Surveillance...

When I think of the word surveillance, images of a bunch of overweight cops eating donuts in a almost obviously disguised police van outside a shady apartment block spring to mind. Or maybe some of the hi-tech gadgets used by James Bond throughout one of his many epic adventures. In reality its likely that all the steps taken to getting to this page where I can publish a post on my blog can be traced back by someone. The only way I can stop this virtual stalking is by disowning digital communication, which in these times is highly unlikely of anyone hoping to maintain a normal social and working life actually doing.

I think surveillance is a neccessary evil when it comes to the internet. It can go to far and be used inapproriately by individuals and even your own work. I remember a situation when I worked as a telemarket in Wellington shortly after leaving school. One of the team leaders found out a telemarketer was using the internet for her own personal use, buying things off trade me and what not, and then began listening to her personal phone calls she made during breaks and such because they were all recorded as we were telemarketers. I thought that both individuals were in the wrong. The employee shouldnt have been using the internet and phone for her own personal use at the expense of the company but I didn't believe it gave the team leader the right to listen to her personal phone conversations. Though there might be these negatives when it comes to surveillance, I believe they are small in comparison to the positives that can come from it. Recently I saw a COPS programme where detectives had been surveillancing (not sure if its word) possible pedophiles on chat sites, posing as naive young teens and even younger children. On one occasion they managed to catch two pedophiles at once arranging for them to meet the 'child' at the same location. To me having younger sisters, a little brother and a young nephew this is a very big positive that makes surveillance worthwhile.

Copyright © and Creative Commons

In the lecture, copyright was defined as being created to ensure that creators are recognised for their work and recieved recompense. With the internet I believe this is impossible. The internet is known as the information highway for a reason. There is too much information being transfered between users. This isn't even taking into account media information like music, podcast, tv shows and films. If it's hard enough to follow through with copyright for mediums which involve text like books or articles then other mediums, especially music, are going to have a huge problem controling piracy and copywrite violation. Between the times of napster, when I was around 12ish, until today, I must've downloaded hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of copyright protected material. Thats mainly music but also movies and tv shows. Ive noticed how in recent times the market for pirated movies has gotten a lot bigger. Even back at school I dont remember hearing a lot about downloaded movies and such but these days its common to see the same copy of a pirated movie being passed and copied around Castle St. This is just more and more proof of how copyright isn't going to work with the internet besides the massive infringement of copyright laws taking place.

Creative commons is a good idea I thought but maybe not a practical one. An author or artist sharing his or her creativity is a noble thing, it can allow others to use, learn from and be inspired by. Though authors and artists aren't really being given many options. They would still be protected but because they can decide what it can be used for gives them a bit more control over their creation compared to copyright. One question I have is why users would actually go for it. Implementing a code of ethics would only make it obligatory for users to not download music or movies etc. There might be a slight drop in the amount of copyrighted downloads but there would still be a massive community online who would continue to find ways to illegally share files.

www.SecondLife.com

Being a guy im sure I must be genetically predisposed to games or something because they are awesome! And I dont remember to many all night tekken or jonah lomu rugby battles going on with any female involvement at all. The idea of virtual worlds and MMPORGs isn't a new one to me for a change. Ever since my old man brought me home a grey brick of a gameboy when I was about seven or eight Ive been into them. I remember the first time I was made aware of MMPORGs was sometime after the first Matrix film came out, I must've been about twelve or thirteen or so but the concept was that they had recreated the matrix world online and you could either follow missions solo or with other online users or just go walkabout and do pretty much anything you like. Obviously at the time I thought it was the shizz. I also remember liking the idea that you could create a virtual character from literally scratch. I believe this is a major drawing card to users attracted to MMPORGs. Being able to become whoever you like and fight or just talk smack as this virtual you is a fun idea.

Hardeys reading discussed how face-to-face interactions are minimising due to urbanisation. I found it very intresting and good in the sense that it got me thinking. I thought it makes sense that there is a decline in face-to-face interactions in comparison to the past because of urbanisation. It shows how communities are becoming less involved with each other where you might not even know your neighbours names as opposed to the past where people would know the entire neighbourhood. I think I have a good understanding of this because I can really put the idea into perpsective by comparing my home in New Zealand and my home in Chile. Chile is a 3rd world country and where my family live is a very poor area. Being mainly brought up in NZ, when I first travelled to Chile at a young age I remeber being suprised when going to play football with my primos (cousins) how they would greet and know pretty much everyone in the local neighbourhood. It reminded me of a poor kids cartoon or disney movie, without the glitz and glamour obviously, where the characters would all hang out and know each other. People would know my primos name and know they are brothers and know their parents and my grandparents yada yada yada. This was a total contradiction to me then coming from NZ, where if you wanted to play with a friend after school you would have to ring them then pass the phone onto your parents and so the story goes. This made the point of a decline in face-to-face interaction very clear because Chile seemed like a country living in the past with more 'old fashioned' type rituals as opposed to NZ which was very much in front economically, technologically and what seems socially because of it. These days im able to speak with my cousins over the internet, send and share photos, the whole schbang. This shows me how Chile has caught up and how perhaps these face-to-face interactions and communities that reminded me of a disney movie without the cash money factor might be declining.

Blogging...

The 'blogosphere' was another world to me until recently. I had heard of blogging, but to be honest I had no understanding of the meaning behind the word and had never felt a compulsion to keep a blog. O Baoill describes blogging as a participatory media and gives the many manifestations of it. One thing about blogging I thought was a bit weird was how most blogs read in reverse chronological order. The other reading puts the idea out there about blogs being used as a news source. I dont know if I would trust a blog as a reliable news source. I know the mainstream media put a spin on things, tell half truths and always cover the 'juiciest' angles but blogs are individuals or groups of people who unlike the mainstream media dont have international correspondents and aren't given the opportunity to interview political leaders, athletes, musicians or celebrities etc. In saying that, users maintaining blogs dont have to follow a code like maybe a reporter for fox news might and can speak their full mind without influence from an outside source. When asked if their should be a code of conduct for blogs much like journalists might have I was under the opinion that it might be a good idea but probably isn't very practical. I couldn't see people limiting the creative freedom they have towards their blogs and even if they could who would police this medium?

One aspect of blogs that I thought was quite cool was how users are using blogs to suit themselves. There a blog diaries which almost commentate on peoples lives or blogs about a users favourite sport where they can then comment on events and happenings surrounding the sport etc. This I think is probably the biggest selling point towards me starting my own independant blog. The creative freedom is seems endless.

Web2.0: Social Networks & User Generated content

This weeks lectures and readings went over social networks, wikis and knowledge systems like wikipedia etc and web2.0. I already had a understanding of social networks and examples of them online through virtual communities but when it came to wikis and the term web2.0 I wasnt as knowledgeable. In the set readings Holmes description of the internet is important because he tells how the internet has change the way people communicate. We are not affected by boundaries, distance or time. He also says how computer mediated communication isnt just technology but actually a environment. I think this is true because nowadays it is possible for communication to take place regardless of the time, location or boundaries. This makes me think of my father who is currently back home in Chile with mi familia. He likes to keep tabs on me and make sure im alright as many parents do, I hear nothing changes as you get older aswell. But back to the point I recieve emails from my old man once every day or two. This put holmes's argument into perspective for me. If it wasnt for the internet I wouldn't be able to communicate with my father as often. I may get the odd phone call but would have to rush it and it wouldn't be as often due to the interntional phone rates being very expensive, not to mention the time factor that its usually extremely late in the morning when he calls from south america. This is what web2.0 meant to me. As now we can communicate with each other as opposed to 1.0 which was only one-way communication.

When it comes to wikis, i'd honestly never heard of them before. Obviously id heard of wikipedia.org but i though that it was just a name like things like google or yahoo. I never gave much thought to what wiki actually meant or whether it had a meaning. Turns out its like a collective knowledge where the virtual community takes the place of the author and anyone can write about a specific topic. The lecture brought up the intresting idea that perhaps wikis are challenging authors as authorities. Time will tell...

Virtual Communities and Social Networks

Heya all. In regards to Virtual communities im a member of a few online groups or virtual communities as they're called. Of course, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, I have an account on the infamous bebo. Though this blog has probably taken priority in recent times as my numero uno social network online. I find it a bit weird that some users can actually switch a virtual community for the a real-life community as the primary social network. Im actually unsure if I would treat a person who gives their online life amongst virtual communities and perhaps people they have never met priority over the real world. This might sound a bit harsh but i dont understand what the internet can give you as a social network that real like social networks cant. Or maybe that is exactly the point, they may prefer to socialise with complete strangers at a much more basic level as opposed to the depth a face-to-face interaction can have. I was also wondering if as technology develops and computers and the internet become more apart of our everday lives if maybe one day virtual communities will take over as the main form of social network. I think if this was to happen then users would mainly be staying in touch with people they actually know as opposed to complete strangers from kathmandu or some crazy far off place like that.

Anyhow, after the lectures, the readings aswell as a bit of research and thought, I feel I know what virtual communities and social networks are. I think that as Sophie mentioned in her blog it would be interesting to see if someone from a very far distant country, perhaps with a passion for communications, would be able to interpret and understand our blogs on the same level. Due to the almost unformal nature of some of the conversations that are taking place I think it may be a bit difficult.

Hacking, Hacktivism and 'Hats'

Topic three was all about hacking. I was really intrested in this because though you could assume the majority of society are aware of what hacking is and could probably describe a few major well known cases of it I believe very few people would actually have a broad understanding of it.

When I think of hacking, 18 year old Kiwi boy Owen 'Akill' Walker comes to mind. Walker, or 'Akill' as he was known by his band of 'black hat' hackers, was accused by the FBI of leading a group of international programmers infecting one million computers with viruses resulting in an estimated $NZ26 million. Lauren Hagans blog tells how her little sister's bebo account was hacked. This made me laugh as the amount of times ive walked in on my own sister having a winge because some bully had hacked her account. Made me think about all the little up-and-coming hackers who are shaping their skills on beebs before perhaps moving on to become Owen Walker themselves.

One thing that sticks very well in my mind from the information thrown at us from the readings and lectures etc is the concept of white vs black hat hackers. I had always been under the assumption that hacking was completely bad and little good could come from it but after contemplating it, it does make sense that in order to prevent malicious hacking by 'white hat' hacking you would have to know and I assume be capable of 'black hat' hacking. Also I had a little chuckle when I found out the metaphor for the black and white hat hackers derived from old western movies. When I was younger my old man constantly made me watch old western movies he watched when he was my age and the villian cowboy would always be wearing a black hat while the sheriff would be wearing a perfectly white cowboy hat. Anyway I found it funny...maybe you had to be there...

Lastly, the quote from the lecture notes that describes hackers as 'pyromaniacs in a paper city' was really effective in putting the whole idea into perspective for me. It showed me how hacking is a relatively new thing and if the right measures (white hat hackers) aren't put in place the results can be as disaterous as a 'pyromaniac in a paper city'.

That's all folks...