the
development of cultures and lives of people. But again with the advancements of the
technologies in computing it has emerged again in a new way. In broadly speaking if internet
access is considered as one aspect of the development of data communication and networking,
there exists a difference. This difference is not necessarily determined by the access to the
internet and technologies as it is only a one factor of digital divide. Other factors are quality of
connection, cost that people have to pay for the services, amount of bandwidth and limits of
connectivity etc. The most spoken factors are the quality of connection, availability and
affordability.
There is a variety of arguments regarding why digital divide is unfortunate for the society. That
is in some countries internet is considered as a basic component of the civil life and
government’s aim is to guarantee it for their citizens. But some countries have not declared
that type of a policy and citizens are not granted with that much of a right to use free internet
or at affordable rates. Internet and computer networks play an increasingly important role in
education, learning and career. Thus it is not fair for the children and students with low

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socioeconomic status as they do not have access to such resources. Use of internet for public
participation in discussions and decision making is also increasing day by day, if someone does
not have access to internet due to digital divide, then it will lead to an unhealthier democracy.
The other argument with the unfairness of digital divide is that with the utilization of developed
forms of data communication and networking technologies lead to economic growth of
developed nations as it increases the efficiency and productivity of the processes and activities.
When this type of access is not possible for underdeveloped nations it will be a disadvantage
foe those countries. So in these ways digital divide is prevailing as a great social issue
associated with data communication and networking in the real world.
Another social issue associated with data communication and networking is privacy issues.
Privacy is a very important factor every person in the society. It helps in protecting individual’s
rights and helps controlling individuals within their boundaries. With the advent of internet
and social media networks anyone can get access to any kind of social media networks and
websites without any limitation. Some individuals try to access other people’s data and
information having the intention of harassing and blackmailing for their own enjoyment. This
has become a huge issue related to the social media networks. Child abuse, sexual harassments,
cyberbullying, slandering and insulting other people etc. are the results of cross moving of
privacy via data communication and networking platforms. It was seen that many tragic events
such as suicides, fights and other events occur due to the loosing of limitations when privacy
is lost.

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Social isolation also can be identified as a social issue that has occurred with the start of
using computer and mobile devices. As discussed above communication media and
methods facilitate long distance virtual relationships via computing devices and with this
it affects to the lives of people by damaging the real world relationships. Then individuals
who start using social media and other networking media become isolated in virtual worlds
among unknown set of people. These people are sometimes not real and does not show the
real situation to the outside. When a person is socially isolated then that person becomes
helpless in the real world and will effect negatively for the life of that person. These kind
of social issues can be overcome only by making the minds of people who use technology.
That is remedies for these type of issues exist on the hands of people who use these
technologies.

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o Health Issues
According the World Health Organization, health is a “State of complete well-being in
physical, mental and social aspects and just not getting subjected to any sort of disease or
illness”. Thus it is really unclear that in the modern world where people are living much
complicated life patterns, how many of the population in the world are actually living a healthy
life. With the modernization of the world, computers and computer networks have started to
play different roles in people’s lives and they are vital in many job roles and activities. But due
to the wrong use of these computer devices can cause impacts on the health of people. When
individuals use computer devices for longer durations, it might result in physical, mental and
social health problems. Back pains, headaches, shoulder and arm pain injuries with neck, hand,
fingers, vision problems, hearing problems, obesity due to less exercises etc. are the common
types of health problems which have been created with the computerization of the world. Data
communication and networking also have been a major cause for these types of health
complications.
When considering those health effects with physical injuries, they are mainly due to the bad
posture, poor workstation design and sitting in front of computers for longer time periods. Even
though sitting involves less muscular strength than standing, still it can cause physical fatigue
for muscles and it requires a person to hold the body parts firm for longer periods of time. It
can cause reduction of circulation of blood to the muscles, bones, tendons, and ligaments and
then muscle pain is the result. Therefore correct posture related to sitting and working with
computers is essential and at the same time setting up the working environment as appropriate
can help individuals to get out of these problems.

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There are many researches and studies being carried out in this area of human physiology and
psychological aspects of health issues of computer and digital communication. The
psychological issues which have been created with the age of computers incorporated with
computer networks and modes of digital communication includes mostly the cognitive losses,
technological stress, technological distraction, narcissism, depression, insomnia etc. Due to the
high addiction to digital devices such as smart phones and tablets students who are educating
in schools and high schools have lost the ability of concentrating on a particular subject area
or learning material for more than five minutes at a time on average. This is hugely impacting
on the education of younger generation. When students are trying to be multitasking with the
use of mobile phones, as they are extremely distracted in short time interims, productivity and
level of thinking ability drops remarkably.
When the users are continuously starring at the screens of devices for extended time periods,
there is a tendency of getting subjected to digital eyestrain which is a health issue that seriously
damages the vision of a person. According to the researches and studies on this issue, it has
been discovered that when people use digital devices, individuals blink their eyes 10 times less
than what they do normally. For the protection of the eye, tears are there and with the blinking
of eyes in the normal way tears will be produced and eyes will be washed constantly giving a
natural type of protection. But due to the factor that blinking of eyes are being reduced with
the use of computers and internet devices constantly, this natural protection will be no longer
available. Then the stress for the eyes will be more and drying of the eyes will be the result
causing glaucoma conditions. To reduce this impact for the eyes, specialists on eye health have

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recommended to take pauses on 20 minutes basis and should be looking at an object such as a
tree or a forest which is situated at a distance of 20m for a time period of 20 seconds.
Obesity can be considered as another health issue which has seriously affected the computer
users in the current society. When defined it can be described as a medical condition which
occurs when a person is having excess weight of body fat than the appropriate weight that
suites the height. This is happening mainly due to the lack of exercises and their way of eating
and what they are eating. According to the statistics, for every 10 percent rise in what a country
invests on developing information technology and data communication facilities, there is a one
percent increase in obesity rates. Computers and networking technology has not just affected
in keeping the people stuck to chairs but also has affected to change the eating styles of people.
With people being more busy working with technology, computers and social networks, more
of instant food have come in to their lifestyles and this has really affected for the obesity.
Because of obesity people may subjected to several other diseases such as diabetics, high blood
pressure, high cholesterol etc.
These are the major health issues associated with data communication and networking where
day by day these impactful issues are getting increased in the society. Proper mitigation
techniques have to be adopted with these issues, otherwise it will affect a lot badly for the
world population in the future.

27
o Environmental Issues
Use of computers, digital devices and other equipment for data communication and networking
can cause negative impacts on environment too. The most problematic thing that has been
identified currently is the electronic waste or E-waste. These are also known as technotrash
where it is identified that these E-wastes are the most growing type of waste today. With the
improper disposal of E-wastes and throwing away of electronic items to the environment
regularly, it ends up in landfills. As most of the electronic items are made of non-biodegradable
materials, heavy metals and toxic materials like cadmium, lead and mercury it can be really
hazardous to the environment as well as for the living beings. When these toxic materials
contained with incorrectly disposed electronic items leak into the ground and contaminate the
soil and water sources. If these water are consumed by humans and animals it can cause various
types of deadly diseases. Also it will affect the plants and plants can absorb these toxic
materials which will eventually entered into the bodies of other living beings when they
consume plants. Heavy metals and different types of dangerous chemicals can contribute
towards the global warming also.
Other than these, the other problem is the consumption of a huge amount of energy for the
operation of computer and network systems. By 2017 it was estimated that two billion

28
computers were in use in the world. This is estimated that this amount gets double in every ten
years of time and it will consume huge amount of energy to operate. In the generation of
electricity in power plants, some amount of fossil fuels or coal has to be burned and it will
release toxic gases and other harmful gases into the environment.
In order to overcome these issues number of researches on reducing the use of toxic materials
in the manufacture of digitals devices are now happening around the world. Also proper
disposal of electronic waste is identified as a collective responsibility of every citizen. Other
than that promoting the use of renewable energy and recycling E-wastes is identified as a
solution for this type of environmental issues. Conducting community awareness programs
and establishing laws for protection of environment from e-wastes can be done to further
reduce the impact of digital wastes and technotrash to the environment.

29
Summary & Discussion
Data communication and networking has contributed vastly for revolutionizing the world and life
on earth. It has become a very important and useful part of today’s world since it has provided
beneficial sources of information and vital means of communication. Mainly with the integration
of computers and networks into data communication it has backed in bringing immense level of
changes into the lives of people, industries, and businesses around the world. That is because the
world has become more competitive than ever, where decision making is very important in every
aspect of life. Access to accurate, reliable and timely information is the key to success in decision
making and therefore Data Communication and Networking gets a prominent place in the world.
There is no doubt that data communication and networking helps in connecting each and every
individual without having any boundaries. With this trend, people are completely exposed to
information which are readily available in the real-time. It has allowed people to change their
lifestyles, and to live in a global village. But with the improvements and advancements in the
networks needs and necessities of computer network users are becoming more complicated.
Practically there exists some issues and challenges in the data communication and networking field
which brings a gap in between the advancements in the technology and the users. These issues are
Security risks and threats, social issues, transmission impairments, computer literacy issues and
digital divide or technological availability as discussed in above sections. Finally it can be
concluded that the data communication and networking is important for the life of people in
modern world and advantages of them outweighs the issues. Therefore to overcome the issues
related with data communication and networking proper mitigation techniques and assessing
criteria has to be utilized and then it will be a great investment for the betterment of life on earth.

30
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