Weekly Writing 7

In most places, freedom of speech is something that is highly valued and even for those places where it is not, I believe that we should all have the right to express our opinions. In a time before the Internet, if there were a business that was engaging in a practice that you deemed unfair, it would be easier for you to recognize this, because it existed in the physical world. You could then hopefully use your right to free speech to make a change.

In moving away from the realm of the physical, the users of the Internet also moved away from a time where things were seemingly more transparent. At the same time that we are loosing some of the transparency that the physical world offered us, we were also finding a new an powerful way to speak our minds. We were blogging, creating websites, leaving comments and a slew of other activities. All of this seemed to suggest more opportunity for your voice to be heard, but as it turned out, that might not be completely true. From the users view of their computer screen, things may seem copasetic, but what’s going on behind the scenes?

In the case of CPHack, Eddy Jansson and Mathew Skala were also curious about what kinds of freedom removing actions were happening from within the network, so they decided to target one particular brand of censoware (bots that troll the internet for inappropriate material) called “Cyber Patrol”. After hacking apart the code of this program, they succeeded in finding a way of monitoring the program to see exactly what urls were on it’s list of inappropriate material that should be blocked.

Jansson and Skala’s goal, in essence, was to provide the general public with a way of checking to make sure that the urls of unobjectionable sites didn’t accidently make it onto the block list. Unsurprisingly enough, there were many people who used this CPHack, only to realize that their sites had been unjustly flagged.

As if it wasn’t bad enough that Cyber Patrol was violating the rights of Internet users, instead of apologizing and then fixing the bugs in their program, they decided to sue Jansson and Skala for copyright infringement. It didn’t matter who was unfairly being censored, they just wanted to quietly go back to their unfair practices.

If all of this seems scary to you, it’s because it is. In general, the Internet is a much scarier place then most of us realize, at least in it’s potential to be a conduit for bad things. Big money companies like Comcast and Verizon, the gatekeepers of the Internet, aren’t as concerned about our rights as they are about their bottom line. That being said, it is up to us, the Internet users, to keep finding ways to bring transparency to the Internet. Though companies like Mattel may try to silence us, it’s up to us to be vigilant in our pursuit for net neutrality.

Adam Samson Weekly Writing 7

While perusing the latest news on Slashdot, I came to learn that the tension between Adobe and Apple over Flash is far from over.

Earlier this year, Apple shocked consumers by announcing that they would not be developing Adobe Flash for their iOS devices, a significant move in determining the success of the plugin as a whole.  This was by no means an arbitrary or aggressive move; Steve Jobs explained that flash’s commercial implementations not adequately accommodate the touch interaction method used by iOS, and holding that HTML5 would be a more advantageous alternative.  Adobe reacted very strongly to this move dooming their flagship product in the mobile world, and scrambled to find new allies.

Apple has a reputation for completely lacking sentimentality, and not hesitating to abandon their own past endeavors to develop the next by thing.  By that token, Adobe doesn’t have a strong track record for updating their methods; many of the interfaces of their products have remained essentially unchanged for over a decade.  This difference in company style is understandable fuel for corporate bickering, but it also points to some truths about information architecture.

Information architecture, as I interpret it, is the use of technology to optimize the spread of information.  Keeping the architecture running at peak efficiency thus involves updating methods frequently.   Jobs speaks to a hard truth; there is no room for sentimentality and clinging to the past in the business of information, as hard as that may be for the innovators and developers.  Failing to make use of absolutely every available resource puts you at a disadvantage, and using architecture that doesn’t accommodate is unacceptable.

To put it in perspective, lets say I live in another time and ride a horse and buggy to work.  One day, the car is invented, and soon it becomes clear that it is easy to use, and it seems that companies are turning away from horse and buggy transportation.  The fact that I appreciate the joys of riding a horse, the convenience and familiarity of it, is irrelevant, because it is simply not as effective, and holding to it out of principal is only hurting my cause.  Adobe is playing the role of horse and buggy owner in this equation

Nick DeGregorio Weekly Writing #7

Peer-to-Peer Networking is one of the most popular ways in which people share data. Data shared amongst users could be very beneficial to each other, or it can be harmful. In this essay I will bring attention to some of the dangers surrounding Peer to Peer networking with a few specific examples.

Peer-to-Peer networking is not always the safest way to exchange data between users. The most common problem with peer-to-peer data sharing is viruses. There are many different types of viruses in our world today and one of the most known is a Trojan. A Trojan is designed to trick the user into thinking it is legitimate software. Once the user installs the software, their computer becomes infected. Trojans can log keystrokes, steal important data, modify and or delete files, and, crash computers. Trojans are usually hidden in data downloaded from the Internet.

Another problem with peer-to-peer networking is legality. One of the most popular and dangerous peer-to-peer software is LimeWire. LimeWire is dangerous because it is direct peer-to-peer file sharing. Directly sharing illegal files is how many people get caught. People may receive letters from their Internet provider informing them that there is illegal downloading activity on their network and if they don’t stop and delete the data, they could face legal actions.

One way around the laws is to use a torrent site such as The Pirate Bay or Demonoid. While downloading illegal data is still dangerous and illegal, most users are not held accountable. A torrent is the “middle man” in a file sharing “deal.”  A user downloads a torrent file, which when opened in a torrent program searches for the files the torrent is supposed to be representing.  For example, a torrent file named “Rick James Discography” searches for the all the data of the songs from separate users all across the globe and not one person in particular. Since the files are not shared directly, it makes it more difficult for law enforcement to track. Instead of going after the users, they are then forced to go after the company that runs the site, such as The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay has yet to be convicted due to constant appeals, however, a final verdict is due in November 2010. If convicted, they could face up-to a year in prison and be forced to pay millions of dollars in fines. If you host a peer to peer data sharing site and illegal actions are committed, with or without your knowledge you may be held accountable.

Peer-to-Peer data sharing can be dangerous regardless of how you use it. When using these sites or software, use extreme caution and make sure your anti-virus software is up to date. While certain things on the Internet may appear safe, they more often than not are dangerous.

Terry : Weekly Writing 7

I read recently in an article that Ask.com, formerly AskJeeves, has officially given up in the race of algorithmic web search.  This certainly ends an era in web history, as Ask.com has been notorious for not backing down in the face of the highly more successful Google for, as many think, far too long.  It almost seems unfair that such a website is unable to flourish on the web, despite distinct features.  It seems that Google is quickly gaining a monopoly on web searching.  One of Google’s main tenets is to not be an evil company, so I see it as good news that if the industry is to be taken over by anyone, a relatively trustworthy and consistently innovative company such as Google should be the ones to do it.

Many search engines in the past have fallen, but some still remain: Yahoo, MSN—even the emergence of Bing has been noted as being a highly unexpected move by Microsoft.  It seems to me that in a matter of time, Google will have such a monopoly on searching the web that the others will soon wither away, as Ask does.  That is, if they are not acquired by Google first.

Despite it’s early-web reputation, Ask has been highly innovative with their services, even if not in the public eye.  For example, Ask.com has, “offered semantically-informed search results snippets at the top of the results page, something Google started doing much later.”  I find it interesting that potentially successful innovations like this had gone completely unnoticed until used by giants like Google.  It begs the question of what other, similarly successful ideas are not in the spotlight they could be in.

While it may not have been the most popular, or even the most useful at times, Ask, or AskJeeves as we once knew it, will always have a place in the web’s heart.  Plus, who doesn’t love their famous butler mascot?

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rip_askcom_web_search_is_over_at_ask.php

Angelica’s Weekly Writing #7

Facebook Crack Downs

Up until now I’ve only viewed Facebook as a social networking site that people, mostly my generation, use to stay connected with friends and family. What surprises me is the content we allow to show to the public. It reminds me of when they taught us in middle school to be cautious of what we post on the internet. No one stops to think that underage drinking is an illegal offense or that slandering of character whether online or in person still bares consequences. Recently CNN did a report on a story from Connecticut concerning the all too real consequences for posting data that shouldn’t be made public.
Dawnmarie Souza, worked for an ambulance service by the name of American Medical Response. She has brought her case up to the National Labor Relations Board claiming she was fired for her posts on Facebook about her supervisor. Before the article begins there is a short video interviewing random people with the simple question of, “Would you dare to trash your boss on Facebook?” A good majority of them responded by either saying it wasn’t the right medium to vent any animosity or that posting that kind of information anywhere on the web isn’t the brightest idea.
There are laws put in place for verbal slander and laws that prohibit employers for attacking their employees over working conditions no matter if they belong to a union or not. What makes this case particularly hard is that social networking is not covered in basic job mannerisms. The NLRB’s argument is that Souza wrote the posts in the comforts of her own home while off the clock, making her untouchable in that respect. However I don’t see that being the case when I’ve personally seen kids punished for the content the share publicly.
College and a natural work environment are one in the same. The only difference is working produces funds. If students get reprimanded or even thrown out of school, I see no reason why employees shouldn’t receive the same treatment. What also irks me about this “dilemma” is that her employers are quoted multiple times for saying it has nothing to do with Facebook, but her poor work ethic plus patient complaints. With the information provided it reminds me a lot of the lawsuits a while back where obese citizens were suing McDonald’s for making them fat. In the end it all seems tedious and ridiculous.
Actually just the other day I experienced a call out on a post I made on Facebook. From the feedback I had received in class I felt one of my professors didn’t like my piece and took it personally. So I redid the whole project and posted it on my profile so my friends could judge it to help me improve. The next day I went to class and my professor turned to me stating the comment had upset them highly. It all boiled down to miscommunication, something social networking sites are very good at. However in this case, with the way the data lines up, Souza was just a cranky woman who didn’t like her supervisor.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/09/facebook.firing/index.html?iref=NS1

Marcus O’Leary Weekly Writing 7

In the reading “Constructing the Digital Commons,” I really enjoyed and appreciated Kluitenberg’s point that the political structures controlling digital commons should find a way to profit as well as encourage the expansion and evolution of digital communication and interaction, rather than try to stop it and halt its growth. It has always fascinated me how companies and corporations constantly attempt to place rules and certain regulations in place to maintain a certain control over their standing within the digital world, and how people are constantly able to find ways around those rules and restrictions. I feel like that’s one of the glories of the digital world and its “commons,” the very open and abstract structure that they’re made up of, and how its continually easy to find new ways around obstacles or even to create new solutions to problems that have already been solved. Within the digital world there is no concrete set-in-stone way to do things because of the way its been constructed as well as the freedom of information/communication that come with it. This, of course always presents a problem because people of power will always be looking for ways to control information in order to profit or selfishly benefit off of it. I definitely agree with Kluitenberg in his stance that the political structures controlling the commons should find ways to encourage and help them grow, rather than attempt to restrict and heavily control them. I think what I find most interesting about the political structures and controlling companies is the fact that they don’t seem to realize the full extent of how abstract and limitless the digital world is. They seem to think that enforcing certain rules or restrictions will stop users within the digital commons and force them to abide by their pre-determined idea of how the commons should work. They don’t realize that because of how limitless the digital world is, there’s never just one way to get things done or make things happen. There will always be another way or people will always be able to find or create another way. As stated before, restricting and enforcing rules within the digital world and its commons will only make things more difficult, because people will always figure out a new solution, or at least a new way around the regulation/rule. If the political structures encouraged it, or found a way to profit off of allowing it or even expanding, that would change things entirely because then everybody would win. The controllers would profit off of the digital relationships formed within the commons, and the users within the commons would be able to freely interconnect between networks and share/communicate any and all information without having to be penalized or monitored because of it.

Bryon Carwithen weekly Writting 7

This week I read an article on Popsci called, “Data-Broadcasting Chip-on-a-Pill to Start Testing Within 18 Months”. The article talked about a pill that Novartis is developing that would significantly increase the accuracy in which medicine could be prescribed. The pill has a small microchip on it that can take readings from inside a person’s body. A patch that is worn on the body of the patient then detects this information that is gathered and can be transmitted to a smartphone or wireless network. This would enable doctors to quickly read the vital signs of a patient.

The pill would both be able to release medicine and give doctors data about how it is affecting their patient. The article states, “The ingestible chips would be activated by stomach acid to notify doctors that patients are taking their medicines on schedule and at the proper dose-a particularly important aspect of recovery for organ transplant patients.”  This method of gathering data is pretty revolutionary in the medical world and is a new way in which doctors can gather data. The article also says that with this new technology doctors would be able to come closer to perfecting a patient’s dosage and would be able to tell if the prescribed medicine is working this would intern benefit the patient. I believe that technology could be extremely helpful and has a lot of potential.

This article shows example of how we are moving forward in both medicine and the technology that we use to gather data, it also brings to mind the control of information. The article states, “That’s all very cool, though the wireless beaming of medical data is likely to raise concerns with privacy advocates.” If this new pill becomes a standard when it comes to prescribed pills the patient would in a sense be giving information that could be considered private or personal. I feel that the information from the pills could be very helpful but probably needs to be transmitted to a secure database. Another thing that I feel could be useful is the construction of a general database of how patients reacted to medicine and what dosages worked. This could allow doctors around the world to better understand the medicine in which they are giving their patients. This would probably have to make the patients anonymous so it wouldn’t invade their privacy. Novartis is planning on testing this pill in Europe within eight-teen months and then the U.S.

Overall I feel this new pill could be extremely beneficial for patients, doctors and medical researchers. The more information that a doctor knows about a patient the better he can help them.

Bret Seglem Weekly Writing #7

F.D.A. proposes new graphic labels for Cigarette packaging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/health/policy/11tobacco.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

This article particularly caught my eye this week because I’m surprised such a system hasn’t been instituted here in the United States earlier. As a non smoker I have zero objections and support such a label being implemented on cigarettes, similar labels are required in Canada as well as other countries. The label isolates the product from what are considered non harmful products, and would promote awareness to the products actual dangers. I would even go as far as to say that other products such as alcohol should possess such labels. There are other products besides booze and butts that are both toxic to ourselves and the environment that should also require special labeling, and this is a push in the right direction. The labels are designed to cover half the packaging, something I think should extend to the entire box, cigarettes needs no fancy labeling or branding, the brand name in a simple bold font would subsist for all products. The labels would show graphic imagery of and warn about the dangers of using cigarette products. Cigarettes are especially dangerous because unlike untreated, dried tobacco leaves, cigarettes are actually a mix of chemicals and chemically treated paper products, mixed with chemically treated second tier or “recycled” tobacco. Moderate use of untreated tobacco leaves has been practiced safely for millenia, cigarettes are a relatively new invention whose use obviously correlates with high rates of cancer and other diseases.

“Every day, about 1,000 children and teenagers become regular smokers, and 4,000 try smoking for the first time. About 440,000 people die every year from smoking-related health problems, and the cost to treat such problems exceeds $96 billion a year.”

I’m not so much concerned with the deaths, as the number of child smokers, you can’t control what adults do with their lives and bodies but children smoking cigarettes is especially bad, dwelling back on my previous point of direct correlations between cancer and disease, children, should not have access to cigarettes. Some people, the tobacco lobby in particular feel that such labels would be ineffective and would only stigmatize existing smokers, this is ironic to me, in my opinion that would make the labels very effective. This lobby support and vow to fight the proposals in court is most likely what has kept such labels from being introduced already. But soon the label will become a reality, By Oct. 22, 2012 all American cigarette manufacturers most use the labels proportionately across their products. Manufacturers will be given a choice between nine labels to use proportionately across all of their packaging. One of the labels features a man exhaling smoke through a surgical hole in his neck. The proposed labels are not as gruesome as some mandated in Europe which portray ghastly photos of blackened teeth and decaying lungs. Studies show the such graphic labels are effective in discouraging youth smoking, which I feel is the biggest success of the labels. An adult smoker is going to smoke regardless of the labels, maybe a few will be inclined to try quitting but unlikely. I beleive the labels will quell a new generation of smokers from lighting up, cigarettes that is.

Weekly Writing 7- Allen Dobbins

Soon we will see the advent of cameras inside of movie theaters that watch us as we watch the big screen. The focus of this is to have cameras that are able to scan the faces of customers to assess their expressions as well as how people interact with one another during the movie and during advertisements. This is a dumb idea, but as long as it is in the name of marketing research, I’ll let it slide. The company at the forefront of this advancement in movie theater technology is Aralia Systems, a U.K. high-tech security firm. They recently received a grant for almost $350,000 dollars from the University of the West of England in order to create said technology. The concept isn’t completely new, seeing as there has been a system of cameras in place in a number of movie theaters devoted to using infrared technology as a means of scanning the audience of attendees to see if anyone is trying to bootleg the films. The system isn’t meant to simply show the number of people in the audience or how loudly they react to certain segments but rather produce rich data of the actual facial expressions they give to certain portions of the in-theater experience, whether it is parts of the movie, product placement within the movie, or advertisements before the movie. They will do this using three-dimensional face recognition technology, currently in the development stage, and have several cameras that send out infrared beams while you sit, creating a 3D rendition of the total audience. In order to do this, they will need somewhere around three cameras continually running to both monitor the audience for reactions but also to create stereoscopic images of the audience. These innovations would make the movie going experience that the average consumer has much grander, though they wont necessarily be affected during the movie. This creation is creating a bit of an uproar however in that people feel like it’s an invasion of already thinning privacy. Movie theaters already have cameras set up in lobbies that can record peoples faces and what not, so would this really be that much more of an invasion? I think that this is fine as far as privacy goes, but a waste of movie that could be used in a much more constructive way. As a substitute, companies could have online surveys that ask moviegoers about their experiences, including how they viewed certain advertisements and product placements, and include small incentives for those who fulfill the surveys in meaningful ways. In order for movie theaters to put in place such technology would be rather expensive, and would hike up the already high prices of going to the movies, which is in decline because of companies such as Netflix. I think that this invention is far more costly than the good it can do, even for marketing purposes.

Zahn_WW7

Andrew Zahn: Info Con ww7

DeCss:

When it comes to copyright on the Internet. There are two schools of thought; one, says that any intellectual material should or can be copyright protected. Then there is the school of thought that says that everything should be open source or free. There is this disconnect in the argument; if something can become digitized, this in inherent with this medium… That it can be duplicated over and over again with absolutely no loss of quality. When it comes to the side arguing that material should be protected, the problem is just this, which the material can be easily copied and should therefore be protected by these copyright laws. These laws were strengthened by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which made it easier for corporations to protect their media from being duplicated.

The two sides are really not anything more than a moral philosophy. The side that says that all material should be free and open. We could generalize and say that this is the “Open Source” community. Some might associate these people with hackers or the like. But in my experience, most people who are a creative force in new technologies tend to lean to this side- the side of open source and free.

When programmer created “DeCss,” they were making a statement that they believed that materials should not be copyright protected. They were clearly against digital copyright protection, and DeCss spoke to this. As people create more and more media and technology, this battle between those corporations trying to make a profit and those who want to share in an open and free way will continue. It seems that with every new technology that companies create to try to protect their precious materials, there are three hacks waiting to be released.

For example, with the release of the new Iphone, Apple has decided to add a feature that allows people to pay a $ 35 / month fee in order to use their phone as a modem. This feature was only introduced because creative people in the hacker community created an app that allowed the previous generation of Iphone to function in this way. It was only then that Apple decided this was a good idea and began to charge for this feature in the new release of the Iphone 4. If these hackers had never done this hack allowing the original Iphone to be used as a modem, Apple would have never come up with this novel idea (or not at least this fast). As the new phone was released, those same people who had the idea in the first place (Which apple did not compensate them for their idea) created a hack that allowed users to use the new phone in the same way that it had functioned previously.

The point here is that without open source and free sharing of ideas on the web, we would not be nearly as far along as we are. As corporations struggle to hold onto their content, people will always find a way to share content with each other. Weather it is legal or now is a question that will continually be fought for the foreseeable future.