10th International Congress on Information and Communication Technology in concurrent with ICT Excellence Awards (ICICT 2025) will be held at London, United Kingdom | February 18 - 21 2025.
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Authors - Timi Heino, Sampsa Rauti, Sammani Rajapaksha, Panu Puhtila Abstract - Today, web analytics services are widely used on modern websites. While their main selling point is to improve the user experience and return of investment, de facto it is to increase the profits of third-party service providers through the access to the harvested data. In this paper, we present the current state-of-the-art research on the use of web analytics tools, and what kind of privacy threats these applications pose for the website users. Our study was conducted as a literature review, where we focused on papers that described third-party analytics in detail and which discussed their relation to user privacy and the privacy challenges they pose. We focused specifically on papers dealing with the practical third-party analytics tools, such as Google Analytics or CrazyEgg. We review the application areas, purposes of use, and data items collected by web analytics tools, as well as privacy risks mentioned in the literature. Our results show that web analytics tools are used in ways which severely compromise user privacy in many areas. Practices such as collecting a wide variety of unnecessary data items, storing data for extended periods of time without a good reason and not informing users appropriately are common. In this study, we also give some recommendations to alleviate the situation.
Authors - Abigail Gonzalez-Arriagada, Ruben Lopez-Leiva, Connie Cofre-Morales, Eduardo Puraivan Abstract - The rapid advancement of information and communication technologies (ICT) has created a significant digital divide between older adults and younger generations. This divide affects the autonomy of older adults in a digitalized world. To address this issue, various initiatives have attempted to promote their digital skills, which requires reliable tools to measure them. However, assessing these competencies in this age group presents complex challenges, such as developing scales that accurately reflect the dimensions involved. In this study, we present empirical evidence on the reliability and adaptation of the Assessment of Computer-Related Skills (ACRS) scale. We translated the instrument into Spanish and added descriptors to optimize its application. The evaluation included 54 older adults in Chile (39 women and 15 men, aged 55 to 80) in an environment designed for individualized observation during the performance of specific digital tasks. The analyses revealed that the five dimensions of the instrument have high reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values between 0.959 and 0.968. Six items were identified whose removal could slightly improve this indicator. Overall, the scale shows excellent internal consistency, with a G6 coefficient of 0.9994. These results confirm that, both at the level of each dimension and as a whole, the instrument demonstrates strong internal consistency, reinforcing its utility for assessing the intended competencies. An additional contribution of this work is the public availability of the data obtained, with the aim of encouraging future research in this area. Given the nature of the scale, which allows for the assessment of skills across various computer-related tasks, evidence of its high internal reliability constitutes a valuable resource for designing more inclusive educational programs specifically tailored to the needs of older adults in digital environments.
Authors - Svetlin Stefanov, Malinka Ivanova Abstract - The advent of new technologies leads to a complexity of the cyber-crime landscape and scenes, which requires an adequate response from digital forensic investigators. To support their forensic activities, a number of models and methodologies have been developed, such as the methodology Digital Forensics Investigation from Practical Point of View DFIP, proposed by us in a previous work. In addition, there is an urgent need for a virtual environment that would organize and manage the activities of investigators related to communication, document exchange, preparation of computer expertise, teamwork, information delivery and training. In this context, a software system implementing the DFIP methodology has been developed, and the aim of the paper is to present the results of a study regarding the opinion and attitudes of forensic experts on the usefulness and role of the software system during the different phases of digital forensic investigation.
Authors - Timi Heino, Robin Carlsson, Panu Puhtila, Sammani Rajapaksha, Henna Lohi, Sampsa Rauti Abstract - Electronics is one of the most popular product categories among consumers online. In this paper, we conduct a study on the thirdparty data leaks occurring in the websites of the most online electronics stores used by Finnish residents, as well as the amounts of third parties present at these websites. We studied the leaks by recording and analyzing the network traffic happening from the website while conducting actions at the website that the normal user does when purchasing the product. We also analyze dark patterns found in these websites’ cookie consent banners. Our results show that in 80% of the cases, the product name, product ID and price were leaked to third parties along with the data identifying the user. Almost all of the inspected websites used dark patterns in their cookie consent banners, and privacy policies often had severe deficiencies in informing the user of the extent of data collection.
Authors - Luis E. Quito-Calle, Maria E. Barros-Ponton, Dalila M. Gonzalez-Gonzalez, Luis F. Guerrero-Vasquez, Jessica V. Quito-Calle Abstract - The confinement of families, whether due to health emergencies or other quarantines, has caused lifestyle changes to cause changes in the behavior of population and cause stress among its members when facing confinement. Present study aimed to determine if there is an association between the lifestyles and parents’ coping with stress due to confinement due to the Health Emergency or quarantine due to COVID- 19. This study methodology was quantitative, descriptive, correlational and cross-sectional. Participants were made up of 75 representatives of Bilingual Educational Institute "Home and School" INEBHYE. Instruments used were Lifestyle Profile Questionnaire (PEPS-I, in Spanish) and Stress Coping Questionnaire (CAE, in Spanish) with which it was obtained as a result that a healthy lifestyle predominates because families have been facing their stress under problem solving, positive reassessment and religion in the face of confinement. As a conclusion, it is obtained that there is a statistically significant association between the subscales of coping with stress and families lifestyle, which would imply a change in lifestyle to face the stress caused by confinement due to COVID-19.
Authors - Vicente A. Pitogo, Cristopher C. Abalorio, Rolyn C. Daguil, Ryan O. Cuarez, Sandra T. Solis, Rex G. Parro Abstract - The agricultural resources in the Philippines are essential for national food security and economic development with coffee being at its center. Moreover, recent data released by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) show an increase in coffee production although there has been a worrying decline in pro-duction in Caraga region which grows over two thousand five hundred growers and has a huge area of land planted to coffee. The FarmVista project addressed this challenge through a data-driven approach by applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and various machine learning algorithms to classify and analyze coffee yield in Caraga. The study utilized a comprehensive dataset, the Coffee Farmers Enumerated Data, encompassing socio-demographic details, farming practices, and other influential factors. Gradient Boosting achieved the highest accuracy of 98.69%, with Random Forest closely following at 95.63%. These results highlight the effectiveness of advanced analytics and machine learning in improving coffee yield classification. By uncovering key patterns and factors affecting yield quality, this study provides valuable insights to optimize the coffee value chain in Caraga and addresses the region’s production challenges.
