Blog: Fears/Concerns About the Internet

Well, in the end the internet is just another tool that can be used for a variety of purposed. Like any other too, in the wrong hands it can become a weapon. Reported cases of this have led to a kind of paranoia in some users…people fear loss of information, damage to infrastructure and personal/professional relationships.   

Privacy–The concerns regarding privacy come down to the fact that password security varies, and even the most secure are still vulnerable to particularly skilled/determined hackers. Once passwords are cracked or bypassed, hackers can learn anything from your dating habits to your credit card numbers. For the most part, I feel like this problem is over-stated: the average person doesn’t really have to worry about their account security so long as they’ve set a good password and are smart about how they interact with others online.

Infrastructure and Safety–This one I’m a little more concerned about. Malicious attacks upon networks that control public infrastructure (airports, government offices, etc.) can put us in an extremely vulnerable position if all precautions are not taken. Since I’m writing my research paper over war-driving, I’ve been reading about denial of service attacks that whackers launch on wireless networks. It’s kind of scary how easily network access can be blocked by random people walking around outside.

Control of data/info.–The educational gap between those with fast, reliable internet service and those without is another point of concern. The internet is a very valuable source of information and those without access to it or lacking the skills to use it effectively are at a distinct disadvantage as far are basic human competition is concerned. Those with access to information are the ones that tend to stay in the dominant postition. The Digital Divide could fuel class differences and poverty.

Blog for SOCI: Research Ethics Online

What are the ethical and research issues involved in this case? Discuss general online research ethics/legal issues.

The primary ethical/legal issue that I saw with this case lay in that there was no clear way of making sure everyone being recorded had given informed legal consent. How can you make sure that everyone in the chatroom reads and understands the post? Some chatrooms move fast and people frequently just scan the page for comments from friends. They may not actually be giving clear consent to being recorded. Also, chatroom crowds are very flexible: new people are logging on and other are logging off all the time. How can you make sure everyone gets the message? You can’t, at least not with the methods used by the researchers in this case. Also, is it fair to make people censor their speech or log off for fear of being recorded while having a personal conversation? I know a lot of people who would just log off once a scientist announced their presence. This is their world, so why should curious outside eyes be able to make them leave?

The trouble is that while I appreciate that we do need social data on the sort of thing being studied by these researchers, I feel that it is very easy to ignore someone else’s rights while aquiring it. People in chattrooms are just screen names, so butting in on their conversations doesn’t seem quite so rude…the internet, especially for people not heavily involved in this kind of community, has a kind of dehumanizing effect. It’s easy to see human beings as nothing but data. You have to be very careful as a researcher to make sure they are giving clear, legal consent and are not being adversely affected by the presence of the scientific eye.  

The ethical issues involved in my class research project are not nearly so extreme. I am a war-driver, so I don’t have to go invade someone else’s internet safe zone in order to get data. I can just do interviews with a couple of my friends and keep their identities confidential. My project isn’t related to the internet’s content or to behavior online. It’s more a discussion of signals and internet software/hardware ownership.  

Internet Economy:Threadless.com

How does the side make $? What is its business model?

This site, in essence, makes its money by selling t-shirts. The area in which they are innovative is the way in which they select the t-shirts that are to be sold. They don’t do the designs themselves and they don’t have to waste time/money guessing which outside artists’ designs will sell best. Outsiders do the designs and Threadless uses its forum/ratings system to let the public vote on which designs they want to see in print. This takes a lot of the financial insecurity/uncertainty out of the equation for Threadless. They just select the handful of designs with the best ratings, print them, and sell them in their online shop, paying the artists responsible for the winning designs a flat fee of $2000, regardles of how many t-shirts are actually sold. Apparently the profits in this are enough to allow Threadless to prosper. Granted, the designs are awesome, so the site does a LOT of business.

What is its niche/comparative advantage?

It’s advantage is that it allows hundreds (thousands?) of people, many of them quite gifted designers, to pool there designs. The designs that the public likes best (which, it is assumed, would sell better) are selected for printing. The system that allows users to rate the designs is, as you can see, very valuable: the people who run threadless have a much better idea as to what designs will be successful this way. They don’t have to waste time and money preparing shirts that will not sell well enough to justify the expence.

Your impressions? Would you shop there?

Oh yes, I’d shop there. I have shopped there: I bought a t-shirt with a human ribcage on the front and a bird dangling from the design’s collarbone. I’ve worn it about three times this week. I also played around a little bit and posted one of my own t-shirt designs for rating…people in general liked it, but the threadless staff thought it had too much text. Threadless is based around art/visual designs.

Presidential Website: Hillary Clinton

Were you able to find the information you were looking for? How does the candidate present him/herself? How does the candidate use Web 2.0 approaches (e.g. community-generated content, RSS feeds).

       Well, I think the first thing that I noticed about Clinton’s webpage is that her designer seems to like bright/blinking/bubbly things. It comes across as being a lot…younger, and less professional than most of the political websites I’ve visited. This is probably a tactic to make Hillary seem more “fun,” friendly, and relatable. I found all the information I originally set out to find: the links to her biographical information and political stances are rather obvious. One thing that interested me was how concerned she seemed with making people feel personally involves with her campaign. There were at least nine clear links on her main page saying things like: “travel for Hillary”, “join Team Hillary”, “help win Pennsylvania”, etc. It seemed like a bit of overkill to me, but I suppose it’s very important for her to keep her supporters feeling like they are actively making a difference by helping her get elected. The TV Hillary section distracted me for quite a while…it’s nothing compared to the number of videos Youtube has posted relating to her, but still, there are quite a few. The site seems to mainly rely on its Blog for feedback. Voters post comments to articles/updates that have been put up in this section. Some of them are quite aggressive and others border on idolatry. She obviously provokes very strong emotions in people. It is very clear from Hillary’s page that she considers herself, her husband, her supporters and her advisers to all be part of one enormous team, with everyone contributing something. This is a very Web 2.0 attitude.       

Comment on the analysis of the candidates’ use of Youtube.

       First of all, let me just say that I nearly died when I saw Huckabee’s video with Chuck Norris. “When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he doesn’t push himself up, he pushes the world down.” Oh dear. Personally, I think it made Huckabee look a bit silly, but it certainly got people’s attention…I’m a little surprised I had never come across it before. It’s obvious that all the candidates used Youtube to a certain extent, with varying degrees of effectiveness. I won’t spit back a line-for-line summary of the two videos, but it’s clear that all the candidates can be considered massive content generators. I’m not necessarily talking about the videos they posted of themselves, but about those posted by the rest of the participating Youtube community…for Hillary, Barack, and McCain, there are litteraly thousands of them. It’s getting rid of the middle-man and letting voters speak more-or-less directly to the candidates via video. Some people have described this as the Youtube election. Since I chose to follow Hillary Clinton’s page, I suppose I should mention how she used/has tried to use Youtube to her advantage. Like the bright, “fun” design her page is built on, the videos she posts of herself seem mainly geared to a.) informing people that if they support her, they become part of a team and b.) trying to reassure voters that she does in fact have a sense of humor.     

Compare the website you have examined to that of a second candidate of your choosing. How do the two sites compare in style? content? How important is the webpage as a representation of a candidate?

       The candidate’s website that I chose to compare with Hillary Clinton’s was one of Senator John McCain’s. Both candidates employed lots of red, white, and blue, of course–they both want to remind people they’re patriotic. However, McCain’s use of color/general design was more sedate than Hillary’s (who, it should be known, at the moment has a large image on her front page declaring “Elton and Hillary, One Night Only!” in flashy Vegas font). McCain used darker colors and design tactics that were less showy. His page seemed more professional. Also, while Hillary’s page (as mentioned) seems rather keen on making people feel involved while, there is nothing that really serves the same purpose on McCain’s homepage, aside from a large red button reading “Donate”. There is no Team John, or at least, not in the sense that there is a Team Hillary. Both web pages are very easy to navigate, and indeed both are spatially set up very similarly. Both have a main bar at the top that links to their important information and their blogs. McCain also has a Multimedia section similar to TV Hillary, where he has posted a few relevant videos.      

Given this information, what role do campaign websites play in this election?

      Well at first glance it seems, from the comments I looked through in the respective candidates’ blogs, that most of the people who visit the sites and are invested enough in them to comment already have a very firm idea of who they want in the White House. Comments tend to run along the lines of detailing either how one candidate or the other is a Satanist homosexual Nazi who hates old people and puppies, or how the Nations of the World Will Gathered Together To Acclaim Him/Her As Their God King. It’s interesting that neither Clinton nor McCain seem to go through and delete all the negative criticism (and believe me, there’s quite a lot for both of them). They likely think it will help them prepare to face the voters’ questions in the future. I suspect, though I can’t confirm this, that the silent majority of the people who visit the candidates’ websites and don’t comment are not altogether certain who they want to vote for and so are looking up the political stances or biographical info. of one or the other. If that is the case, then the candidates’ websites likely play a very important role in their presidential campaigns (though they are probably more important for Clinton, being as her voter base tends to be younger). They help get what the candidates and their campaign staffs consider to be positive information out to the voting public, influencing their eventual decisions. They also allow for a certain degree of feedback, letting the candidates have a rough idea of where voter opinions/concerns are.  

Web 2.0

I really love the whole idea of Web 2.0. The awesomeness of Library Thing just defies explanation. I rushed right out and created an account…now most of my books are neatly catalogued. I’ve been using BitTorrent for a while and of course I really like it…makes being an anime fan so much easier. I also rushed out and began editing Wikipedia. Do you know they had my high school mascot listed as the Early Bird instead of the Early Longhorn? Oh, the iniquity! Anyway, Web 2.0 seems to be taking the internet in the direction it needs to be going in. Sharing and collaboration are what make the net such a tool for inovation.

Blog #9 for SOCI: Intellectual Property

      I don’t mean for this blog entry to turn into a rant…but it might. I think my roommate and I have managed to impart to you that I am, in fact, addicted to anime, and consequently might or might not do quite a bit of illegal downloading. Thus, the whole idea of intellectual property really touches upon some personal territory with me. I actually really liked the lecture–I never could manage to download the video, though. I thought Lessig presented his arguements in an amusing, fairly persuasive manner (though I wasn’t one of those who really needed pursuading). Copyright law needs, if not complete eradication, then at least a common sense clause built in. I mean honestly, $25,000 for a few seconds of educational Homer Sympson? That is insane. Of course, tt’s polite to acknowledge the author of whatever material you’re using, and if you’re derriving commercial gain from it, then perhaps the creator should get a percentage…but greed and paranoia have just completely done away with fair exchange of intellectual property. Now (if you’re one of those who cares) you can barely breathe online for fear of treading on someone else’s turf. It’s ridiculous. There has got to be a way of limmiting copyright to something that will allow us to build on other people’s ideas without belittling their contribution. Of course, most authors/creators these days look the other way so long as the people who are edditing/making additions to/trading their work are not making profit off of it, but we still have to be on the look out for the radicals. True of every human activity, I think. I write a lot of fanfiction, so two names that spring to mind are Anne Rice and Anne McCafrey (don’t butcher me if I mispelled that), who tend to be a little bit anal about people writing stories using their work. They bring out the big guns and sue twelve year olds. That’s scary stuff. It’s also just insane…as Lessig said, what harm are they doing? This “terrorist war” on normal, well-meaning people has gotten way out of hand.        

Blog #10 for SOCI: Research Paper Ideas

I have two ideas that I’d half-like to pursue.

For the first, I thought I might like to look into the laws concerning/issues surrounding public wireless access from buisinesses (i.e., hotels, bookstores, coffee shops, etc.). In some of the more rural areas of the state, I know that it is common practice for those who do not pay for wireless internet to pull up into the parking lot of one of the mentioned establishments and just get online using their signal. I would like to discuss the ethics of simply borrowing wireless signals, and determine if/why/where it is illegal. I would also like to extend that discussion to include the many people that use the freely provided wireless signals of coffee shops and bookstores for illegal downloading.

My second idea is still a bit too broad, I think, but I would also like to look into how the internet has helped to further multiculturalism among the youth of America (including language skills, religious/political tollerance, and general cultural understanding). I primarily want to focus upon how the entertainment industry of Japan has led thousands of American adolescents to become “addicted” to Japanese television (much of which is only available via the internet). As with any nation, Japan’s media is saturated with the culture’s socio/political values and practices (there is no taboo on homosexuality, for instance), and Americans are beginning to adapt to them. I would almost describe the phenomenon as culture worship. Anyway, I thought that since it is a topic I’m very interested in on a personal level, I might try to twist it into a paper topic. 

Blog #8 for SOCI: Response to OS Video

Summarize what you knew about Open Source before viewing the video. What did you learn that you were not aware of?

      Open Source software…what an idea. Certainly it’s something I knew nothing about that before I saw this video. I generally understood what was meant by the ”free” software idea, I just never realized it was part of any legitimate movement.  I learned what the movement was, who initiated it, what programs were a part of it, etc.. Actually, I kind of always equated the idea of OS software with some form of piracy…so this was Open Source 101 for me. Of course, I’d used Firefox before (not on my own computer, but on a friend’s), but I never thought of it as a “free”, open-source alternative to Internet Explorer…merely as an alternative.

To what extent can OS be termed a social movement? Describe the shared values, norms, beliefs of the OS community. Would you consider yourself an ally of this community?      

      Well, the whole idea of OS software seems to have evolved out of a philosophic point of view that there shouldn’t be barriers to attaining or contributing to information/ideas. Therefore, naturally, it is at least in part a social movement. Whatever they choose to call it, their stance on software trading/availability does have the feel of Communism, if only because it’s communal sharing of information free of charge. I’m not about to go off on an OS crusade, but I almost always believe that when it comes to the internet, the more freedom/sharing of ideas the better…the beliefs of the OS community seem to me to have tapped into the very essense of the internet’s potential as a tool for progress. As long as we jealously hoarde information and software, we are not living up to our society’s capacity for learning and improvement. However, I’m realistic: this is a capitalist society and designers of commercial software will probably control the field, stifling this sort of thinking, for some time to come. Truthfully, maybe because I’m nerdier than I’ll admit, the whole OS idea reminds me of something out of Star Trek…in which citizens of the future work for the benefit of society, not for wages, and don’t have restrictions upon information sharing. I think many of the OS ideas are good ones…it’ll just be a long time before they reach fruition. 

Do you use any OS software? (Firefox? OpenOffice?) Discuss your experience with software, be it Open Source or not, in terms of usability, price, access, etc. How would OS software make your experience different?

      I have used Firefox in the past, yes, because several of my friends have it on their computers…overall, I suppose my experience was a positive one. It’s jarring, though, when you’re used to commercial software to have to adapt to OS alternatives. I suppose I feel that since I learned to use commercial software first, I might as well keep using it. Being a student, I get all sorts of discounts on software, so things like Microsoft Office are not really out of my price range. It just depends on what you most value: your time or your money. I would rate Firefox’s useability as being slightly higher than Internet Explorers, but there’s not enough of a difference that I lose sleep over it. Swapping out my commercial software with OS alternatives would just take more time than I want to spend, what with downloading, relearning, etc..

What’s next: If you have ever tried web applications like Google Docs, comment on what this experience is like. In this case, not only is the use of the software free, but the storage of the data is also provided by someone else. How does this help or hurt the OS movement? the commercial software business?

       I had to go out and get a little hands-on experience before I could really answer this question. The overall experience of using a program like Google Docs, where your information is actually being stored at a location other than your local/personal computer, is a little…terrifying. I’m a paranoid privacy nutt, even though I really can’t imagine why anyone would care what’s in my documents. I take comfort in the illusion of privacy afforded by having my data on my personal computer, behind a wall of passwords. I could never put anything I genuinely cared about into something like this. I remember using something similar to Google Docs back in middle school to store our notes and data from computer skills class, and it made me uncomfortable. Even using the Briefcase on my Tiger’s Lair makes me uncomfortable. My data is my data: the books and poems that I’ve written, the videos I’ve created…I don’t want anyone to have access to those until I’m absolutely ready for them to. That being said, I don’t mind sharing them for free online, so long as people identify me as the source. I guess that pretty much sums up my idea of intellectual property: I don’t mind people distributing, adding to, or otherwise sharing my data, so long as they credit me as the original source (or the source of whatever step of the creative process that I initiated). I don’t really see how Google Docs could possibly hurt the OS movement…it’s just another form of sharing data (to a more limited degree), so the two seem compatible to me. I don’t think it really has to be a threat to the commercial software buisness either because Google Docs is not, after all, actually OS software. It’s free, it’s useful, it’s a form of communal data sharing and I suppose it is taking buisness away from companies that sell word processors/ spreadsheet programs, but its source code is not open. It’s just another product, competing with other forms of software. I don’t think fewer people are using Microsoft Office just because they have an online alternative. 

Blog #7 for SOCI: the Digital Divide

Will the internet produce new kinds of inequality based on information literacy and access to technology?

      Much of this discussion depends on one’s definition of “new kinds of inequality.” There are already so many divides in our society that internet/computer access becomes just another facet of the “boot” that keeps colored America and the third world on a lower social step than the white-dominated West. How important is this single area of inequality in comparison to the others? It’s not as though the Digital Divide were causing a new set of people to fall behind: it’s affecting the same, traditional groups as always (minorities, the disabled, and the elderly). The Digital Divide is just another aspect of the educational inequality these groups have faced for (dare I say?) centuries. Lack of education, of any sort, has always led to lesser employment opportunities. There are always new innovations in technology that are causing the older generations to slip slightly (or not so slightly) behind the younger. There are always educational disparities that maintain the status quo of power distribution between the races. The problem is that the affluent world is moving further and further in the direction of using the computer as a primary medium for education. Possibly in the future the term “Digital Divide” will even become synonomous to inequality of education, but at the moment, the most basic skills that a human being requires to become a successful, actively participating member of society can be obtained as a more-or-less separate set of abilities from those required to use the computer. I suppose what I’m really getting at is that the Digital Divide is not the area of inequality (at the moment, anyway) that should be addressed first. If someone is illiterate, then they will have much bigger problems than the inability to function online. The Digital Divide is just reinforcing educational inequalities that have existed for more than two hundred years.          

Will the internet serve as a tool for social mobility, ameliorating existing inequalities?

       I believe, personally, that the answer to this is a resounding YES. Users online are, for the most part, colorless, faceless, and somewhere beyond social class distinctions…of course this opens a new avenue for social and economic mobility. As one of the articles I flipped through suggested, the internet/computer lowers the cost of information, “enhancing the ability of low-income men and women to gain human capital, find and compete for good jobs, and otherwise enhance their life chances.” In the United States, it is already virtually impossible to find someone who absolutely could not access the internet, if they genuinely wanted to. Computers with free internet access are available all over the place, from libraries to schools to randomly placed terminals along the street. Information from all over the globe is free: one just has to have the incentive to go after it. Therein lies the problem, really, that has pagued society from the beginning. You cannot force a person to want an education. As another article I stumbled across informed me, 57% of those without Internet access say they have no intention of attempting to log on. In other words, even if you put a computer with internet access in an adult’s house, the odds are about two to one that they won’t use it . Children, fortunately, accept new ideas and technologies far more readily: give a child a computer and he/she will have few qualms about fiddling with it. Fortunately, I came across several studies that claimed the Digital Divide is actually almost non-existant in American schools: minority students and white now have relatively equal computer access and training in the classroom. I hold out hope that the internet, like the telephone, will…diffuse, as it were, throughout society more and more as time goes by, creating equality of access for children not only at school but also in the home. I believe it’s coming. Most of the articles I read through seemed to agree.

Is the internet completely irrelevant to understanding social stratification?

      No factor to educational inequality is completely irrelevant to understanding social stratification, and the Digital Divide is (depending on who you ask) a very large part of the overall educational divide. Most employers hire, at least partially, based on the degree of technical know-how that a job candidate has, meaning that the Digital Divide is creating inequality of employment opportunities. In addition, the internet is the fastest, broadest source of information currently available…and information is power. Those without computer access naturally do not have as much of an opportunity for attaining information, which (to repeat my earlier statement) reinforces the status quo of power distribution. Those in power have internet access, thus they can more easily obtain information, which means they have a clear advantage and are likely to stay in power until the Digital Divide closes. The Digital Divide is relevant: there’s no denying that. At the moment, from my point of view, it’s just not as relevant as literacy or traditional, generalized education.  

Blog #6 for SOCI Comment on another blog

The paranoia that some parents are beginning to pick up from overstated media coverage of chattroom and myspace crimes is really starting to make me paranoid. That creepy mother of four from the PBS program was a little disturbing: she’s the sort of person I wouldn’t want tracking my activities on the net. I know how to protect myself from online sexual predators. I’m not as sure how to defend against people like this crazy mother, who think they have a moral license to invade your privacy.