Check this out.

http://www.collegehumor.com/article:1723083

I'm going to write a post on it next week. The paragraph reminded me of the RL comments in out book.

Internet Subculture

So there are many internet "sub-culture" WoW, eBay, Facebook, MySpace, Xanga, even blogger, basically any website that has some kind of following could be called a sub-culture of the internet as a whole. What I want to talk about is YouTube. YouTube took off like a rocket. It's incredible and consumes a good amount of my day on a regular basis. I was wondering how you feel about YouTube or other internet sub-cultures. What is your favorite online culture or website. Also, I wanted to shamelessly plug my facebook group for Essential YouTube.

http://american.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2250146219

another example of online living.

PRESENTATION: Securing Intellectual Property

Ok, so, Protecting Intellectual Property Online.

What is intellectual property?
Intellectual property is basically anything original that someone creates on their own. A book, a song, a theory. As defined by American Heritage dictionary, it's " A product of the intellect that has commercial value, including copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideational property, such as patents, appellations of origin, business methods, and industrial processes. " or even simpler put by dictionary.com "property that results from original creative thought, as patents, copyright material, and trademarks."
So for example in reality and what I will be talking about mostly is digital music, motion pictures, tv shows, music videos, and important creative documents such as books.

With today's technology music and movies are only a click or so away. iTunes, MP3.com, allow for users to get new music in seconds while Amazon, iTunes and others now have downloadable movies, even the companies Jiggerbug.com, Movielink (and one other I can't remember but have seen commercials for) have downloadable rentals. But how do you keep these things safe? How do you keep people from buying it, then passing it on for free? Or even copying it and calling it there own. The honest answer is you can't. "Where there's a will, there's a way." Since recording off the radio, illegal mix tapes, bootlegged CDs and movies, DVD duplication. There is always a way around it. Sometimes it might take the bootleggers and hackers a bit longer to crack the encryptions, but given time, anything is possible. However, lets side step reality and all this cynicism and take a look at what is trying to be done to protect intellectual property online.

DRM

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It is a term that is used to describe any protection software/encryption that protects digital property/media. For example, one of the biggest and "widely" used (only used on iTunes, however iTunes has over 70% market share of digital online music distribution) is FairPlay. FairPlay is Apple's proprietary music protection software. Currently it is attached to every song file distributed from iTunes. There is much debate about DRM (which I will get to shortly) however, applying this encryption to the songs is the only way music companies allow Apple to distribute their music. What FairPlay does to protect the music is that it only allows the song its attached to to be played on the computer it was downloaded on, and up to 4 other computers, (5 at once total). You can authorize and de-authorize computers as much as you want, but never more than 5 computers at a time can have the song unlocked. You are also allowed to put it on unlimited iPods. (Apple.com)

Now this is all great and good, the problem arises in smart people with a lot of free time - (S. Jobs, Apple.com). As I mentioned before, where there is a will, there is a way and plenty of people are constantly cracking the every updated FairPlay encryption. This then allows users to freely redistribute the technically now "stolen" music. This is pretty much the same as renting a movie from the store, making a copy of it then copying it for all your friends. Now, what's stopping you from doing that with a cd at the store? Nothing. That's where the controversy comes into play.

Ok so, take this into consideration. LEGAL DRM protected Online music distribution accounts for only 10% of music sales/distrubution by the Big Four (Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner) Music companies. Meanwhile, these same companies distribute over 20 billion songs (yearly) in the form of unprotected CDs at stores world wide. That means that if you into a Best Buy, FYE or whatever and get a CD you can rip it to your computer and share it with whoever you want without any super 1337 computer h4x0r skills. So what is the point of protecting a measly 2 billion songs that will just get unlocked anyway? I really don't know, it seems like its a giant waste of time and money, Steve Jobs thinks so too."Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly." (http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/).
I'm interested to hear what you think about DRM.

Anyway onto movies.
It's pretty much the same for movies, as far as cracking and distribution. However most movies sold in stores do have multiple DRM and Analog rights management security measures in place. For example, a measure know as Macrovision. This is an encoding found on most Warner and Universal films. This technology prevents users from dubbing copies of the DVDs onto VHS or other external DVD players. If the dvd is being run through a typical commercial/personal VCR (like say you have a dvd player hooked up to another DVD-R or VCR device) the recording device will experience a kind of interference, most commonly such as the picture getting brighter and darker randomly, this mostly just really annoying. The most common, everyday occurrence you might have experienced with this is if you have your XBOX or Playstation hooked up to your TV through a VCR and try to play a movie on the console. The VCR or other device cannot correctly decode the already decoded signal because it still has an underlying uncoded signal i it that serves as interference for auxiliary devices. Macrovision, however, can easily be conquered with a macrovision defeater, kind of like a black box. They are legal and easily available to those who want them, therefore the technology is fairly weak. Some VCRs are even absent of Macrovision chips or have built in defeaters (you wont find which models have or dont have them publish anywhere) but this makes it even less of an issue.
This technology also prohibits consumer DVD ripping and burning software from copying movies by embedding copyright code. This also creates controversy in itself because it prevents the average user from using their legal right to back up DVDs. AKA, if I own a copy of the DVD Fight Club, I am legally allowed to rip and copy that movie to another DVD for archival purposes- in reality, this right is abused kind of the same as the loop hole that allows vendors to sell glass pipes for "tobacco use only".
As for online management, the files are encrypted, but basically, just like the FairPlay protected music files, its useless against smart crackers with alot of free time. The files will eventually be distributed through networks and p2p clients.

Now, as far as document protection. Text is text and if you don't want someone to distribute or steal it, don't post it on the internet. However, I did happen to come across an interesting service that will basically serve as a legal witness that posted material is actually your material. They are fittingly enough called Datawitness. http://www.datawitness.com/
Datawitness will electronically archive your documents or materials as well as double safe archiving it with a third party physically on 500 year rated Kodak microfilm (http://www.datawitness.com/).
Quoted from datawitness.com
"Datawitness' secure online storage and retrieval solution eliminates the risks of paper-based document storage. When you Datawitness a document, you instantly create both a digital record online and a physical record off-site on 500 year Kodak microfilm. Paperless documents authenticated and archived by Datawitness are safe from tampering, destruction or loss. Having these copies means you can rely on Datawitnessed records in court."
It's more or less a new school way to secure and self copyright stuff (ie, mailing via federal mail a document and keeping the timestamped envelop unopened in a safe).

In looking around I also just found a response letter to Steve Jobs's letter from the CEO of Macrovision, here is a link to both.
Steve Jobs: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ Fred Amaroso, Macrovision CEO: http://www.macrovision.com/company/news/drm/response_letter.shtml


Soucres:
http://www.apple.com
http://www.jiggerbug.com
http:/www.datawitness.com
http://www.csu.edu.au/special/auugwww96/proceedings/copyright/copyright.html
http://www.dictionary.com/
http://www.macrovision.com/

Class exercise

So this post is a little late. I didn't get to it until the weekend and I felt like crap for most of it so here it is.
Basically what we talked about in class. The online conversation had its ups and downs. I still, for a class setting at least prefer an in person "interface" over anything. I can see the people I'm talking to, we can read eachother nuances, body gestures etc. Online, is alright, at least there you can review what you've said, plan out your thoughts reference back to things previously said. It can be useful, but the overall impersonalness of it kills me. It reminds me of like the stories or joke comics you see of people in the same room or house iming eachother. I mean, even I'm guilty of it, I've IMed my mom downstairs when I'm still in my pajamas or just really lazy. Or in school, which is a bit more understandable because at least there its becasue you CANT talk in person in the same room. I don't know. I still prefer REAL communication over online.

Anonymity, not just an internet luxury...

I was searching for more sources in my crossfire paper when I came across an article that outline a casestudy/story about a company that began to link virtual identities with real ones:

The article wouldn't post correctly for some reason- check it here under the title
B. DoubleClick- The Beginning of the Controversy?
http://www.ijclp.org/6_2001/pdf/ijclp_webdoc_11_6_2001.pdf

This is just further proves and shows how treasured and necessary the anonymity of the internet is. We practically define the internet as a place where we can become faceless, nameless or someone else entirely. Just another article I thought went well with class.

Interesting AU Action

So I was looking through AU Today and found an interesting article through the Office of Campus life- called Saving Face.


http://www.american.edu/ocl/vp/facebook.html
Here is an excerpt:



Here are some Face-saving Tips for reaping the benefits and avoiding the dangers associated with electronic social networking:

1. Don't expect privacy on social networking sites. Even "secure" sites can be hacked easily, so information you post is essentially available to the public - even if that was not your intention.
2. Discourage hackers. Create complex alphanumeric passwords, and make sure that they are unrelated to any of the information you have posted (i.e., your birthday).
3. Keep your identity as safe as possible: for example, to adjust your privacy setting on Facebook go to http://stedwards.facebook.com/privacy.php
4. Consider posting only information that is already available in the public domain when you create your personal profile.
5. Post general information rather than specific details, such as
* Birthday - September 19 (no year)
* Address - Washington, DC (no street address or residence hall & room #)
* Phone number - omit
6. Consider the image your postings project. What would a prospective employer think of you? A scholarship awards committee? De-tag or remove inappropriate pictures of yourself.
7. Watch what you say and post about others. False statements can subject you to charges of defamation or libel; photos posted without someone's knowledge 'and consent can be construed as an "invasion of privacy." Generally, follow the "Golden Rule" - Treat others as you want to be treated.
8. Use Facebook in moderation. Don't substitute the virtual world for the real world.

-------

The last one, 8, was the one I found striking. I couldn't help but think of our last few classes. "RL is just another window", the whole thing about China and "addictions". What do you guys think?

Internet usage

Inspired partly by Kellen's post on cell phones. I wanted to make a few remarks on internet usage. Think back to middle school or maybe even 4th and 5th grade of elementary school. Think of how much you used the internet and how much you use it now and how that has progressed. Maybe you had a few email exchanges with distant relatives but really you were only online to use AIM because it was the newest novelty in communication? Now how do you use the internet, spend maybe 10-15 minutes checking news and email then 2 hours on facebook and another 2 just surfing around? Go out, then comeback and spend another 2-4 hours? I'm curious, how many hours a day do you think you use the internet, what do you do during that time?

The Air Ship

Although I liked the Johnny Mnemonic story better (I love that kind of writing style where things aren’t really explained “cyberpunk”, of what have you- like A Clockwork Orange. I had more to say about this story- sorry it ended up so long- please comment with your thoughts.

The Air Ship paints an image of the world plunged into mediocrity, plainness, conformity and remoteness. Stale and empty of ideas, the underground inhabitants vacant of any knowledge, inkling, or tribute to the far past and history of the people they once were. [They are] Stagnant in a pneumatic shell, virtual and impersonal. The Matrix, A Brave New World and autonomy of the The Jetsons all rolled into one and (sans the machine domination, at least in a direct, aggressive style).
The dependency of The Machine is to the same effect: a domination of The Machine over humans, these people. It also causes an awkward (social) fear out of extreme inwardness and outward reliance on machines that compensate for no first hand knowledge or experience.
The complete isolation and indirect observation of it all reminds me of scenes from the novel The Collector by John Fowles.
The extreme apathy of duty formed out of this mechanical reliance not only caused complete disbarring of sense or responsibility but also mental and PHYSICAL atrophy; an obvious effect like one who is confined to bedrest for several months and must be rehabilitated after his term. (p192) A man simply dropping his book throws off the entire operation of boarding the Air Ship. Thinking about it makes me replay the Visa commercial where the patrons turn through like gears with pneumatic precision in the cafeteria line until one man pays with cash and the entire procedure halts to a stop. Only in the Air Ship’s case, the “Good Enough” mediocrity mind set, a kind of embodiment of everything I think and feel when I remember the phrase “meh”, prevails and the travelers merely walk over the book, despite its obvious rank and importance in their lives.
The abrupt irritability and detachment of these underground dwellers makes me thinks of rapid moles running around on the surface, cursing, if they could, at each other when they cross paths, unaccustomed the warmth of the sun or interaction with others.
The counterintuitive scene where Vashti gets angry with the attendant for preventing her fall is disturbingly amusing. Like a hyperphysical “personal space” shield exists that should never be crossed. Although it seemed possible for someone to become like that, the thought that I would ever witness it in the sense it is written in and not a highly affected autistic or gemaphobic person seemed unreal.
The whole story seemed eerie. It also seemed familiar in the sense that it addressed a common and cumulating theme through a lot of sci-fi: the undeniable and complete dependence on machines by man, the idolization and even divinization of machines or The Machine. This story represents the man made “G-d”, one so aged and accepted it is almost forgotten that it is man who made it. It gives the machine unquestionable authority, logic seems absent within explanations, a kind of “because The Machine has made it so” attitude.
This story also addresses how put up barriers between are self and constantly retreat further and further behind our closed doors. “When the air-ships” had been built the desire to look direct at things still lingered in the world.” The disturbing part is you can see this happening now. Through instant messages, video chats, emails, text messages. People IM people within the same house (or dorm/school). Multitasking. We have already eliminated one sense. The book portrays it as if one can’t be bothered with an actual experience. We separate us from each other. It’s all sterile.
One thing I think this story got wrong is the direction the remoteness went to. The story describes the indirect contact and representations as approximations and estimates of contact, while I think our world will bring us, possibly to this level of isolation, but with a sort of more real than real conversation/communication system. High Def, 3D and electronically simulated.

My thoughts on this comic vaugley related to our class discussion...

There's another comic which is no longer archived by the same artist of a woman on a recipe website that says "Grandma's Home Recipes" and her husband is behind her saying to her, "you know Grandma is probably some 40 year old man."

This is a comic from one of my favorite newspaper comic artists, Tony Carrillo. It kind of puts an interesting spin on what we were talking about last class with perception and the relativity of things. We discussed (or I argued) that it is possible that someone playing WoW (World of Warcraft) could essentially in almost all effects to himself become his character in the game. Perception of what is good and bad is set by universal morals. Since universal morals, or ideas of what is good and what is bad are impossible, it is possible for each individual to have their own view on reality. And since they have their own reality, they can perceive their own identity and assume the personality/identity of whoever they wish or see fit. (ie. weird guy who locks himself in his room playing WoW 24/7 can pretend he's and Orc, elf, wizard, whatever...) Since one can assume their own identity within their in there own personal reality they can assume their own morals and thoughts of good and bad, right and wrong.
This comic shows it as a bit more realistic interpretation of the situation (minus the whole, 8 year olds taking over a classroom). In a situation where one controls all means of measurement or judgement, they are free to set the standards and measurements. (I mean look at the US, US standard vs Metric system... the US standard is totally arbitrary, yet, because we are such a large force and control a large portion of the market we can get away with it) So if someone within their own reality decided they knew what was right and wrong... say they thought murder was acceptable. They could rightly commit murder and not think they are doing wrong. Someone telling them murder was immoral or unacceptable would just be wrong to them. I feel like I might be missing exactly what I'm trying to say, but I'm hoping it's at least clear enough that you get my idea. (any comments or questions on clarification would definitely be welcome and helpful). But basically that's it, you may want to check back later, I'm going to reread and possibly correct this a bit.

discussion Q:

How is a plausible or actual way (already documented) a real life situation version of what is portrayed in the comic possible, How could it happen?

Welcome to my Blog

This is my new blog- its ub3r 1337, w00t. (Did I mention I used to manage/admin a cyber cafe/LAN center? oops.) Whatever. The Pats just lost, that kinda sucks- but I'm listening to a new group my coworker told me about "Telefon Tel Aviv". They're the producers for Nine Inch Nails but do some of their own stuff, it's pretty sweet, you should check them out.

Basically, that's all,

Adam