On Big Brother and Surveillance (Required 8)

I use technologies every day that enable my actions to be surveyed; everything from my work computer to my online bank accounts. My work computer is on a public hub that is monitored by the IT guy, and nothing can be added to the computer with permission from the IT guy (he owns the administrator account to every computer on site). I am sure that my cell phone and own personal computer are subject to surveillance if someone deemed it necessary- yes, I believe that someone is watching internet traffic and can red flag a user who hits on a site that has been put on a CIA watch list. Because I am confident that my actions are within the realm of reason, I do not anticipate any kind of change in my life by being subject to surveillance.The above statement held true for the two day trial in which I went about my regular routine at work and at home, and no one tried to confront me about my actions. I have found it is too difficult to try to track where your own personal data flows while surfing the web, but it is within reason to monitor what I put out on the internet. Remembering to log off of sites and my computer at days end, limits the ability of others to access my computer after hours. All in all, surveillance does not affect what I do from day to day, but it does make me paranoid that surveillance can only become more intense and that one day Big Brother really will be watching our every movement.....

On Googling Myself (Required 7)

It took google approximately .23 seconds to compile 936,000 hits of the name "Phillip Harman", with options to try modifications with Philip or Harmon. There are lots of links to weblogs, and proffessional sites like linkedin or spoke.com. None of these sites are mine, though I do have a linkedin account. It is extremely probable that I am related to some of these people- an example: Phillip Harman from Indiana located on source.com (I have extended family I have never met out in that part of the country). There was also one site that blogged the history of the Harman/ Harmon name from 1776 when it came from Germany- I am not sure these people are related because they settled in Pa and I do not know of any relatives from Pa. All things considered, this would indicate that my name is full of googlegangers.
The opinion of me on the internet would be pretty proffesional because most of the sites are for job searching or set up by my googlegangers to help people with some sort of job or to track their own job successes. It is beneficial to have a name with a good reputation online so that if potential employers try to look you up on google, they may not find you're personal sites online, but will see that everyone else who has your name is making a good impression. If 18million Phill Harman's have a good reputation, who is to say this one will be different?

Online Death

I read an article the other day about a boy who had been talking about committing suicide on his web cam to random online viewers. He posted links to his web cam on a few other sites, and had "672,000 unique visitors in October". They do not know how many viewers watched him die on his web cam, but when the police found him 12 hours later lying dead of a medication overdose, people were found writing to the web cam such things as "OMFG and LOL".
I have serious issues with what happened. It is scary that the technology we have has now created a new way for people to publicly kill themselves (“equivalent to jumping off a bridge”). It is even more upsetting that people are so apathetic that no one cared enough to do anything about his suicide threats. It’s not difficult for the police to track the IP address of a web cam. If someone had phoned in repeated threats from the site his death would not have had to happen as it did. Comments like the LOL's when the cops arrived are even more upsetting. Not only did people sit there and watch him die, it never occured to anyone to phone in the issue when he stopped moving for 12 hours straight. To top it off they had the audacity to laugh through the computer about what was happening. To tie this into the reading material- the idea that the group never did anything about the events could be because of the diffusion of responsibility felt by its viewers, or maybe that the technology we have now is not quite being used for as its purpose was intended.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27841948/

Big Brother

I was listening to the radio this morning (98 rock morning show) and they brought up a conversation about this new technology they have that hacks computers. Apparently some man bought this program and its able to remotely track the strokes on someone elses keyboard. It also lets you know where they are going while they are on the computer. Tying these both together, you are now able to hack someone elses computer relatively easily. This man used it to start spreading gossip about a female coworker, who eventually got fired. He finally was caught, and is now on house arrest.
I find the idea that this is even possible extremely scary. If consumers, every day joe's can find stuff like this to ruin peoples lives, imagining it in the hands of the wrong person is not something I would ever like to do. Also if it is consumer available somewhere, it means that the government already uses it to track motions of people they are watching. It really seems that the world is turning into 1984, just 26 years later. Just remember- Big Brother is watching.

Election Day

This day has been counted down by many for what has now been years. I that the new media and the publicity for these candidates is rolling in at at all hours, and is bias for one candidate over another. I'm not going to sit here and defend one candidate or the other, but the numbers do not lie. In a report put out by "The Project for Excellence in Journalism", it was found that the types of media coverage for Obama and McCain were drastically different. Of the coverage Obama received, 35.8% was positive, 29.2% was negative, and 35% indifferent. On the other hand the coverage McCain received was slightly more askew, 14.2% positive, 57.3% negative, and 28.5% indifferent. This bothers me because people are swayed by the media. If there is an unfair share of who gets better coverage in the media, will this sway the votes of the American people? With the media clearly voicing its opinion for one candidate, is it possible that people who would originally vote for McCain be swayed to vote for Obama because they are afraid of voting incorrectly? Groupthink would say it is possible. If the media is going to constantly voice their biased opinion, eager reader's are going to look to the media and assume that its opinion is correct, or be afraid to say otherwise and therefore Obama will be the reader’s vote.
The only ways to prevent a bias is to have equal coverage or have people research draw their own conclusions. Unfortunately it is too late this election, after today we will have elected a new president.

On Lessig vs Keen (required 6)

After reading all of Lessig's points against Keen, I really feel as though Keen is a sore spot for Lessig, as though he has some personal vendetta against Keen. Some of his counterpoints against Keen's arguements are good; for instance the google counterpoint. I agree with Lessig that as efficiency is increased that creates increased value, thus validating google as an enterprise in aggregating websites just as phonebooks aggregate addresses and phone numbers. I say that it seems as though Lessig has a personal vendetta against Keen because of his comments about keen being sloppy. Through out his wiki site and his book critique Lessig calls Keen sloppy and pretty much an exaggerator of the truth; the problem I have with this statement against Keen is that Lessig fails to provide any data that shows Keen is actually incorrect. Taken from the wiki site: "Over the last 10 years, the listening hours of eighteen to twenty-four year olds have dropped 21 percent. (p123) Sloppy: what percentage of the 21% is because of "piracy"? The people who wrote the site are questioning the accuracy of the quote, but it's clear that they were never interested in actually proving Keen wrong, otherwise they would have found the hard evidence instead of just trying to call him out on using hyperbole for dramatic effect. I do not exactly agree with Keen that the amateur is a cult that needs ending, but at least his points are backed by data and are not just angry remarks from an upset writer.