Assignment # 12 - Fight For Internet Freedom

Up until this weeks assignment I had never heard the phrase network neutrality or have any clue as to what it is, so I was eager to find out what it is and what the debate over it is all about. Wikipedia vaguely refers to network neutrality as a principle that is applied to residential broadband networks, and potentially to all networks. What I think this means is that Internet users should be able to view any site they choose without limitations from their service provider. Under the current Telecommunications Act the bill states that certain classes of Internet providers "may not unreasonably" restrict applications or services, but there is no definition as to what "unreasonable" is. This reminds me of the video we watched in class on how the Chinese government patrols and polices the Internet so nothing bad is said about their government or nothing unwanted is leaked outside of the country and if Tiananmen Square of Tank Man is searched nice photos of the scenery are shown, not that massacre that took place there 17 years ago.

The current debate over network neutrality is whether to keep the Internet Service Providers (ISP'S) from discriminating between content. The net neutrality debate pits online computer services against a coalition of telephone utilities, telecommunications, and cable distributors-the companies that provide the content versus those that transmit it. The alliance opposed to the legislation includes AT&T Inc., BellSouth Corp., Verizon Communications, Comcast Corp., and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association; they advocate for a competitive Internet with minimal regulation. The list of active player in favor of network neutrality legislation includes Microsoft, Yahoo!, eBay Inc., Amazon.com, and Google Inc. (Source).

Whose interests are at stake are our own. The cable and phone companies who think they own the lines of communication are looking to pit companies like Google and Yahoo against each other for whose page loads faster and charge you a hefty price for what they consider a "better" Internet and for those of us who can not afford to pay they will have to take the scenic route and have much longer wait times for the pages to load. The ISP's, phone companies and corporate giants become a "gatekeeper" of sorts and are not interested in what is best for the consumer, they are interested in revenue and where their web site ranks. They are only interested in how their company is doing and taking out all of the small businesses that they can to increase their bottom line.

I support network neutrality because the Internet should be a level playing field for every voice out there to be heard no matter what their financial status, every e-mail should be read, every instant message should be answered and ever blog should get a comment. Just like us in our class, we are only college students that people otherwise wouldn't take seriously but in our blog we have a place to express our thought and feelings on the topic at hand each week, and get just as much respect for it as anyone else blogging. Without network neutrality you might not be able to read this because it could be blocked because it is something that a company may not want you to see. We should be able to go where we want on the Internet and see what we want to see by our own choice, not someone else's. Network neutrality is an important issue and after doing this assignment I'm glad I know more about how crucial it is to everyone.

Assignment # 11 - Virtually Not Reality

According to Wikipedia a virtual world (or sometimes a synthetic economy) is a computer based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. However when these avatars start making transaction using "real" money another form of virtual economy is formed. "Open" virtual economies vs. "closed" virtual economies. Second Life is an "open" virtual economy that encourages the flow of "real" money however World of Warcraft, or WoW, is a "closed" virtual economy and does not allow for the exchange of money. Is one of these economies better than another, is one more fun to play then another? That all depends on who is playing the game and how much they are willing to risk and invest in it.

Investing real money in these type of "open" virtual economies can sometimes have its drawbacks. From Dibbell's The Unreal Estate Boom, even though you can plunk down $750 dollars to buy a nine room, three story house over looking the ocean, you can still never actually go there, because it is imaginary. So why bother investing in something you can never touch? People are looking for a quick buck, but getting greatly disappointed. In the virtual worlds there are banks promising extremely huge returns. A lot of the online worlds trap people into what is known as a Ponzi scheme, or pyramid scheme. Wikipedia defines Ponzi Scheme as a fraudulent investment operation that involves paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. The system is doomed to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. A recent example of this would be that in August 2007, a bank in Second Life called Ginko Financial claimed that it could give returns of 40% to 60%, collapsed and gone insolvent with debts of $750,000. Some residents have lost amounts of almost 10,000 in the scheme. On their web site they explain that they have exhausted all of their funds and are trying to find ways to pay back their customers.

People get involved in these schemes and find it hard to get out. Perhaps this is why WoW has chose to be a "closed" virtual economy so they do no have to deal with all the problems that arise from having to deal with "real" money. Maybe all that hassle could be avoided by not being frivolous with their had earned money, by trying to buy thing that in all honesty really do not exist. I don't really get the whole concept of playing virtual reality games and stuff, I know my brother is a freak for Halo 3 on his Xbox 360. He sits there for hours with his head set on yelling at little kids around the world, I personally just don't get what all the hype is about. But the main point in all of this is be careful with your money and who you trust it with and dont get into something that you cant get yourself out of.

Assignment # 10 - Lead Poisoning Is Bad

The old saying, "Did you eat paint chips as a kid?" no longer seems that funny. According to MayoClinic.com lead poisoning is a result of exposure to lead in the environment. Although lead is no longer used in paints, gasoline, water pipes and other products, some lead-based products still exist and may pose a health hazard. In addition, much lead remains in the environment years after its initial use. Children are particularly susceptible to the effects of lead poisoning. Children are more susceptible to lead poisoning because lead can accumulate in their nervous system as they grow and develop. Death by lead poisoning is uncommon, but dangerous levels of lead in children may cause serious health problems, including lower intelligence and poor school performance.

The threat of lead poisoning lately seems to be on an alarming increase. In a recent front page article in the October 29th issue of the USA Today the cover story read "For many kids, lead threat is right in their own homes." The article covers a number of topics including the threat to the elderly and its connection to crime. USA Today states that after the U.S. government banned lead pain in 1978, and the U.S. oil companies began phasing out leaded gasoline in 1975. Since then, the percentage of children with high levels of lead in their blood has plummeted from 88% in the 1970's to 1.6% in 2005. However nearly three decades after the paint ban, hundreds of thousands of children - most of them under 6 - show signs of lead exposure. The American Academy of Pediatrics estimates that one in four children live in housing with deteriorating lead paint, part of a toxic legacy from generation past when less was known about the dangers of such substances. But could this be the main problem, could old chipping paint be the reason hundreds of thousands of children are getting sick? Just recently we found out that the answer to that question is no.

CNN.com ran an article titled "Fisher-Price recalls 1M toys". CNN.com wrote "Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys -- including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora, and Diego, characters -- because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead. The world wide recall involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August."

The two articles are both well written and stress the importance of prevention and avoiding lead products. The USA Today talks about having lead in the home by discussing the actual home, including old lead pipes, older windows and lead paint. Although these home improvements could be pricey it is a necessary upgrade to keeping your family safe. On the other hand, CNN.com points out that having lead in the home can not just include your house, but the toys that your children are playing with in that house.

The newspaper article differs from the online article because of the point of view they took. The newspaper seems to be trying to put blame on people for their own misfortune, stating that "poor and minority children in big cities are amongst those hardest hit" also claiming that they could not afford the lead removal or to replace the old windows. The online article however, place the blame for the children getting sick directly on the parent company of Fisher-Price, Mattel Inc. Also stating, "Anytime a company brings a banned hazardous product into the U.S. marketplace, especially one intended for children, it is unacceptable," said Nancy Nord, acting chair of the Consumer Product Safety Commission." The two articles differ in many ways but are also very similar, but the main point of them and the only point that matters is the prevention of lead poisoning.

Assignment # 9 - You Don't Gotta Get All Political

After a few days of scouring the Internet trying to find someone or something political attached to buffalo bloggers, I stumbled across the web page of Political Class Dismissed: The Blog. The site is run by Jim Ostrowski who is a lawyer, writer, founder and President of Free Buffalo (Free New York Inc.). He currently lives in Buffalo with his wife and two children, his e-mail address is jameso@apollo3.com. His first post was on Wednesday December 7, 2005. According to Technorati the rank for this website is 731,678, whatever that means. On his site I found the Mission link especially straight forward, informative and truthful, especially the last line, "I learned about politics the hard way. I earned a Ph.D in anti-politics from the School of Hard Knocks."

The tone of this blog tends to lean towards the Republican party favoring Ron Paul and Russ Thompson. The site is well laid out and easy to read with many informative video clips, and lots of comments from other people making in interesting debate to keep an eye on. Reading peoples' comments and their opposing views and thoughts keeps you interested, such as this post. The page has a long list of links to take you to related places as well as a few advertisements on the right hand side.

After reading "Does the Internet create Democracy?" by Alinta Thornton and the asking myself," How are blogs affecting local politics?" I came to the conclusion that blogs are having a huge effect on local politics. By being able to put possible candidates and their views online has a major effect the younger votes and allows them to get to know a candidate better then just what they hear from the news and their fights in debates. Local politicians can get involved in the community and stay in touch with what is going on around them and the cities they are supposed to be governing. For me personally going out to vote is not usually on the top of my list of things to do, but if online voting was an option, since us students are online constantly, it would be something that I would definitely be more likely to do. As Thornton stated in her paper, " The USA has run several trials to test the viability of online voting. Arizona trialled it in the June 2000 primary elections and found that participation rose by 600%, with 40,000 voters, 80% of the total, voting online." This shows that making voting more accessible for some people could help increase voter turnout by quite a bit.

I am not really into politics but after doing this blog and studying Jim Ostrowski's web site I have come to realize that whether I know it or not, politics are playing a big role in our everyday lives, and have a new found respect for how much time, money and effort that they put into their campaign. In the future I can absolutely see online voting as a viable option, as well as candidates focusing more on technology to reach untapped markets.

Assignment # 8 - W.A.R. - Web Application Review

For the assignment I chose to review a very popular photograph website called Flickr. Flickr can be found online at http://www.flickr.com. Their are two main functions of this site, one is to help people save and organize their photographs and the other is to help make their pictures easily accessible to people who matter to them.

The look of the website is very clean and simple making using it a breeze. On the main page there are only a few, but just enough, options making this web site very user friendly. The options are Create An Account, for new users looking to upload pictures, the Share & Stay In Touch link discuses the topics of groups and even covers the hassles of privacy, by showing the levels of privacy, including Public, anyone can join, Public, invitation only, and Private, that you can apply to your account. The Upload & Organize link describes the five ways you are able to upload you pictures to your account, the Make Stuff tab shows you how to make an array of things from your pictures you have up loaded, you can make everything from photo books to postage stamps. The Explore link allows you to search the most interesting photos from that day one year ago, you can also explore Flickr through Tags, and for the beginner there is even a our that you can take which will take you step by step through the whole Flickr process.

The social aspects of Flickr are huge, they can bring other people into the lives of other with just a click of the mouse, someone could look at another persons entire wedding album or of their vacation to Cancun. Flickr even has a blog where people with shared interests or photos can get together to discuss them and show them off to each other. Keeping families and friends in touch is another social aspect that Flickr has to offer.

I think this site is very beneficial to people even if they just want to start getting their photographs organized, we all have that box full of old photos all mixed up with no dates on them to remember them by. This is a way to keep all of those memories right where you know they are, and you can even show off you skills to other people if you chose to. this site is interesting because you can find literally anything you want to search for, there are photographs of everything you can imagine and they are all right at your finger tips. You can keep in touch with loved one who are far away, make different things our of your pictures, just let your creativity flow. I think this site is very interesting useful, and beneficial, check out this photo that I thought was pretty neat.

Assignment #7 - Community...Not For Me.

Personally I really don't belong to many groups completely mediated by the Internet. I have a screen name and e-mail through AOL, our blog we use in 125, i have my e-mail address here at school and other then that I have a Facebook account but I rarely use it, so for me this is probably the toughest blog yet. I'm not into online gambling or playing fantasy football, i don't shop online anymore, because of a bad experience, and I definitely don't go online dating. I guess I just never really got into the whole Myspace, Facebook hype. To me they just always seemed like more trouble then they were worth.

Wikipedia defines community as a group of organisms sharing an environment, normally with shared interests. For me I've always thought of community more along the lines of the physical relationships in your life, not the virtual ones. The ties that are formed between people who share the same interests can become very strong and trusting over time, no matter what realm you are in. Over the Internet you can be whoever you want to be and like anything you want, but in real life, face-to-face interactions it is easier to tell if someone is just going through the motions or if the are really passionate about what they are talking about.

To me this is a community




Not this




I believe that a community can encompass anyone from anywhere as long as they have the same interests, even though an online community can have fake people or information is can still in its own way have bonds between members that can be very strong and meaningful. Just as in real life is someone lies or becomes untrustworthy the group can shun them and it can take a long time to regain that trust. Some communities people might be familiar with can be anything from the church you go to, to boy scouts or brownies, even to AA class. Having similar interests can give people a sense of pride and helps them to feel needed, loved and connected.

Something that I do receive on a regular basis are e-mails due to the communications departments' listserve, or electronic mailing list. Just about every day, or even sometimes two or three times a day I get an e-mail from Janeen Wilder, to help me keep up on the most important things we need to know about whats going on in our department, including the most recent one on force forms. Even though I sometimes receive an e-mail that doesn't pertain to me specifically I still receive it because I am on the communications departments' listserve. Wikipedia defines listserve as a type of Internet forum, as a special usage of e-mail that allows for widespread distribution of information to many Internet users.

No matter what your definition of community is or what part of your life you relate it to you there are still ties that can connect us all together, be it blood lines or a DSL line. For me personally I'm not much of an online junkie, id rather sit around with friends of family in person instead of doing it through a computer screen, but for other people they may feel more comfortably that way. Either way you do it the connections we have with others are strong and important to us, a sense of community is a good thing, real or virtual.

Assignment #6 - Identity... Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

In the online community you can never really be sure who you are talking to. Anyone can say they are who ever they want. Just last night I was watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, in the movie Jim Carey, Ace, is on the case to find the missing Miami Dolphin's mascot, Snowflake. Along the was he finds out that the old punter for the Dolphins, Ray Finkle, has taken on the identity as the detective for the local police department, Lois Einhorn.



This started to make me think, if a man could pose as a woman in front of officers and not get discovered, then doing it online to a total stranger, behind their back must be a cake walk. (And yes I do realize its just a movie.) Wikipedia defines online identity as a social identity that network users establish in online communities. Now more than ever people are coming up with aliases to either conceal or reveal themselves in the online world. For many people their online reputation is as important or in extreme cases more important than their real life reputation.

People identify themselves online either through AIM or MSN with a screen name, just as I do. The name they chose can consist of numbers, letters or a combination of the both. When picking a screen name it is important to think about the people who are going to be talking, not just today but in the future. Your screen name is your first impression made on the Internet. Most people tend to choose a nick name they have had all their life or perhaps a hobby that they have, followed by some numbers, either their birth date or maybe their lucky number. Choosing the wrong name though can give predators the wrong idea, and really, who wants to be known of as SeXXXyMama69 or PimpDaDDyLuVa when their 30?

Keeping your identity safe can be tough when it is so easy for someone to create an account just like that. Say for instance you have a screen name in it with the letter "l" or the number one, with out any trouble a thief can make a name that emulates yours exactly. Take the name GoalieGirl, by replacing the number one for the letter l's the screen name is now being run by someone else but looks exactly that same as yours. Another thing thieves do is copy your font and the color or pick the same avatar as you. An avatar is a small icon-sized graphic image (Source). Just like that your reputation could be ruined and this person can say and whatever they want while posing as you.

As I mentioned an online identity that I am familiar with are screen names. I don't go on AIM much anymore so when people IM me they usually say "is that really you?", checking that I am who I say I am because they rarely see me online. If out of the blue they started seeing my screen name online 24/7 they would probably be a little suspicious and call me to see if it really was me online all day. Your reputation is based on the fact that you give out accurate information, and in return you expect the same from others. After a while of interaction has occurred and a feeling of reliability is placed on that person the trust can grow and so can that persons' reputation. Although it can take days, weeks, or even months to build to that level of trust, once it has been broken or damaged, it is almost impossible to gain that trust back again, no matter what length of time. "As users, our burden is one of trust, and there's little precedent for awarding it" (Source).

As I mentioned in my last blog I like using Firefox and would recommend other people use it above Internet Explorer or Netscape because when you are on a secure web site the address box turns yellow. That little option can save you a lot of hassle and help to further protect you identity online. People tend to trust web sites and to believe everything they read. If a web page looks good people may believe it is okay to give out a credit card number or their social security number, but in most cases this isn't a good idea. Fancy writing and animation can influence a persons better judgment into thinking it is a secure web site. "Three primary trust factors surfaced...good content, simple design and few grammatical errors. ...trusted web sites are content driven... (Source).

In the end you never really can tell who you are talking to, you can never be to safe when if comes to protecting your identity online. There's a good chance that you have or will have an encounter with some shady people online, and no I don't mean Slim Shady, I mean people who are out there for monetary gains, and they could care less who they hurt in the process.