Thursday, July 26, 2007
The Blogging Communities as a Democracy affecting Democracy
The internet will contribute to, or even be primarily responsible for, a new era of participatory democracy and a revitalization of the public sphere.
Apparently, Thornton holds a legitimate argument. The revitalization of the public sphere is concurrent in metaphorical or analogous participatory democracies such as web logs. There is a wide array of these sites with countless opinions and reflections on democracy. A site where there is an enormous amount of informative contribution is the website Democratic Conversation: Skepticism is a virtue located at http://www.democratic-conversation.com. Mark Beyer is a citizen logged on this site that has strong political beliefs and reflects upon the upcoming presidential primary in his article written on June 28, 2007, “Who’s Next?” His article is very intelligent, cynical, and illuminates a skeptical yet liberal tone. In analysis to this representation, Beyer states:
I am an artist by temperament and intellect; I look for insight in the beauty and the grotesque as beauty as ways to explore, help define, and enjoy the human comedy. This is not so difficult, as I need only look around with ears, if not eyes, open to the environment. I came to political inspection and commentary as a by-product of my literary artistic inquiry. Again, one only need read Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Joyce, Wharton, and Sun-Tsu to grasp the significance that art can have upon a people caught in desperate struggle with authority (as well as themselves). Also, I believe in democratic principles such as discussion, dissent, and freedom of speech.
With articles that reflect such opinions about politics, one can be lead to believe that blogs are affecting local politics. Considering the fact that a local New Yorker has the ability to express his political views within the realm of the internet in co-ordinance with many others who not only express their views but also reflect upon others, the web log has definitely shaped a democratic influence. Thornton reiterates this point when stating:
The American approach to communications research informs much of the debate and policy making surrounding the Internet. This makes an understanding of the themes in this line of theory important to any discussion of Internet as a public sphere.
Conclusively, with the amount of political census data available via data mining technologies and information aggregation, politics are substantially affected by web logs and their affiliates. The needs of the people are heard and noted and it has allowed for the increase of power in numbers. Accordingly, the government must adapt to these technologies, information, and societal needs and opinions to better suit the majority. In turn, the blog is affecting technology.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Can you see me smiling at you?
The internet has quite possibly been the greatest invention of all time. It allows for people to communicate far beyond the capabilities of prior mass communication technology. On the other hand, the internet has allowed for the increase of communication, but researchers argue that it has limited, altered, and confined the realm of a social community. According to Jay Fernback and Brad Thompson authors of Virtual Communities: Abort, Retry, Failure?
“The notion of community has been long recognized as having a central place in our social fabric. But it was T”nnies (1988/1887) who, by distinguishing between community and society (Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft), placed this enduring aspect of social relationships in the context of modernity and the concomitant degeneration of traditional social structures.”
What used to be a physical or a location community has now morphed into an online virtual community. The concept of progressive diminishment of location communities is highly relative to my own life; as to where I am on the fringe of constant communication in location communities and/or also in certain online communities. The realm of these communities has determined the relational ties that I hold now and how I build or retract upon them. An online community that I am socially tied to is Facebook. Facebook is an online community of personal weblogs, where there is constant computer-mediated-communication occurring.
I feel that this metaphorical fringe of changing communities is an indirect result of post industrialization and the increasing individualistic nature the American society upholds. When communities were more location oriented there was a higher sense of collectivism in society, where people would interact with each other in a face-to-face manner and look out for the benefits for the community as a whole. “Because of our credo of rugged individualism,
“The online world of computer- mediated communication (CMC) is one of those new ways for humans to relate to one another, and it is growing rapidly.”
The social network of Facebook is a highly interactive online community and also one of the largest in the virtual world. I am a current member of this community because it helps expand and improve upon my social ties. I am not a firm believer that this is the correct approach to communicating interpersonally, but it is highly accepted within my culture and refusal of my participation would result in lack of communication causing me to become a member of the out-group. I find Facebook to be quite contradictory to the actual elements of our so called location community. Most of the interaction that occurs on Facebook is between members of the location society that we already belong to. It allows for an array of person-to-person, person-to-many, as well as many-to-many communication. An individual can write a personal message to someone or they could write on their “wall” to show other people within their social network what message is being exchanged. There are various forms of information accessible to a person’s identity on Facebook. There is information supplied in a personal profile in which anyone in the community can access. Also, there is a forum called “news feed” that allows for anyone within the social community to view almost any form of CMC that is occurring in the community. What I find to be interesting about this is that the communication that occurs between people, as well as people’s identities is entirely different than in the location community. For instance, we all communicate with the same people whether it is computer-mediated or not. The difference is that people are able to communicate with a lot more people faster on the internet than in person. It also allows for people to communicate with many others and for 3rd party commentary on supplied information. This in form helps to increase and maintain social ties by constant communication as well as entailing the disinhibitory effect allowing for people to express themselves in a way that would not be possible by any other means.
What is bothersome about these online communities is that the kind of friendly communication that occurs online is not apparent in the real world. People communicate with one another in an entirely different manner which confines social ties. People are not as interactive or friendly. They also cannot communicate their implicit emotions as well as they can through CMC. This causes me to believe that people will soon be incapable of true face-to-face communication and will be bound to these online communities. Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia confirm this in their statement from Net Surfers Don’t ride alone: Virtual Communities as Communities, April, (1996).
“By contrast, critics worry (mostly in print, of course) that life on the Net can never be meaningful or complete because it will lead people away from the full range of in-person contact. Or, conceding half of the debate, they worry that people will get so engulfed in a simulacrum virtual reality, that they will lose contact with "real life". Meaningful contact will wither without the full bandwidth provided by in-person, in-the-flesh contact. As
Conclusively, while these online communities are allowing for greater forms of communication and expression, it is eliminating the amount of real world interaction between people. Simply, a person may be able to find their soul mate via internet, but in all reality it is impossible for them to fornicate and reproduce on the internet. Therefore, although the online community can expand and develop social ties, it is eliminating the amount of real world interaction which could result in the cease of face-to-face communication almost entirely.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Can UB you?
There are many identities that a person can obtain. The most tangible identity is the physical body and the forms of interpersonal communication that it executes. There is a Master Identity that portrays and evaluates an individual’s identity by its distinct and unique characteristics. In the Online Community, an individual’s identity is highly manipulative, situational, circumstantial, an arbitrarily obtainable. There are many characteristics of an individual’s online identity that can inhibit, portray, conceal, deceive, or intercept information. Therefore, an online identity “plays a key role in virtual communities. In communication, which is the primary activity, knowing the identity of those with whom you communicate is essential for understanding and evaluating an interaction. Yet in the disembodied world of the virtual community, identity is also ambiguous. Many of the basic cues about personality and social role we are accustomed to in the physical world are absent.” The University at
“In the physical world there is an inherent unity to the self, for the body provides a compelling and convenient definition of identity.” At the University at
“The virtual world is different. It is composed of information rather than matter. Information spreads and diffuses; there is no law of the conservation of information. The inhabitants of this impalpable space are also diffuse, and free from the body's unifying anchor.” The UB network can portray many elements of an individual’s online identity. An individual can interact, utilize, and communicate in various forms within the realm of their online identity. One can access the UB network internally or externally creating accessibility at any computer with an internet connection in the world. Once the network is accessed an individual can execute many programs and internet applications. The most simple and commonly used identity within the network is communicated via email through the webmail application. This identity can reveal the major one is in, the professors they have, people and organizations that they belong to or they communicate with, how one travels, what items they have purchased online, banking information, as well as the style of textual format and pragmatic information that an individual uses in syntax. Another identity that is available is attainable via MyUB. The find people application can reveal the fundamentals of one’s identity such as: name, UBITname, email address, major, occupational status, and office or residential location. In addition, one’s identity can be evaluated by their utilization of Ublearns. This also can provide the information and identity conveyed above, but pertains to utilization of different applications. One can reveal their identity through the Blackboard Academic discussion board forum. One can reveal how an individual interacts with others through computer-mediated-communication. An individual can reveal their knowledge and opinions on certain matters that would not be plausible within the classroom environment due to the dis-inhibitory effect. This also allows for a more on depth analysis of another’s perspectives, cognition, and response patterns, as well as their style of writing too. This forum allows for people to view tremendously more amounts of identity information than any other means of a UB internet application. A person’s grades are reflected on an array of UB internet applications. One can reveal their study patterns through utilization of the UB network and its applications. There is an enormous amount of information conveyed within the realm of the UB network and even its affiliated networks such as Facebook.
What is relevant to this topic of internet identity; is how secure is this identity? This identity can be obtained through information provided on Facebook, which was originally for intercollegiate communication and a private social community. Facebook is now a public community where information is easily obtainable by virtually anyone. UB has an outstanding engineering department and has an extremely encrypted network proving to be rather secure. On the other hand, how authentic is this identity? On the most extreme level, one can hack into the network from any where in the world, even on campus. Moreover, if one were to obtain access to ones identity information can altered, stolen, or impersonated. If a hacker had enough talent, he could hack into the UB network through a UB computer with another’s identity and acquire limitless information or even maliciously abuse and manipulate the network and its applications. In contrast, at the lowest level of identity theft or fraudulent use of the identity is quite simple. One can access the UB network by simple obtaining someone else’s username, person number, and/or UBIT password. This information is relatively easy for almost anyone to obtain. For instance, an extremely simple way to obtain this information can be executed via daily sign-in-sheets which provide name and person number. With this information alone, even the most profoundly computer illiterate individual can access and obtain a person’s “secure” identity.
In conclusion, an online identity can be willingly or unwillingly accessed. This identity can provide far more information about someone than their physical identity but has minimal authenticity. Even on a network as profound as the UB network, an individual’s information is not only being constantly monitored and analyzed, but can be falsified and manipulated on any level of an individuals capability to do so. With this in mind; who are you?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Private Parts or Public Property?
The real issue at hand is whether or not people actually obtain privacy rights. There is also the possibility that hold none whatsoever. Since, the advent of mass file sharing over the internet, along with the passing of the Patriot Act as well as the Freedom of Information Act these rights have been stumped. Due to the vast information available on computer networks and the internet as a whole, people’s “private” information is being accessed, shared, and analyzed every day. Like every other sociopolitical issue there are conflicting stances. People are arbitrarily providing information about themselves all the time on the internet whether it is intentional or unintentional. To analyze the governmental and economical aspect of the issue; they argue that people are freely providing this information within the public domain and it should therefore be able to be replicated, reproduced and transmitted without the expressed written consent of the provider. This is because it had already been freely expressed. Also, there is a large dispute on the benefits of data mining technology and personal information sharing. Again, to take the elitist stance on the situation, this information not only provides the government and marketing agencies with necessary data to improve the security and the economy of the country, but it causes these organizations to market items to an individual that they hold of high interest or liking.
In my own opinion, a line must be drawn somewhere. I am not entirely against data mining and file sharing, but I do hold a strong opinion against the invasion of personal property and personal information sharing. The accessibility to someone’s personal information is ludicrous. You could type in an individual’s phone number on a search engine and receive their billing address free and immediately. Further, information such as living relatives, personal expenses, educational history, along with much more can be purchased for a few dollars. Ironically, that is just the power of an average internet user. More so, after purchasing that person’s information; the purchaser had single-handedly provided the internet site with their own IP address, their credit card information, name, address, etc. all on their own terms. The next step up in the hierarchy is governmental and business related entities. Businesses all across the world are trading, selling, and sharing information about people that the individual is completely unaware of. Furthermore, these businesses are in cohesion with the government and attain a symbiotic relationship to approaching personal information sharing. Once shared, this sort of information whether it’s an account number, and IP address, a person’s favorite place to shop, etc., the information it literally floating around the internet and even all over the world. What’s even worse, is the information that is, “legally shared,” is being hacked into everyday as well.
“This dilemma introduces another complication of how public life has changed. Just because it’s possible to get access to information, is it always OK to do so?” Why is this bad? Apparently, there are people sharing information about almost virtually everyone; even you the reader. Information as crucial and important as individual’s social security numbers, bank account numbers, and even PIN numbers are being illegally accessed and used in fraudulence. “If a third party has sufficient access to the computer, legitimately or not, this may be used to lessen the user’s privacy.” I myself became victim to this. I was always skeptical about sharing this sort of information on the internet, but since I totaled my car I found online banking and bill-pay to be extremely convenient. I then started to notice miniscule transactions appearing on my account, but thought nothing of it. After several times, I decided to keep record of all the transactions that I had made within the billing period. I came to realize that these minute transactions were not my own. What I find to be bewildering is that this would usually aggravate me beyond any tolerant threshold, but I simply accept it instead. It still continually occurs. I accept it though; because I knew from the start there was an enormous risk in providing this kind of information, but I did it anyway. To elaborate further, since these unauthorized purchases were only occurring one to three times a month of approximately one to two dollars I decided to allow it. I could have arbitrated this with my credit card provider, but felt that it would be a waste of time because I could not prove that it was not me that had made the transactions, especially since they were marked at places that I would normally go. Conclusively, if there were substantial reason to argue these purchases than I would, but I still feel that there is little I could do if anything at all. Obviously, there needs to be a stand in defending the little privacy we have or soon we may not have privacy at all.
Works Cited
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_privacy
Boyd, Danah. (2007). “Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?”
Knowledge Tree 13, May. http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/?page_id=28
Lackaff, Derek. (2007). “Privacy” Lecture Notes and Discussion 16, July.
Friday, July 13, 2007
To Free or not To Free, That is the question.
An example of open-source software that I am highly familiar with is the Linux Operating System. Linux, unlike most operating systems is free, and is open to the user’s modification of the source code to better suit their needs. According to lecture, “Linux became very popular within the scientific and research communities in the 1990’s.” Because UB is a research focused institution, especially within the engineering department, Linux is the primary OS (operating system) in the engineering computer labs. I am familiar with this program because I recently took an intro to java programming course in the spring referred to as CSE113.
This system is great not only because it is free, but the individual user can alter the application programs to suit their individual needs or desires. I myself never altered the applications in Linux, but through Linux I was able to write my own source code for my own applications. The code that I wrote was in the program Dr. Java, which is an open-source software program itself. The department had altered the program and created its own classes for the students to better understand and execute the code. I had actually written six programs that semester, which were also open-source software programs that anyone had the ability to access and alter even after compilation. I found it to be highly interesting that I was able to write programs that were free, that are very similar to programs that people would ordinarily pay for. For instance I wrote a program that is capable of altering an image to any extent that an image can be manipulated. The program I wrote is very similar to Photoshop, but it is easier to use, and the source code was left available to any user who wanted to add methods of manipulation to the code. Another program that I wrote is a contact phonebook that has all the capabilities of any other cellular phonebook. The irony in this is that my cell phone runs a java program for its phonebook, which was paid for by Motorola, when they could have simply taken the program I wrote for free. This would have been a form of a gift economy, only without the concept of implicit reciprocation. The gift according to Peter Kollack, “Gift exchanges should not involve explicit bargaining or demands that the gift is reciprocated, but a relationship in which there is only giving and no receiving is unlikely to last.”
I feel that open-source software is highly beneficial to the public and holds very little drawback to the profits of paid software developers. I also believe that this software such as Linux and Dr. Java reduce the amount of copyright infringement taking place. This is a great idea because it allows people with the capability and knowledge to write source codes for programs and then distribute it to whomever they feel like. This eliminates the amount of, “theft, piracy, and copyright infringement” currently taking place and is also an established middle ground between the desires of both file sharers and tangible product developers.
Lackaff, Derek. (2007). Intro to the Internet: COM125. Lecture notes.
Kollack, Peter. (1999). The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace. Communities in Cyberspace.
Perens, Bruce. (1999) Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source revolution. O’Reily Online Catalog.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (2007). Free Software. Wikipedia.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Copyright or Copy Wrong? Who's to decide?
The entertainment and media industries are highly concerned with the vast array of illegal file sharing and copyright infringement. So, organizations such as the RIAA have placed an enormous pressure on the United States government to pursue harsh punishments and fines on copyright infringement. Furthermore, beyond criminal conviction, the RIAA and many entertainment labels have taken this matter into the civil courts as well. Infringement occurs when an individual or organization uses tangible material derived from, copied from, or illusorily replicated from an original work without proper attribution and the expressed written consent of the copyright holder.
Infringement is happening everyday whether it is intentional or unintentional. The problem with this is that if so many people are doing it and it is culturally accepted than what is wrong with it? One issue is not only the amount of people that are infringing, but it is the users’ obliviousness to legal violation and the severity of the consequences for doing so. Many people believe that it is within their constitutional right to do so, and many people believe that the internet is the public domain and therefore have the right of fair use. This is in fact very wrong. In addition, the interpretation of constitutional law is vague and the public awareness of law is limited. According to Kevin S. Brady, Esq. an Attorney at Law from Minneapolis, Minnesota (2004), “Although the law in this area is sparse, it is reasonably likely that you could be liable for infringement for making a copy of software, books or videos, and giving the copy to another person, even if it’s for free.” This leaves me to ask where one can metaphorically draw a suitable line for illegal file sharing and copyright infringement since the laws are so vague and the general public is either unaware of their breech or simply does not care.
Moreover, with the extent of illegal file sharing happening, most users are unaware that there could be criminal sanctions taken against them even if they have only obtained or shared just one infringed file, but also that it is difficult to prove beyond a reasonable doubt their guilt. Brady goes on to comment that, “As of yet NET (No Electronic Theft act) has not been applied against casual file sharers. Although many such file sharers offer content well in excess of the $2500 value, it is nevertheless difficult to prove that file sharers had actually shared content.”
In contrast, there lies the position of the entertainment industry upon these matters. The use of illegal file sharing has placed a detriment on the profits of these organizations. Not only are the losing capital, but it is almost as if their copyrights were nonexistent. They obtain such copyrights to increase profit, advance technology and promote developing cultural ideals. With an estimated fifty-million people indirectly stealing their material that would have been sold otherwise, it is only fair to the industry that they receive payments for their works, as well as reprimand the infringement violators.
With such a strong argument on both sides, it leaves many ideals and paradigms left, unregulated, not clarified, and many questions left unanswered. This calls for immediate governmental processes to mediate the situation. The government must be able to accommodate both sides of the highly debated argument. In reiteration, the first problem lies within the copyright laws and its enforcement. Brady furthers this argument stating, “The enforcement of these copyright laws is rather spotty, and the case law is sparse, if any exists at all.” Also, illegal file sharing needs to be publicly addressed and ascertained and the victims of infringement need to be accommodated as well.
I myself enjoy the availability of obtaining free entertainment sources through the means of P2P file sharing programs along with millions of other Americans. I have downloaded copyrighted material from P2P file sharing programs for personal gain, but most of that material was downloaded in search of what I intended on receiving. Although I have not done so since I have become aware of the severity of copyright infringement, I believe their must be an asserted middle ground solution. Therefore, I propose that foremost there should be a clear, cohesive, and concise statute that declares all the stipulations of the use of copyrighted works, and limitations on file sharing technologies. Upon that, rather than creating technology that confines the use of copyrighted material, there should be a clear cut and well expressed warning of copyright infringement within the booting process and startup menu of internet accessible technology. Like me, the fact remains that many others use this technology in search of their intended file. Additionally, the RIAA should create a search engine solely devoted to enabling the user to search and sample songs in order to find their intended file. With this creation, they would then be able to post hyperlinks to file sharing programs that allow the user to purchase such copyrighted material with expressed consent. I believe that this would promote proper use of file sharing technology, in turn resulting in increased profit which would allow them to encrypt and secure their material. As a result of all the elements included within my proposal, I can conclude that this would curtail the amount of user infringement on the internet as well as establishing a compromised solution to both arguments.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Hello! My Name Is Internet: History writing assignment
Although the United States’ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is credited with the advent of information processing and the interconnected networking system, significant enhancements were made to develop the internet by European nations and the program CERN. The first step that Europe took in integrating the interconnected networking system was in the form of X.25. X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for wide area networks using the phone or ISDN system as the networking hardware. Moreover, there were many forms of interconnected networking systems at this point, but in 1973 they were unified by Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf. They had developed a reformulation of the system, where the differences between network protocols were hidden by using a common internetwork protocol. This was eventually replaced because of the wide array of private institutions researching the interconnected networks and their involvement in software development. In 1984, a standard protocol was formed and the first Wide Area Network CSNET was designed specifically to use TCP/IP. TCP/IP is short for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. Between 1984 and 1988 CERN began its installation and operation of TCP/IP to interconnect its major internal computer systems, workstations, Personal Computers and an accelerator control system. In 1987 CERN had purchased the appropriate hardware from Cisco to route the TCP/IP across the already existing UUCP. In 1989, CERN had launched its first external TCP/IP connection and Australia had pushed for the standard use of IP as well.
Furthermore, with the vast global integration of IP software, the world was on the fringe of a fully functional message transmission database, but it needed to be opened to commerce. With this in mind, in the late 1980s, the first Internet Service Provider companies were formed. At this point in time the internet was now accessible to just about anyone who could afford it. For communicative purposes, technology was not the leading factor in the global use of the internet; it was regulation. According to the provided blog from Wikepedia, “ARPANET had been overtaken and replaced in 1990 by newer networking technologies and the project came to a close. In 1994, the NSFNet, now renamed ANSNET (Advanced Networks and Services) and non-profit corporations, lost their standing as the backbone of the Internet. Both government institutions and competing commercial providers created their own backbones and interconnections. Regional Network Access Points (NAPs) became the primary interconnections between the many networks and the final commercial restrictions ended.”
As the Internet grew through the 1980s and early 1990s, people realized the increasing need to be able to find and organize files and information. With this in mind, top level domains were created in the form of hypertext. Tim Berners-Lee from CERN was the first to develop a network-based implementation of the hypertext concept. Additionally, with all the advents towards message transmissions on the internet, regulation needed to be instilled in order to organize and properly transmit these transmissions. This is where the United States regained its stronghold on the internet in 1991. It was Al Gore's High Performance Computing and Communication Act of 1991 also known as the Gore Bill that had called for funding towards Mosaic the first internet web browser launched in 1993, and this is also when the hypertext WWW was implemented on creating an integrated World Wide Web(a web of interconnected strings of transmissions and information). Even before the World Wide Web, there were search engines that attempted to organize the Internet. Lycos, was created in 1993 as a university project, and was the first to achieve commercial success.
Conclusively, prior to 1994, the internet was a scattered disorganized paradigm of internetwork communication. It required the integration of many technological and communicative ideas and advents to achieve a fully functional internet. From software concepts and hardware necessities, onward to the regulation and integration of transmission protocol and hypertext, the formulation of the internet was executed by many different people and organizations. Now, according to many researchers the fastest and most efficient form of global communication is the internet. What took an array of mass, interpersonal, and inter-organizational communication and integration is now accessible to virtually anyone who has the means to do so. In short, one of the longest and largest communicative innovations ever made, is now the predominant form of information sharing.