Facebook: Profile Privacy

Facebook: Profile Privacy

Facebook is a fast growing social networking site enabling people from all over the globe to set up profiles about themselves and share information with friends. It allows you to have control over the information you put into your profile to share with your friends and also allows you access to other peoples shared information. The social networking culture has taken a new face in communications and we are seeing people of all ages interacting with this technology in a way not seen ever before. Some seem to rely on this form of communication more and more each day, gathering information about other people and sharing more about themselves. Because of the growing success of online social networking people find it too easy to reveal information about themselves that they probably would not reveal to someone they meet on the bus. This freedom of expression is widely acceptable and has caught the attention of hackers and the like providing many doors into our personal information, making their job easier now than it used to be. Our personal information put onto the web can be distributed within seconds by a click of the mouse. It is within that second that the ways in which you conduct ourselves and the measures we take online matters. As the age of online communication is embedded in our everyday lives, we as users need to educate ourselves on exactly what is going on after a click of the mouse is made and who is waiting on the other side for that information about you and what are they doing with it. The way in which the information circulating the networks is handled will be discussed, focusing on the privacy issues of private information put onto a Facebook profile. Facebook’s Privacy Policy as well as their Terms of Use will be examined and suggestions on how to further protect your Facebook profile will be considered.

Information posted by the user as content on their profile is available for Facebook to store and use for other purposes however they see fit, according to Facebook’s Terms of Use (2008):
By posting user content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for nay purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, or in connection with the site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. (p.3)
A user binds into this agreement upon signing up for a profile with Facebook. Although users are all aware of the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy tab to be clicked on signup, many do not bother to read the print inside the links next to the box. This is where the issue of your profile being kept “private” becomes an issue. If the user is not aware of the conditions of using the site they will end up passing their private information onto third parties without even knowing. According to the Terms of Use, Facebook will not pass any of your contact or personal information to Third parties unless you grant them permission to do so. Herein lies the problem and we return back to the user being aware of the conditions of the site. Applications used on Facebook are representative of the Third parties. Once a networker uses one of those applications, their information is then sold to the relevant Third parties, which in turn sends that information to their other connected companies. The networker has all the power to control the information that gets released to unknown people, it is just wether they are prepared to educate themselves about the workings of the Cyber world.

In addition, as soon as personal information; contact details, photos, likes, dislikes; are sold to advertisers and other companies they immediately become a target for phishing attacks. “This all highlights how social networking sites are the latest front in the war against threats of all types” (Hunter, 2008, p.17). These attacks aim at gathering bank account as well as credit card details. An invitation from a friend might come through on the users profile wall requesting them to join the application, cause or become a member of something. The link could be to an unsafe site containing malicious software which then retrieves the information it needs. Control of this is not the responsibility of Facebook (2008):
Such Third party sites and Third party Applications, software or Content are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Third party accessed through the site…. (p.5)

Furnell (2008) conducted an experiment in the United States with 32, 16-17 year olds about their experiences with social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. According to the results 19% said they sent requests to people they didn’t know, 25% said they have received friend requests by people they didn’t know 15% of whom accepted the request. Although this questionnaire was carried out with small percentage of the users on Facebook, it is still an astounding fact that many users, especially teenagers, as at risk of revealing too much information to the wrong people. It is unknown who is sitting at the other end of that profile picture. In the Cyber world we are only who we say we are on the keyboard or screen.

The Privacy Policy of Facebook leaves much up to the networker. Jones & Stoltren (2005) say there are two types of categories user submitted information can be put into; First party information (Personal, basic, professional, contact information, and profile picture) and Third party information subdivided into “My photos” and “Wall”. Facebook default settings are set at all users to view your networks, profile and personal information. According to getsofaonline.org 13% of users post photographs of other people without their consent with 18-24 year olds being 27% of them. Facebook states in their Privacy Policy (2008) that it cannot control what other users do who you choose to share your information with, therefore not guaranteeing that your page will not be viewed by unknown people. Facebook collects information about you from other sources for a more personalised experience. Information of a user on Facebook is used for people to find you, networks to access your profile, information to be sent and received by Facebook by you and customising what is on your page to your preference information collected by Facebook. The spectrum is so broad in regards to the amount of your information that it continuously circulating networks and the site. One Privacy issue that Facebook (2008) has made an effort to control is the results in search engines in regard to a users’ profile. Google, Yahoo! and the like are blocked from searching for keywords within a users’ profile. The search is limited to and does not go beyond the user’s name and profile picture.

The amount of personal information released on Facebook is entirely up to the user and Facebook has provided some powerful control settings. If utilise to its full potential, personal information and transference of information and daily doings on Facebook can and will be fully controlled. Sophos has put together a breakdown of being able to utilise the Facebook privacy settings to their full potential. There are three things a user is able to customize; Profile, Contact information and Application of Profile.

First change to make is who is able to view your profile. As mentioned before, Facebook’s default settings allow everyone in your networks and all your friends to view your profile. Users are recommended to select the “Only my friends” option as this will limit viewing of your profile and what you post onto it, as well as information shared with only the people in the friends list. This option can be further broken down into six other categories, all of which Sophos recommends to customise. Online status should be changed to either the “No one” or the “Only my friends” option. The next change should be status updates. Unless you want everyone in your network to see how you feel today (could be a colleague or employer in one of your networks) this option should be set at “Only my friends”. The third is Friends should only be viewed by people you know so “Only my friends” is selected. Fourth, wall, should be set at “Only friends” because this is the information that pops up on everyone’s profile as an interesting read. If you do not want everyone to know about what you are up to on the weekend with who, then limit it to just your friends. The same option is to be selected for photos and videos tagged. If you do not want people you do not know to see how you behave in your free time then do not show them what does not concern them. Choosing setting options as these will provide you with a much more secure social networking experience minimising the threat of identity theft, malicious sites and revealing too much to strangers.

Facebook’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy both clearly state that Facebook and its company are not responsible for any harm that might come to the user upon the use of the site. Control of the content of the user’s page and the way in which it is used is solely the responsibility of that user, until the user provides permission to Facebook to use the information as specified. However, in releasing control of the information of the profile, Facebook has also clearly stated that all content, i.e. photographs, videos, music etc uploaded onto the site, as soon as they are, they become the property of Facebook and therefore enables them to what ever they please with them. That is the agreement the user agrees to and therein poses the problem. Is it really the issue of Facebook that it does not monitor the safety of information of users and the privacy of that information when signing up alone and wanting to be apart of an online community is the beginning of the user inviting unwanted eyes into their lives, allowing hundreds of people to watch their activities and the progress of their lives. It begins and ends with the user. Responsibility, although morally it is, is not that of Facebook and its site but rather of the person looking to be active in the online world. If users think that being apart of Facebook does not interfere with their physical private lives, we as users, need to make our own decisions on what we deem as private, and then make the appropriate moves to satisfy that decision.



References

Furnell, S. (2008). End-user security culture: A lesson that will never be learnt?. Computer Fraud & Security, 4(2008). Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VNT-4S807WG-F&_user=79777&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2008&_alid=839566690&_rdoc=9&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6187&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=76&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=ea1217227511e800c4f3d1807d28cb76

Hunter, P. (2008). Social networking: the focus for the new threats- and old ones. Computer Fraud & Security, 7(2008). Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VNT-4T3F9B5-D&_user=79777&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2008&_alid=839482795&_rdoc=17&_fmt=high&_orig=mlkt&_cdi=6187&_sort=v&_st=17&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=99&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=4e5d2f42ca4b2fd721fecff711f9f515

Jones, H., Soltren, J. (2005). Facebook: Threats to Privacy. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/student-papers/fall05-papers/facebook.pdf

Facebook. (2008). Facebook: Privacy Policy. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Facebook. (2008). Facebook: Terms of Use. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Sophos. (2008). Sophos recommends: Profile privacy settings. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook-profile.html

1501ART assessment by student

We were also asked to assess the course during the Sumer Semester both through an online assessment as well as on our blogs.

I really did enjoy the course becasue it got me thinking about New Technologies more than I would have had I not been involved in this course. I reaslised how much I do take the new technologies that I use for granted, and do not pay much attention to the main issues that were brought up and discussed in the lectures like privacy online. This is more serious than I thought and of course have now become aware of it and how it can affect my personal life. The course encouraged me to question technology and embrace it at the same time. There are so many great technologies to be involved in, so many ways of communication that are out there that I would not have known about, because of being nieve. Adam had many interesting ideas that he shared with the class, all of which were of value. My understanding of the greater new technology work outside of my computer is all thanks to Adam's successfull attempt to share his knowledge on the subject of the Internet and its' many social, cultural and academic communities.

This is the last day and the Semester has come to an end. I'm glad I too this course and look forward to being involved in many more just like it during my studies as one of my Majors is Digital writing. Thank-you Adam.

Lecture & Tutorial 10

This was the final day ouf the subject and in the Lecture we wrapped up everything, the main outcomes of the topics, what ideas we thought about. It summed up to be that we are taking New Tchnologies for granted becasue it is incresingly all around us but what is going to happen if we stop paying attention to what is really going on with Technology. Our privacy is being questioned and soon can possibly be non existent with hackers growing in numbers and more of our private information bieng splurged onto the internet. Of course this is mostly happening by our own doing but our control of it is becomming questionable. What are we doing with New Technologies in our lives and how are they affecting our social interaction with each other and our personal lives. We also had a quick quiz from the exam questions used in the Semester course. I scored 11/20, which was ok considering that there was no studying involved. Some questions we had no clue about becasue we had not covered them in the lecture but they were actually ok.

During the turorial we didn't have much to cover. We got stuck into our blogs and continued to work on our essays for next week. We also completed an online assessment of the course. Quick and easy.

Tutorial 9: Written task

The literature by Marc Prensky, Emerging online life of the digital native, is a very true representation of what the digital world means to the younger generation now than it does to the older generation. This was an interesting read because it clearly defined what have become the social workings of the “Digital Natives” (Prensky, ) as a norm and acceptable form of communication.

The connection of the facts in this paper are valid to my experiences with New Communication technologies and the Digital world, where it’s involvement in my life has become a daily activity that makes up some of biggest communication with my social network of friends and information gathering. My use of my mobile phone is a good example where, I can access anything on the net, chat with friends, visit Facebook, search for recipes, find maps, look for restaurants close by, play games, make sounds, and check my e-mail; the lists go on. Anything I need to do on a daily basis, I am able to do with my phone including written assignments for University. All at the tip of my fingers without leaving my home for instance. However, obviously in terms of thorough academic research, more access to other resources not available on my phone is needed. This is where, for me, the Digital world has its limits in that not everything you find on the net is a reliable source. Sometimes referring to hard copies of books and journals in the library are the best sources of information. Although according to Prensky’s literature, this fact can be counteracted by dedicated Digital Natives, therefore proving that my age group might be out of that bracket.


Kids quickly realised that “lookism,” that seldom-talked-about but insidious social divider, doesn’t exist at all on the web... (Prensky, 2004). This is a very much realised statement that many Internet users can connect with. On the Internet and our dealings with it we are able to become who we want to become, and the physical dimensions of ourselves are no longer considered. You are able to become who ever you want to become and possibly express yourself more accurately because of that. An example of this it the use of an avatar in a 3D world where you are able to create an image of yourself however you wish to portray yourself. Second Life is the best example of people taking on a new identity through the Internet and are therefore becoming people that they are not in the real world.


Dave Weinberger, author of A New World, takes the angle of social identity on the net from a different angle in that we become different people through the use of the Internet because of the things we do when using it. He refers to searching for products on eBay, bidding on them and coming back to the computer hours later to check on your bid as “returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted” (Weinberger, 2002). We are able to continue our “lives” at our own pace with the use of New Technologies because they are there when we need them, and are only useful to use at our demand. This is unlike our personal lives sans New Technologies, like shopping for groceries, where we are unable to complete half the shopping, leave the half filled trolley in the isle and return back to it the next day and expect it to still be there just where we left it. What we can do in the real world is limited in time to what we can do in the digital world. I shop online and find that I prefer doing so for certain things and I know that this is something that I wouldn’t do in the real world, in a retail store in a shopping centre. There is a freedom one has being active in the digital world that one would not have in the real world. A true and exciting, but also sad, reality of New Technologies and the way we use them to communicate and define who we are.

References:

Prensky, M. (2004). Emerging online life of the digital native. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf

Weinberger, D. (2002). A New World. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.smallpieces.com/content/chapter1.html

Lecture 9: Virtual world

In another interesting elcture we discussed the virtual world versus the real world. Questions were posed about where are we able to draw the line of what is real and what is not. Communication has changed so much in the past centuries, beginning where Aristotal and Plato first identified what was communication. They said it was an exchange of words from one person to the next, information being transported between two people. Now with Technologies the way ot is today with so many virtual world existing, communiaction is no longer just between two people passing on one message. Communication of information is now passing a message onto hundreds of people in one attempt. The virtual world has allowed the real world to be expressed faster and more effectively making the line hard to be defined.

We discussed the films that increasingly base their stories on the future, predicting what it will be like once technology becomes smarter than us. A world run by machines is not far reaching for the world today becasue as it is we dictate most of our everyday lives with the use of computers and machines in one form of another; we rely on them. This is the true reality that we need to face and question whether we want the ideas from the movies of how the future will be to become a reality, where we lose all control of the way we live our lives and are soon so reliant and dictated by technology and it's virtual worlds, forgetting who the human race is really. This is a troubling thought that I presume will get more exposure adn research as technology continues to grow. Will we refer back to Plato's cave in 100 years from now and understand the meaning of his theory?

So much to think about that it almost seems so uncomprehensible to do so.

Lecture & Tutorial 8: Privacy online and making my own short movie

Privacy online was the focus today. We discussed the effects of network neutrality and how it can affect what we can view on the web. It was interesting to find out that the Australian government is looking to filter websites they find inappropriate for the Australian public to view. The thought of the government looking to decide what we can and cannot view on the web is disconcerting because it is then constricting what we take part in in our lives. This is a serious issue that will no doubt upset the majority of the public. The internet was made for everyone to be an open and free network but it would now be controlled by the government. Just another thing that the government feels the need to 'own'. The filtering obviously would be something of worth to children who would then not be exposed to inappropriate things on the internet for them, but in that respect, it should be up to the parents to choose to use a filter in their homes that they government has already provided. We discussed that the education of the parents on shielding children from filth on the internet should be the first attempt. Parents should be brought up to date on what is really happening on the net, and then decide to implement the appropriate filtering in their homes. Everything starts at home. We viewed a video from The Stephen Colbert Show, where the guest was an author of the book The Future of the Internet and the End of it. This book highlights what is happening to the Internet the more technology is able to progress with it eg. iPhone. The more the Internet gets better the more we are unable to control it. What will happen is it keeps on progressing? Machines passing on endless codes to each other and communicating with each other without the command of a person. This is just what's happening now where machines just know what to do without us telling them becasue they are programmed that way. But what will happen when the code they are communicating with each other develops faster than we can control. Something to think about.

In the tutorial we completed out video for YouTube and have published it to the web. I completed mine and added sound to it. It was very exciting. I might just be doing more of these and polishing my skills in movie making.

Lecture &Tutorial 7: Video games and File sharing

Video and File sharing and Peer-to-peer (P2P) was the topic for today’s lecture. We discussed the Video games that we use like arcade games, consoles, computer games, MUD’s and MMOG’s. We were asked questions like why do we play games and what are video games. I have dabbled in a few video games and will only really give a time of day to racing games as well as shooting games, nothing with too much thinking required. The academic viewpoint on video games is what do video games do to people? Does playing a violent game alter the way a person thinks after playing it? Is the persistence affect valid? An example of this would be playing need for speed and then getting into your car and wanting to race on the road. An interesting concept which I personally think is valid and does have an effect on people. Video games have now become a cultural activity; they are in every household in every form.

Narratology is the study of Narratives in a video game. Some video games tell a story and this is what is studied as literary works. The alternative of this is Ludology which says there are no stories to video games.

We watched a video called Steal this film which can be found at Google. This film was interesting because it highlighted the viewpoints of copyright laws and pirating. Copying is the reason for our existence like babies copying their parents to learn how to speak and people in life copy each other. That is what makes up how people communicate. Suspending copying would only encourage new technologies to be developed to over come current suppression and so it continues.

The task for the tutorial was to make a short movie using photographs we have taken ourselves and post it onto YouTube. I have not ever done something like this so it was exciting and I’m interested to see what the end product will be.

Lecture 6: Free and Open software

Free and Open source software was the topic covered today. We first identified the common programs we use daily on our home computers such as; Internet Explorer, McAfee, Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, MSN messenger, iTunes, Windows etc. These programs are routinely used for what ever it is we are doing on the computer at the time. They are all examples of non-Free software. Source codes are instructions for the computer to be able to make the programs work. Software used to be free and was open to anyone who wanted to use it. It was available to be shared amongst the community and open to be contributed to. This enabled people to share code and programs freely with each other and not worry about the legal issues. This was likened to a ‘recipe’ shared amongst friends where you could change an ingredient in the recipe to best suit your taste. This soon changed when software became commercialised, which meant that it was now illegal to alter, change or share software to suit yourself. Microsoft started the train of commercialising their software and soon saw a following of other companies doing the same.

This move is what encouraged the founding of the Free Software Foundation in 1981 by Richard Stallman. His aim was to create and develop a Unix-like free operating system from software that was already free therefore GNU (Gnu Not Unix) was made. This is known as the Free Software Movement. Richard Stallman developed the concept of the 4 Freedoms: Freedom Zero (Help us: Run program for any use), Freedom One (Help self: Study how programs work), Freedom Two (Help neighbour: Redistribution of copies), Freedom Three (Help community: Improve program and release it to the public). Freedom Three is only valid if you have studies the software and understand how it works as the soft ware is still licensed but is free.

The word ‘Open’ has now replaced ‘Free’ in describing the way in which is it used. Open is not always free. Open source is also used by businesses: they buy the software and are then able to customize it for their business therefore it is open but not free. FOSS is Free/Open source software. This is where the two types of software can be differentiated. Proprietary software is closed software such as Windows Vista, source code is confidential, development made by company employees, finished software product sold, traditional software production. Open source software like Linux and Fire Fox is free and available to everyone, under limited-rights licence, development by community, produsage software, money made from providing a service for software like training on how to use it.

Tutorial 6: 3D worlds

Today's tutorial was an introduction to Second Life. We had to dive in and create an avatar. It was interesting but I personally would not make a 3D world become apart of my world. The graphics aren't even that good, the functions look annoying and there is too much to do when signing up as well as when trying to get your avatar to do something. Not a fan and wont be a fan anytime soon. But it was very interesting never the less that there is a world within a world that consumes so many people.

Lecture 5: MyFace

A guest speaker came in to visit us for today’s lecture just to discuss what type of Social networks we used. We also watched a movie called “MyFace” from the abc website from that featured on the Triple J’s The Hack Half Hour. People sit and have a discussion on the relevant topics at hand and MySpace was the hot topic. Everyone in the discussion was involved in some sort of online social networking or activities and all came with their views and experiences. The key issue was privacy and what we as users of these online communities post and are willing to expose about ourselves. Hackers are always online and in the sites that are most common for people to open a portal into their lives for the hackers to devour them. A very interesting topic because it is very relevant to everyone. Most of us are very consumed by these online networks and do not pay much attention to what could be happening behind the scenes in the 'cyber' world where all our personal information is floating and could be captured by anyone. My eyes are open and I am nowe going to pay more attention.

Lecture 4 - New media, Internet studies and Cyberculture studies

Today’s lecture started with us matching a movie called EPIC 2014. What happened to the news and what is EPIC? EPIC is the Evolving Personalising Information Consult. The movie focused on what would happen if Google developed more and took over the media and ways for people to get the news other than from the current news mediums. It was interesting in that it gave us an insight to just what the Internet is capable of accomplishing. Would Google look to customize news stories for each individual user by taking snippets of news from various sources and compiling them in a ‘news article’ personalised for that user. The question of Copyright law infringements were raised and would be a very big issue if Google were to venture with Amazon and explore such personalised options. This is a short movie to make you think. It made me think.

The main topics in the lecture were new media, Internet studies and cyberculture studies. Popular cyberculture studies started when people started to see the Internet as a magical thing, something that was new and exciting and a privilege, therefore began to call it ‘THE Internet’. General cyberculture studies started when people had been hanging on the net and now began to study it, academics became interested in what the Internet was able to do. Critical cyberculture studies are the current focus and people are now able to engage with other people. It explores and examines stories we engage in using the Internet with Interactive activities and new technologies; for example, the use of our mobile phones. Therefore narratives about our experiences have encouraged other people to explore what we are talking about and therefore enlarging our experiences. It also analyses political, social as well as economic considerations that make access to these activities possible. The way we interact with the Internet has a great impact on what we can do on it and how we can use it to its full potential.

Tutorial 4 - Task 2: Searching the Internet

Search engines sort through the most relevant web pages upon request using a set of rules called algorithms. They also use the location/frequency methods which find the closest keywords and phrases relevant to the search. The most relevant is placed at the top of the list of web pages and the developers of the websites can pay to put their sites at the top of the list so it seems to the viewer to be more relevant and entice more people to their sites. My favourite search engines are Google and Yahoo. I like the extra links they have at the side of the search pages. Sometimes I find what I’m looking for in them rather than the searched websites.

Tutorial 4 - Task 1: Using a search engine other than Google or Wkikipedia

The creator of the Love bug was Onel de Guzman. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/computing/06/29/philippines.lovebug.02/index.html

The world record of the largest watermelon is 262.6 pounds. http://www.hopechamberofcommerce.com/melon_heritage.htm

The Ebola virus was names after the river in the African country, Zaire called Ebola. http://ebola.emedtv.com/ebola-virus/from-what-place-did-the-ebola-virus-get-its-name.html

The largest recorded earthquake in the world was measured in Chile with a magnitude of 9.5 (Mw) in May 22, 1960. http://www.earthquake.usgs.gov/learning/facts.php

There are 1,073,741,824 KiloBytes in a TeraByte.
http://www.wizbit.net/cd-dvd_production_faqs_what_is_a_terabyte.htm

The ‘Storm Worm’ arrived in Spam email or in the form of e-cards with very interesting subject headings. It was a malicious payload that attacked any windows-based platforms.
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/storm.asp
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/security/soa/Resurgent-Storm-worm-attacks-over-Web/0,130061744,339281298,00.htm

This is the only way to contact the Prime Minister:
The Hon Kevin Rudd MPPrime MinisterParliament HouseCANBERRA ACT 2600
http://www.pm.gov.au/contact/index.cfm

Stephen Stockwell is a member of the Brisbane group Black Assassin.
http://live-wirez.gu.edu.au/Staff/Stephen/default.html

Web 2.0 is a platform for a network providing software continuously getting better with the more people interact with it. It enables people to remix and create data shared from other users. It creates an exciting user experience. Examples of this are Facebook and Twitter.
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web-20-compact-definition.html

Lecture 3 - History of the Internet

Today's lecture was covering the Internet and it's history. Before the concept of the Internet was even thought of, Charles Babbage started looking to develop the calculator. With the help of his close friend, Ada Byron who was the first computer programmer, they came up with ideas of how to get the abacus calculator to work. This was the first example of a machine that could count. We also discussed Gordon Moore, who developed Moore's Law which states that microchips capacities will double every two years. This concept has obviously changed somewhat with the rapid development of technology and computers becoming more advanced. Computers were first commercially produced in the 1950's by IBM.

Xerox PARC developed the mouse concept as well as the pull down menus and the GUI (Graphical User Interface). In 1975 the first PC, called O, was released to the public. BASIC for Altair was developed by Bill Gates which were languages for basic accounting, some games and word processor. He then started the company Microsoft in his garage. We then discussed the development of Apple and it's role in the progressiveness of computers. Apple was developed by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the first primitive Apple computer was sold for just $666.60. Apple continued to battle with IBM and Microsoft for control over the industry, initially with great success but they soon hit a down fall with Steve Jobs leaving the company. His return years later prompted Apples rise to success once again and there they still remain.

The Internet is a network of interconnecting computers, a network of networks. which was started by the RAND corporation who came up with the idea initially to transfer academic material from one source (computer) to another. This was the reason why Internet was needed.

We then watched a movie on YouTube called "Warriors of the net" which was very entertaining. It just animated what happens when packets of information are transferred from one computer to the next. The steps of the Internet process were explained in a simplistic way which made the broad picture easier to understand.

Early Internet applications were also touched on, mentioning the E-mail, FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and the IRC (Internet Relay Chat).

Tutorial 3 - Wikipedia articles

The task today was to get to know Wikipedia and search two topics using Wikipedia and determine whether the information was accurate, can you understand the topic and does it follow the Wikipedia guidelines.

The first topic I looked up was on South Africa. I found this topic very detailed and easy to follow and understand. The information is factual and relevant to the topic. I did not find any errors in the information nor did I find the information to be biased towards any one side of the country's history. Considering the shaky history of South Africa this is a very good thing. The people who have contributed to the article have fused together all the fundamentals of what South Africa is all about and how it got to where it is. However, in looking in the History tab of the Wikipedia page to see what changes had been made to the article, I did come across what I thought was a funny substitute in place for another word. Having said that it was offensive to who ever the statement was applied to. This change was obviously made as a joke and is a good example of what someone is able to do when using Wikipedia. Any changes could be made to any topic and if you were none the wiser you could just take it for fact, so don't. The people who edited this article did not follow the Wikipedia guidelines.

The second topic I searched was an article on Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa. This article was accurate and gave me what I was looking for but there were so many spelling mistakes. It was obvious to me that an Afrikaans speaking person had added the article and was not proficient in their English spelling. Other than that it does follow the Wikipedia guidelines.

Lecture 2- Social networking and identity : Part 1 and 2

Part: 1

A researcher on the Gothic subculture, Paul Hodgkinson, came in today to give a lecture on the role of social networking in the social identity. He talked about social networks where people are able to connect themselves with friends from different walks of lives and different places in the world. The use of Facebook has become a huge tool in people being able to take their private lives onto the web and share the everyday lives with other people.

I found this topic very interesting in that Paul touched on some topics and view points that I hadn’t thought about. The idea that online social networks are likened to the bedroom and the way in which we perceive our privacy and private lives. He focused on the generations of girls using their bedroom as a place where they find out who they are, develop their identities by experimenting with clothes, shoes, make-up and all the things that girls do. Before the use of Facebook and Myspace, the private space of a girl was in her bedroom where she could decide on who comes in or not, girls were not permitted to go out as much, if any, as boys were and so their room became their social playground. Now with technology, social networks have become the bedroom in which people are choosing who they want into their friend networks (bedroom) and choosing how they define their identity through posting their pictures on their profiles as they would put photographs on their walls in their bedrooms. I found this likeness very interesting because it’s true. With technology growing, it’s hard to define what you see as private. Is your profile really private, the conversations you have with your friends in your profile, as you would have the conversation behind closed doors. There is a moral question here of where do we each individually decide what we think or perceive as private and make the relevant decision to allow such a great amount of people and the social network itself into your bedroom and be apart of your life in much more a way than you would if the social site didn’t exist.

This lecture was really interesting and gave me another view point to consider in respect to social networks and their current roles in our lives.

Part 2:

As technology grows and changes, so does societies need to keep up. The result of this is us changing the way we do things like communicate with friends, colleagues and keep ourselves informed with what is going on in the world.

I personally have fallen victim to the use of Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. Even though I have set up accounts with all three, I find that I really don’t utilise them as much as others do. Although I do communicate with people I know in these networks I have not interacted with people I have never met before. That, I suppose, is a personal choice as I have never been interested to do so. It is too easy to be apart of an impersonal world making technology and your computer be your voice, where you can say anything to anyone and really not be accountable for it because for one, the person has never met you and who are you really at the end of that interaction. It is a different story when you know the person that you are communicating with because they know weather what you are saying about yourself and your thoughts is true or not, to a certain extent because of the ‘I know you’ factor. Making friends with a stranger, on the other hand, is a different story in that the difference in the way you would communicate with them would be different to the way you would communicate with your friends. You have a license to be who you want to be and say what you want to say with a stranger. Especially with the private inbox mail, it has no limitations.

After having said that, Communication’s ever increasing technologies have aided me a hugely in being able to communicate with my family and friends back home. Things like being able to get a picture delivered to my mobile from a moment that I am missing out on at home, and being able to appreciate that moment as if I were there. The Mobile phone technologies have made it simple to be in contact as the most intimate moments even though thousands of kilometres separate the two individuals. That is a communication technology that I would not be able to live without. I appreciate that growth in new communication technologies much more than I do for the other forms like Facebook and MySpace. It just makes life more tactile and real. Who knows what’s real on the net these days.

Realistic communications also come into play with the security of communication technologies, where you could be laying out your utter most private details (hopefully not credit card details) to that close friend whom you know would never tell your secrets, but who else is really listening. You just don’t know where your information is being replayed to on what server in which country. That si probably a fear that we all have to live with these days because it is in everything we do. Every form of communication we make is in jeopardy of not being private. It makes it all to complicated to even be apart of because of the full time awareness you have to be paying to what is going on. A mobile is not even safe with a simple mistake as leaving your Bluetooth on. I think people’s awareness of their privacy issues will soon become a conditioned motion to secure what ever communication technology it is you are using at that time. At the moment I find myself having to remind myself to check that what I think is private is really private and not open to a whole network of cyber hungry people. A technology grows, so will our conditioning grow and change as does our conditioning in society grow and change as the world changes.

Lecture 1 - Introduction to what is Communication and Technology

An introduction to how new technology allows us to communicate and how we use them was discussed in the first kecture. This introduction really got me thinking about how I am influenced by and rely on technology everyday.

Networks such as Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, Tagged and Youtube allow people to communicate with each other instantaneously and become many household newtworks. I enjoy the use of Facebook for keeping in contact with my family and friends overseas. It is free, fun and cuts down on my phone bills. But in saying that, I rely on this network to keep my communication open with my feinds and family and now that I have it, I am comforatble using it and therefore the verbal aspect of communication is compromised. Other technologies such as Mobile phones, email, weblogs, IM's are easily accessible and I find it interesting how people have adopted these means of communication and find life without them unliveable. This is a sad reality, not for me but for many people.

The world is changing and technology's advances are overtaking our ability to keep up with all the changes. What do we do when life is all about technology and the ways in which me communicate with it.

Web logs have also become strong forms of media and news streaming. Online weblog 'journalists' are causing controversy in whether what they are doing is actually delivering fact and not just heresay. Because anyone can deliver what they think is news online, the question of what exactly are we ready online. Is the information we are taking in fact? What are the references of the information source and how can we confirm. These are questions I consider asking when dealing with information on the net.

This course seems like it is going to be interesting and I am sure that what I will learn will be relevant to my life and where I play a role in New communication technologies.