WEBSITE SHUTDOWN

While I was browsing around the internet searching for PATRIOT act related site shut downs, I ran into digzine.com. I'm not exactly sure what kind of site it used to be, but the Department of Homeland Security has shut them down, and in turn, posted a small blurb on the sections of the patriot act that the site was violating. After a little more digging, I want to say this site had something to do with hackers, and just an online magazine dedicated to hacking. (But don't quote me)

One part of this Homeland blurb that caught my attention, was when it said: "Please be advised that as a part of the formal investigation, the IP addresses of all visitors to this site have been logged and will be examined thoroughly. You may be contacted by representatives of DHS with regard to this ongoing investigation. Under section 506 of the USA PATRIOT Act, failure to provide complete cooperation with investigating agents (including any and all discussion of the substance or existence of this investigation) will in itself be considered a criminal act, pubishable by up to ten years' imprisonment"
I was not aware that the government had that kind of access to information regarding who visited a site, via their IP address. I wonder if they actually have prosecuted anyone just for visiting this site. The whole idea of being prosecuted for visiting a website is scary, very big brother 'esque'.

Click THIS LINK and look at the current page that was taken over by the government.

--David

midterm review

Here is a list of things to review and think about for the midterm on Monday. Please feel free to email with questions.

social web/web 2.0
convergence
participatory culture
produsage
collective intelligence
free culture
control over internet
IP
copyright wars
filtering
net neutrality
Google
ATT
Creative Commons
Patriot Act
EFF
RIP!: A Remix Manifesto
Read/Write culture

Influencing the Internet (Week 28th)

Influencing the Internet

I did some “armature” internet research and found an article that got me thinking about who really controls or “influences” the internet. My conclusion – the people( aka us). We influence change in the internet in order to have better access to the world. Example: we create “online banking [that] allows people to check up on their personal finances pretty much 24/7” versus having to accord to the bank’s hours. Rather than making this ability for only exclusive people, anyone with a bank account is able to access it online. Because this and many other technological internet advances are available to the majority of the human body, I believe that we influence the internet and how it changes and develops.

The link to the article is here: CLICK HERE

~ Tisha

"In Plain English"

It's definitely hard for some people to understand a lot of these web concepts. I came across this series of videos on youtube that would take a concept and explain it "in plain english". I thought it was pretty interesting since it covers a lot of concepts that we are studying. Some of these concepts are: World Wide Web, Twitter, Social Media, Podcasting, Online photo sharing, Social Networking, RSS, and Blogs.

After doing a little more research, I learned that the videos are done by a company called Common Craft. Common Craft basically sells these "in plain english" videos that are designed for training and education. Check out their video on Blogs...

The Changing Definition of Friendship

So I'm not entirely sure that this can be directly connected to what we have been discussing in class but it is quite interesting. As technology makes it easier to meet new people from across the world the definition of what a friend is must necessarily change. Many people would define a friend as someone who you know well, trust, and (key point here) have met in person. This is what I have heard many people say, generally older people or those who don't use computers much, but I don't think this is true. As this article says, social networking sites have changed what it means to be friends with someone. I for one have many friends that I have never actually met but I feel are friends in every meaning of the word. While I don't use social networking sites, such as facebook and myspace, I do a lot of online gaming. I met many people over the 4 years that I played World of Warcraft and I would consider them my friends. I know that at the very least my parents have trouble understanding how I can be friends with someone that I've never physically met, but I don't think that physically meeting someone is a qualifier for being friends anymore. I played with them, I talked with them, I argued with them, shared stories with them, and I know them. That is what it means to be someones friend.

This can be extended from just friends to what is important in life. While I will say that a video game generally be more important events in real life(IRL), sometimes they can be important enough that exceptions should be made. As I have said I played WoW, I admit it and I enjoyed it while it lasted. I did end-game content ranging from Player vs Player(PvP) to Player vs Environment(PvE) and there were times that events in WoW seemed more important to me than something going on IRL. Now this was usually dinner, and on occasion, homework >.>, but that's ok. Anyway my parents never gave me a break and never understood why it was so important to me, and I never understood how having people who were depending on me, people who I had told that I would be there, waiting on me wasn't important. They never understood how people online are still people and they don't like to be kept waiting. I tried to explain its like a meeting for work, you wouldn't want to be late or have to leave in the middle of a meeting to go do something, its the same idea. Now this can be extended outside of gaming and raids, but the fact remains that peoples priorities and the definition of friendship are changing and I can only hope that those who don't understand can cope with the changes because they are coming on fast.

P.S. I know I don't have many links in this... actually I only have 1, but this was kind of a personal rant/interest so I'm hoping the examples from my life will make up for it. And I just like to talk about video games XD. To make up for it enjoy these videos... and yes they are all WoW, its what I know, and no I don't play anymore.



and as a WoW remix, since I heard we would be talking about remixes and such...

YouCity

A new mash-up that might make it big is YouCity.com

Basically, it is a social networking site that lets you visualize all activity within a city or given area in 3D. It also allows its users to learn about the hotspots and events that are scheduled for the future.

In their own Words:

YouCity is a neighborhood-based social network site that helps you connect with local people sharing the same interests. It is a website where you discover on a fun 3D map the city hotspots and exciting local events through people like you.

YouCity combines real-life neighborhood context with social context to provide the first true integration of online social networks with local geography. It creates online neighborhoods that not only mirror every corner of the real world we live in but also change the real world and benefit people's everyday life through revolutionizing the way people creating and sharing local information and interacting with each other and places around them.

it is only available for New York and San Fransisco...

against Net Neutrality

After last class I thought it was important to actually find out the other side of the argument dealing with net neutrality. As I began to research it was much harder to find reliable information against the concept of "Net Neutrality." There was a few ideas that support the banishment of Net Neutrality, but the main arguement is that there is already compition for faster speeds. With the rapid growing rate of the internet we need higher cable usage  to fullfill our needs, and the way to do that without money from our own pocket is to have a compition of companies trying to gain the consumors loyality so the companies would be the ones investing in these cables.  

Overall, I found that most people were for Net Neutrality and only corporations who would be dominate in the internet choices are for corporate takeover but most people find net neutrality the most equal to our countries beliefs.

Fan Trailer Spoofs

Spoof's of movie trailers have slowly become bigger and bigger on youtube. A typical re-edited trailer usually has a new voice over with added text and clips from the movie to make it seem like a different genre than the original movie, such as making Mary Poppins into a horror movie



or The Shining into a feel good movie


or Tom Hanks in Big into a pedophile

Makes you wonder based the content of the re-cut if the fan or lack there of choose the genre because it would fit or they didn't like the original.

....Just one more for fun

After class when we discussed net neutrality and watched Obama discuss his views of it, I was curious to find something with McCain's standpoints. Net neutrality was a topic I hadn't really heard much about or understood before the readings, so I don't really think it was a topic John McCain would have brought up. I'm not taking any political sides in this, but I think it's safe and pretty neutral to say that McCain didn't really utilize technology as Obama did to reach the younger generations. Here's a video of McCain talking about the infrastructure of technology. It's interesting to watch him because it's pretty clear he isn't 100 percent comfortable with the subject matter.

Good evening everyone! I was searching around the internet for some more information and cases on Net Neutrality but kept finding more of the same especially with it making a revival in the news as of late due to the happenings in Washington, DC. However, I did some digging back to a 2006 NPR interview with the authors of "Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless world". It is your basic NPR interview but it is interesting It talks of how the internet is supposed to be this free, borderless platform for information but in actuality it isn't. It talks about cases where individual countries such as China and France have successfully managed to regulate the internet in their respective countries. For me, it just made me think of the fundamental problem of net nuetrality-- the United States wholeheartedly believes in freedom of speech; however, other countries don't and thusly feel that is okay to heavily regulate the internet. Who is right?

Cell Phone Net Neutrality

I stumbled upon an article on 'cell phone neutrality' for the internet. Providing fast downloading speeds and access to certain applications is not as simple as one would think. Here is a quote from the article that points out the necessity of competition, without net neutrality.

Verizon, AT&T: Net neutrality not OK for wireless

"At the end of the day, Net neutrality supporters say regulation is needed to keep the Internet open because there is simply not enough competition in the market to ensure that service providers play fair." --Marguerite Reardon

She is pretty much saying that there will not be an increasement of internet download speeds, ect, if companies cannot compete to sell their best product they can offer. Without this competition, there's not need (in the big telecom companies eyes) for improvement. We want internet, we get internet, they make money. Why change?

Net Neutrality and Codependence

After last class' discussion/"debate" over net neutrality, I was thinking about previous blogs and articles I have read on net neutrality and I remember a blog I had stumbled upon a while back about this subject. Net Neutrality is a huge deal right now to whether or not the internet should remain the same. This video gives light in on the subject, and seeing as though posting videos on this blog is more of a popularity than reading articles, I thought that the video would suffice. Check it out, sit back and enjoy!

contradictions

After reading an article on net neutrality and the FCC's current push of certain "rules" they are hoping to enforce on certain companies (AT&T, Verizon, etc) so to prohibit "deliberately blocking or slowing certain Web traffic" I began to think. I feel like the main objective of the internet, and what makes the internet so, for lack of a better word, great is that it is completely free. Once the FCC starts enforcing rules, doesn't that contradict the idea of internet entirely? I just feel like everything having to do with the internet should remain free of rules or regulations.

Save The Internet Campaign

So I vaguely remembered in class that there was a campaign that I heard of a few years back that was about net neutrality. I have once again found that website, and it is called http://www.savetheinternet.com/ It is a coalition of people and organizations that are lobbying for net neutrality.

In regards to the new FCC support of net neutrality, Save The Internet Coalition is pressing Congress to further government regulations that will ensure net neutrality. Though it may be biased towards the pro-net neutrality side, it does provide useful information on net neutrality.

YourTruth

I found a blog about net neutrality that I thought would be good. It provides a lot of information about the issue as well as provides videos. The one I found very interesting was called YourTruth. I believe it is a very effective video.

This week I'm delving into the world of music on the internet. This is not your average pirate sight, nor the new thing about itunes. This is called pandora radio, which I'm sure at least some of you have heard of. This sight allows you to create your own radio station online, in fact it let's you create how ever many radio stations you would like. The point of pandora is to provide a similar but much better and more useful service than the genius toolbar in itunes. The stations you create play music that is similar in style to the artist, song, or album you pick.
This service is not entirely free but they do allow for people to test it out. In addition to this site, there is also an application called Pandoraboy which has taken pandora and made it into an independent app that can be run separately from your average web browser.
I feel that this fits into class because it exemplifies how easily media can be exchanged in today's internet based world. This is a new way in which we can interact with the information out there. You'll never be able to listen to everything out there, so why no start with hearing music that is similar to your taste?