Cyber Means Pilot

Dan Patterson from ABC News was on this WEEK in TECH discussing how companies need to think about web development now and the future and I think he hit on a key point:

“Our tools and our gadgets and gizmos, they are all well and good. But really this is not about our tools and gadgets, it about determining the way media and information flows in the 21st century…This is the democratization of the dissemination of information and you need to understand not just how Twitter works, you need understand not just how Facebook works, but you need to understand things like trust and community.”
TWiT 187: So Say We All (1:11:45 – 1:12:16)

I mentioned in a previous post about how the next generation of the web should be more than a simple platform and more than a toy to tinker with. It must work with users to not only for for the development of thoughts and ideas and really it must go beyond the basic points of connection and trust and community. The web must become a place of social engagement in order for the Internet not to become another source of entertainment. The Internet is a hypertextual experience, it must also become either hypermediated or edge closer to a point of becoming a universal translator of global experiences

It is this spirit of experimentation that I am trying something new. I’m going to start publish my blog at squarespace. I’m in the process of moving some of the post on the new site and until that happens I’m going to post twice, once on the original site cyberstudies.blog.com and the other time it will be on cyberstudies.squarespace.com. The reason being is that I hope have a standalone web address soon and I want to be right to post on it as soon as it becomes available. Until it does, I’ll just post twice.

For quite some time, I’ve been using, consuming and generally playing around in the sandbox of what some may call “Web 2.0.” The term seems to have some weight and power behind it. Tim O’ Reilly tried to define the space and what makes 2.0 different from its 1.0 form. The major difference touched on by this article is the ability of users to control their experience online. This second generation of web development is defined by the read/write capabilities of users on the site. The web is now editable and has the ability to express any point of view in real time. However, we’ve been using this technology for almost five years. Therefore, it is fair to assume that there may be a change in how we conduct ourselves online. The question is how? 
 
I think it is important to compare how the web has developed to the development of a society. In order for a society to develop, there must a common language and common set of rules that everybody agrees (“a social contract”). The development of transferring digital information through copper and fiber-optic lines, web addresses, programming languages and hardware set up the first stage of this society. This could be compare to the development of the basic “survival tools” of the society. We learn to make fire and build shelter in the digital world through the structure developed by the founders of the Internet. We survived primordial ooze ooze for almost 15 years. Then, we moved to the pushing the envelope of creation by add modules to the language of the Internet to allow for a democratization of the channels present in the World Wide Web.

According to Paul Graham the force behind “Web 2.0″ came from three factors; the root language Ajax, the democratization of the web and the knowledge to not mistreat those using the web. Under these three forces, the concept of web as platform could begin. We’ve lived, worked and play in this envirnoment for several years. But, it’s starting to feel that the platform will need to turn into something else in order to survive and to allow companies and individual to profit from their work. The next construct of the web will come from economic concern maybe more so than the ability to change the platform through technological/lingustical/mechanical means.

Being an education professional in the field of computer design, I have constitantly told students to back up their work or else they may lose everything they’ve been working on for the last class period. I also tell students to back up their work in at least two locations online and on a flash drive just in case their file gets lost or accidently deleted. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the only copy of my business meeting minutes that I was the secretary for was lost when I had a hard drive crash. I sold my old Acer Aspire One to a friend and thought I saved it on my external hard drive. Well, it beautifully crashed on Monday and I realized that I didn’t have the document on ANY OTHER DRIVE!!! So, after panicking and cursing the technology that served me so well up to this point, I called my friend that I sold my netbook to and hoped that the file was still on the computer. Nope, no luck. Then, I remembered. I did a Norton Ghost backup on the netbook and the backup was on another external hard drive. So, low and behold I had a copy of the file I needed despite my best attempt to screw everything up. So, if you have important documents you’ve been working on, make sure you save it on the computer, on a flash drive and on the cloud (like Google Docs) so you are sure to have at least one copy survive a total failure.

After being stuck inside my house for 3 days, I decided for new ways to connect myself with the outside world. I figured that there were pretty good odds that one of the people on these networks lived in a place that wasn’t getting bombarded with an onslaught of snow.

The first site/network that I logged into was the new revitalized site associated with Geeks Radio. Geeks Radio is a thematic Internet radio station designed to play “music for your inner geek.” I love listening to Internet radio station associated with a playing to a specific genre. I remember the old CS Radio, which was ran by fans of Counter-Strike. There is also Radio KOL, connecting to the “Kingdom of Loathing.” What makes Geeks Radio different from other Internet radio station is really the strong sense of community. There is an active social network associated with the station, fans connect through Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and there is a strong connection on microblogs to the radio’s main website.

Speaking of music, the other network I’m playing in is blip.fm, which allows users to channel their inner DJ and tweet their songs over Twitter. It seems kind of cool to use music over Twitter to express feelings, thoughts and points in a much clearer way than could be expressed in 140 characters.

I love the community aspects of the site, as you can see what your friends are listening to. That’s all for now, I’m going to trying to stay warm.

As we say good-bye to the old administration and the old technological initiatives are set by the wayside (remember the Internet is/are a bunch of tubes, classic, classic), it is important to look at President Obama’s technological policy point and see a possible road for the nation’s technological infrastructure.

According to the White House website, it seems that Obama’s team is focusing on ensuring “the full and free exchange of ideas through an open internet and diverse media outlets.” The centerpoint of this is protecting network neutrality and protecting the individual’s right to privacy with regards to companies’ ability to breech individual’s rights.  The rest of the subpoints dealing with the free exchange of ideas deal with content management and distrubution, as opposed to a focus on the political structure of the Internet. Protect the openness of the Internet, encouraging diversity in media ownership and protecting children while preserving the first amendment all tend take the free exchange of ideas outside the realm of ivory tower of Washington D.C. and into the hands of those who do produce and control the media within the World Wide Web.

If we are to look at Obama’s choices of technological focus through the social filter, it would seem that Obama wants to remove more of the barriers to connection to the Internet. Hopefully, this will include a renew committment to municipal high speed Internet and wi-fi. The digital divide issues still affect people. There are still several area around my regions that only have dial-up, if any Internet access. These must be a prioity to insure that the nation can catch up with the rest of the connected world.

It seems that I’ve been focusing a lot on security and fraud on microblogging sites. However, there is more online than microblogging sites, despite my attraction to the concept. As a way of approaching cybersecurity, I finished reading the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Commission on Cyber Security for the 44th Presidency final report. It is an extremely long and through report of the state of cyber security and the need to protect this environment from those who seek to do harm. The main punchline from the report is the need for the next President of the United States to create a comprehensive national security strategy for cyberspace because, quoting from the report, ”cybersecurity is now a major national security problem for the United States.” This would seem to be a fair assessment as both McCain and Obama had their networks hacked while they were both campaigning to become president. 

I’ve wanted to go to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) for quite some time. Since the show is the first part of the year, it has difficult to travel to Las Vegas. I’m normally at the National Association of Broadcasters annual show in April and my travel budget really doesn’t cover going to Vegas twice in one year. I was really thankful to see several people cover CES from the inside out. For example, Stacie Krajchir described how a group of UNLV students from several different fields were given a tour of the floor and were made deputy reporters covering the show. As somebody who has tried to cover a conference as a reporter and a novice to the field, I can tell you it’s tough.

I would be very curious to see what would happen if the students were all graduate students, as opposed to undergrad, and see how the reporting would be different. My best guess would deal less with the actual tech and hardware and more about the culture behind the show. The tech reported from many of these shows seem to be nothing more than glorified press releases and instructional video talking about the product. I would be more interested in seeing more of the personalities and how those people interact with these new products.

Scott Brown wrote a really humorous article in Wired Magazine regarding how our generation would deal with a depression the likes that has only been seen by our great-grandparents during the “Great Depression.”  The question that come from this half-hearted look into the future is what are we doing to prepare for the economic crash. The only point that really seems to be connecting many of the discussion I have found online is that networking will be more vital than ever before in order to find your next job.

For the last three posts, I have been dealing with microblogging (specifically Twitter) and how information that an individual posts on these microblogging site can be used against them in the form of identity theft and data fraud. However, it is equality as important to maintain a presence on large social community like Facebook and Twitter to show people you are a.) an actual person and not a robot, b.) someone who has talents that can be used & c.) a “people person.” As much as it pained me to use that last phrase, it really takes some “social capital” to be able to communicate with a wide array of people (like those present in an open social network like Facebook or Twittter).

It would seem that this could be pretty for months to come. Therefore, it is important to use inexpensive resources to deliver your message and maintain your reputation in your field. Sites like Facebook and Twitter can help you with this mission.

It is a rare occurrence that I would stumble across a timely topic. However, it seems that my academic hypothetical discussion has turned into a real world threat. I’ve been working all day and I finished eating dinner when I see the warning issued by Twitter. The questions that I asked from the last post really seem to hit home. So, I felt that a quick response would be appropriate. (Man, 3 posts in one week!!!)

The question of “do identity thieves twitter?” seems to be yes after this threat hit the network. Even though it was using the oldest phishing trick in the book and I hope nobody fell for this trick. But, I believe this is a scary point in the microblogging phenomenon. I gotta believe this is the first step in more sophisticated attacks on identity in the Twitter network. Because it is really easy to post information in this format, we can accidentally expose information that could be a treasure trove for social engineers and identity thieves. This would expand the damage that can be caused by black-hat Twitterer from harmless to harmful.

The purpose of this post is not to scare anybody. The purpose is to create awareness about this situation and I hope people will be more careful about what they say on a microblog.

Twitterkins lead me down another thought path when he tweeted me “who’d impersonate me when they’d gain nothing? Do identity thieves twitter? Like, to make it ‘look good?’” I really don’t have a good answer to this question. Also, I figured that this question deserved more than a simple 140 character answer. So, I figured I would poke this topic one more time to see where it leads.

I have to preface all of these statements by saying that Twitterkins is Paul F. Tompkins. He seems like a nice guy and technical whiz.

First, it’s pretty obvious that spam has appear in the Twitterverse and other microblogging communities. The question that comes to mind is why spam when the spammer has nothing to gain. Could it represent something viral? Could it make the spammer feel that they are control of the network by feeding it information or misinformation? Could it make the spammer feel that he or she lead the network to another source that could make the spammer money? Being a sociologist, I can not speak on motive. I can argue that it depends on the type of community, the information being shared and where the links used by the spammer take the community member.

Second, let’s approach the second question asked by Mr. Tompkins, “do identity thieves twitter?” I would focus on the term “identity thief.” According to the wikipedia, an identity thief is anybody that uses fraud to “stealing money or getting other benefits by pretending to be someone else.” So, yes there are identity thieves in the harmless sense on Twitter. I can interact (and have had conversations) with the characters from the West Wing, Studio 60 and Mad Men. I doubt that the actor or actress who plays those characters are typing the Twitter posts. The benefit to those playing the characters on Twitter is that they get to play the characters they see on television. Mr. Tompkins is a famous cable show and someone could want to “play” PFT. Others have done research on being a “fakester” by adapting another persona. I have not research on this subject nor read deeply this research. The question I have is “is somebody using Twitter for a more harmful purpose (stealing money from others, causing harm)?” I doubt it, but I can’t speak for certain.