copyright

finally updating my blog! from having a read through everybody else's blogs, it sounds like we're all in the same boat... i have been flat out with other assignments and stuff for a couple of weeks now, and i have an internal exam in only a week! starting to panic :S

i think one of the first things i think about when i think "copyright" in an online context it would have to be music. from the time i first heard about napster, it has been apparent to me that - even though its against the law - the anonymity of the internet has allowed thousands and thousands of people to share music online via downloading. this blatant disregard for the law has resulted in huge losses for the music industry, but many people argue that those in charge of that industry inflate the price of cds so much that the big music exec's are in a sense getting what they deserve after selling music to the public while making a huge profit. i've never used itunes to download music, but the idea of selling songs online for a lower price shows that the problem is so inherent that those in control have been forced to change in order to survive.

i guess i am in two mind frames regarding copyright. on one hand, i believe that people should be able to profit from something that they themselves actually created. however, when it comes to copyright for other things (such as information) i think that restricting access is unfair and disadvantageous. the beauty of the internet is that a wider world is available right at our fingertips; however that in itself is one of the downfalls of the internet. the problem is deciding where you draw the line, and in fact who decides where to draw that line? also, what makes music or software (things i don't have a problem being charged for) different from say, an article? it is all still the intellectual property of the creator, and therefore i think copyright is still a valid concept. but just because a concept sounds good in theory doesn't mean it works in real life. the reality is, the vast majority of people who use the internet without paying attention to copyright laws would never get caught for using something illegally. the internet is such a vast space, and the content available seems largely unregulated. therefore enforcing copyright laws seems to me to be a potentially impossible task.

oh!

and good luck everybody with their essays :-) what topic are people doing?

digital divide

as i have often said here in my blog, i have never really considered myself an overly technical person. however in saying that i am not so completely unaware that my circumstances find me lucky enough to have a cellphone, laptop, television etc - in stark contrast to many others in the world. in my flat of 6 people, all of us have cellphones (a couple even have more than one, on different networks), our own laptops and 4 of 6 have televisions. the boys have their ps3's etc, we all have stereos, dvd capability, we have sky digital, digital cameras... yet there are people who have none of these. i use my laptop to watch television shows, listen to music, download stuff, type assignments and surf the net... and the occassional procrastination on bebo or perez hilton. so it would be fair to say that technology infiltrates my life on a regular basis, yet i certainly consider myself a slave to technology. i have obviously gained this perception from somewhere; apparently in my little corner of the world this kind of usage is the norm.

even in countries that aren't 3rd world - developing countries - infrastructure is so far behind us that things like the internet definitely do not exist in the way we have it here. i'm from invercargill and all the supermarkets are only just getting those self-scan machines - exciting times! last time i was in christchurch (beginning of 2007) the pak n save near the backpackers my friends and i stayed at already had them. so that's just one example i can think of when it comes to the differences between highly urbanised areas, and those areas that aren't as metro.

however, there are countries that are miles ahead of us as well. i had never thought of those less fortunate of myself in terms of their access to technology - i always thought there were more important things to be concerned about. however, the fact is that technology is now a part of life for many of us and does indeed allow many opportunities to learn and develop - the amount of information available to myself in comparision to other people is huge, and the potential educational opportunities those people are being deprived of is just another example of social inequality. obviously things like proper nutrition and erradicating disease is deservedly put on a higher plateau than providing people with access to technology, but ideally everybody would have the same access/opportunities as each other.

surveillance

one of the things i would like to focus on in this blog is the rise of people (namely employers) using social network pages (such as facebook) to gain information that they would otherwise probably not have access to. this has been a topic in the news lately.

check out http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10477932 for a pretty interesting article in the nzherald archives: it makes a very valid point, saying that 'the cost to a person's future can be very high' if something a bit embarassing/risque/private they post on facebook is seen by their employer. from everything i have seen and heard about this subject, it seems like this is becoming a more common practice for employers - i wonder if figures actually support that, or if its all just hype and techno-fear? also mentioned in the article is the perceived practice of social networking sites of giving out information about their users to other brands and companies. surely this goes against ethics?

speaking of employers, this topic also raises the question of whether or not your employer should be able to monitor your emails. i took some time off from uni last year and worked for 6 months - the government-owned company i worked for had a message come up onscreen whenever you logged in each morning that said all website visits were monitored, however thinking about it now it was unclear whether or not workplace emails were monitored. while i think it is overstepping a boundary, i can certainly understand why a workplace would have a policy like that - especially if, like where i worked, information gleaned within the workplace was very confidential. other blogs have raised the point that maybe work email surveillance is ok, but personal email surveillance isn't, and i agree. however, in certain fields it would not surprise me if some employers did not.

in some ways, it could be argued that what people do in the privacy of their own home - and what they post online - is their business. on the other side, you could justify an employer looking at a potential employee's facebook page by saying that if you post something online you're inviting people to look at it, as the internet is a public domain. so the idea of online surveillance really is a contentious one, and a subject i am not sure i'm decided on.

copyright

finally updating my blog! from having a read through everybody else's blogs, it sounds like we're all in the same boat... i have been flat out with other assignments and stuff for a couple of weeks now, and i have an internal exam in only a week! starting to panic :S

i think one of the first things i think about when i think "copyright" in an online context it would have to be music. from the time i first heard about napster, it has been apparent to me that - even though its against the law - the anonymity of the internet has allowed thousands and thousands of people to share music online via downloading. this blatant disregard for the law has resulted in huge losses for the music industry, but many people argue that those in charge of that industry inflate the price of cds so much that the big music exec's are in a sense getting what they deserve after selling music to the public while making a huge profit. i've never used itunes to download music, but the idea of selling songs online for a lower price shows that the problem is so inherent that those in control have been forced to change in order to survive.

i guess i am in two mind frames regarding copyright. on one hand, i believe that people should be able to profit from something that they themselves actually created. however, when it comes to copyright for other things (such as information) i think that restricting access is unfair and disadvantageous. the beauty of the internet is that a wider world is available right at our fingertips; however that in itself is one of the downfalls of the internet. the problem is deciding where you draw the line, and in fact who decides where to draw that line? also, what makes music or software (things i don't have a problem being charged for) different from say, an article? it is all still the intellectual property of the creator, and therefore i think copyright is still a valid concept. but just because a concept sounds good in theory doesn't mean it works in real life. the reality is, the vast majority of people who use the internet without paying attention to copyright laws would never get caught for using something illegally. the internet is such a vast space, and the content available seems largely unregulated. therefore enforcing copyright laws seems to me to be a potentially impossible task.

belated week 7...

the aspect of week 7 i found most interesting is the construction of an online "self". i've been thinking about that a lot lately - i guess hardly surprising, as i decided to do the virtual communities topic for my critical essay.

everybody has heard the scary stories about people creating fraudulent identities on the internet - for me personally, i remember when we first got the internet at home that my parents gave us a big lecture about how anybody can pretend to be something/someone online. but there is more to the construction of online self than the stereotypical creepy old man.

i have never been into the whole role playing games online, but it is evidently something that so many people participate in, truly an example of the global village that the internet has provided. it reminds me of a daytime show i saw briefly a few weeks ago - oprah i think - where the topic was centred around a young teenage girl, who spent basically all of her time (and pocket money) on this online game. she had created an avatar, a house for her avatar, a car for her avatar... it wasn't so long ago i didn't even know what an avatar was. even mtv has jumped on the role playing bandwagon and created virtual communities in relation to their programming - virtual hills or pimp my ride, anyone?

the renaissance of these online communities (mmorpg is definitely easier to remember than 'massively multi-player online role playing games') has led to the question of where does it end? will mmorpg gradually replace real-life interaction? these days you can get your groceries online, your clothing online... and now you can also "live" online. my generation, and certainly the ones following, are interspersing their RL's with their VL. how far will it go? no doubt for some, it has already reached the point where living vicariously through a fictional, three dimensional self has overtaken reality.

political blogging

i have to say out of all the topics we've covered so far, i found this one to be particularly interesting. i feel like i say that every week; i guess i'm just suprised at my level of enjoyment stemming from this paper. i wasn't convinced it was a subject i was interested in, but i was proved wrong. i'm studying pols here in dunedin (but communications is my major) and have always been an avid follower of both domestic and international politics. i'm known amongst my friends to get pretty riled up about it all sometimes.

in one of my other papers, we spent some time focusing on the situation in china/tibet, and the level of censorship faced by those within china. so relating my own views and knowledge to last week's readings was pretty easy (and interesting!) for me. the lecturer even showed us a website that (somehow... not sure entirely how it works...) lets you see whether or not particular websites are accessible in china. from the websites tested in class, it was pretty restricted. i also heard something on the news the other night about how wikipedia was now able to be accessed within china. even though i don't agree with a lot of the political blogs i come across, viewpoint wise, i appreciate that here in new zealand, unlike china, we don't get so censured when it comes to voicing our own opinions. or even our right to read whatever we like. and even though i read quite a few, i had never really thought about political blogs being the domain of right-wing males - until i read it in this weeks readings. so i had a bit of an "ahhh" moment when reading. on the other hand, sometimes coming across certain political-based writings in the blogosphere makes it hard to be of the opinion that free speech is always a great thing. there are lots of blogs out there that spread not only ignorant bias (on the lower end of the scale) but also full-blown hate at the other end. but i guess that's the way the world is really.

again, another one of my papers this semester has had elements focusing on the use of new technology such as the internet in the political arena. i'm currently working on a group assignment, where my role is to basically pretend i'm a member of the green party's campaign team, whose area of research is the benefits of utilising the internet. i've come across blogs from political parties and mmp's themselves... but not sure really how significant social platforms and that kind of thing are on election results. i dont think you can really argue the fact that the internet is a fast growing communication medium, and political uses are continuing to increase. but do political blogs, facebook pages etc cater only to those who are super interested in politics? does average joe bloggs (no pun intended, but doing it anyway) really care about john key's facebook page, or even heard of http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/? will political writings online have any effect at all on the politically apathetic or noncommittal?

ps

did anybody else see the news tonight, about that hacker from new zealand? interesting stuff... no doubt it will be brought up in class sometime this week

week 5

as you can see, i've run out of creative (?) titles. week 5's reading (i couldn't make the classes that week so....) is all about the credibility of wikipedia. i found that pretty interesting, because as somebody who sometimes has the bad habit of leaving things until the last minute, i have often begun an essay by first having a browse of wikipedia. don't lie, everybodys done it!! i guess with wiki you have to be careful not to take everything written as gospel... but that would have to be a pretty fair general rule of using the internet for stuff like accuracy. not even only information for the odd assignment (as a starting point, give me some credit here), but also interaction with other people. nothing new though i'm sure.

from the chesney article, it was interesting to read that the "cynicism" of both groups (experts and non experts) was similar, although it was equally interesting to note that the reported cynicism, being purely subjective, was about as accurate as wikipedia is perceived to be. just like real life, you can't take everything you hear/view/read with a grain of salt; it's up to each individual member of an audience to make a judgement call as to whether or not to trust each piece of information. yet another example of the web reflecting real life... as chesney suggests, further studies need to be conducted in order to form more accurate conclusions. while using purported experts is a very interesting and valid idea, maybe anonymity for things such as the level of cynicism felt by each participant would have resulted in potentially more accurate results.

virtual communities

i c erika's post saying that the purpose of our blogs is not to summarise lectures/notes/readings, but rather engage with the content of the paper on a more personal level. so here goes.

i find the subj. matter of last week's readings pretty interesting; and i think it would be a safe bet to say that the majority, if not all of, the class would consider the topic relevant to their own lives.

i think i was about 13 when we got our first PC. my computer skills at the time were basically restricted to using microsoft works (i could whip up some pretty sweet party invitations) and playing sim city. however, as time passed, my utilisation of the computer (particularly my internet usage) continued to develop.

the first social network i joined online was myspace; and while i've stopped using that i now also have both a bebo (for friends) and a facebook (which all my cousins, who are older than me and are mostly all overseas doing their OEs, have... i use it solely to keep in touch with them). before enrolling in this paper, i had kind of presumed - incorrectly - that these were the only "virtual communities" i engaged in.

but then i thought about it, and realised that my participation in virtual communities extended beyond the obvious. now, being a POLS student for the first year, i have decided to become a bit more vocal about my opinions. thru clubs & socs i joined a political party (the youth branch). this year, a VC was formed using yahoo groups in order for everybody in the club to keep in touch with one another. it's also used to let everybody know the topic of conversation for the following meeting, amongst other things.

also, on an even more personal level, this year my younger sister and i are having to go thru some family-orientated stuff. while i have an awesome group of friends, who would have no problem being there to talk to, i have found that a group i came across online is really helping my cope with it all. being able to discuss things online (things that that would potentially make me uncomfortable in face-to-face situations) is not only really helpful simply because i'm getting it out, but i'm also talking about it with people who are in similar situations - there are dozens of people, engaging with one another, geographically separate but not isolated from one another.

i think all of these virtual community platforms differ to a degree chosen by the user themself. it's up to you how much info you share in each community, and if you're like me then it will be different across all platforms.

well, hopefully that was kind of what we were meant to write about... hope everybody had a good long weekend.

hacking! (cue ominous background music..)

week three was dedicated to hacking, crackers, and hacktivism.

the readings this week made me realise how prejudicial my image of hackers really was, courtesy of the media. like a lot of people, i was guilty of thinking that hackers only did what they do to wreak mayhem and essentially just mess with people.

lets start with hactivism. sit-ins and other forms of protest in the past were also regarded as pushing the boundaries. however, looking back now the majority of people would agree that these forms of protest were beneficial and morally right. and most importantly, justified. so in the face of a constantly evolving world, people are undoubtedly going to utilise advancements in technology - increasingly prevalent - in order to challenge doctrines of oppression or injustice. perhaps my belief that this kind of hacking is, in a lot of cases, justified stems from my own personal beliefs: others may disagree in regards to whether hactivisim is right or wrong. if i lived in the 1800s i would have protested for womens rights. if i had lived in the 1960s i would have protested against segregation. if i was that passionate about an issue (and lets face it, if i was actually skilled enough to hack into a computer system) then may circumstances would see me becoming a hacktivist myself.

on the other hand, hacking for financial gain, or hacking to cause distress to somebody, is not something i could condone. while this doesn't fit with the ethics of hacking, the fact is that somewhere out there it potentially happens. if people have the ability to hack into systems in order to protest against something, then the ability to hack into somebodies bank account is there. depending on the person, this can no doubt be utilised.

it was also interesting to me to read about the difference between old school and new school hackers. the impression i got from the readings was that there is a lot of reciprocal disdain and animosity between those who class themselves as old school and those who class themselves as new school. personally, i'm kind of on the new school hackers' side. the old school hackers not only sold out and made millions of dollars each, the advances that they themselves made were used for some pretty unjust causes: like producing missiles capable of destroying x number of people. and the new school hackers also argue that they are simply doing what hackers preceding them did: the whole "information wants to be free" argument.

ultimately, hackers push boundaries. whether or not each hacker can justify what they do depends on the circumstances.

remember: all virtual communities are networks, but not all networks are virtual communities!

as i've said before, i am definitely not the most tech-savvy person out there. from reading other people's blogs, i've gotten the same feeling from everybody else: i was pretty intimidated when i first began taking this paper, and worried it would be a bit dull. but those preconceptions have been completely unfounded... the content of the paper has been really interesting, which is kind of minimising how hard i find it to deal with the tech language.

so, the main thing i took from week 2's lectures and readings was the idea of users, networks and structures. in short, the architecture of the internet itself. the topic made me think of just how prevalent the internet - specifically virtual communities - are in my life personally. i have a facebook, a myspace, AND a bebo. and that's not even unusual, especially for gen y. i don't use them all the time or anything, but just by signing up, joining a few groups and posting a bit of info about me i have made myself a virtual community member. these online communities form when people participate - as we learned, the fundamental component of the net is people rather than the technology itself. the technology is simply used by individuals, who in turn create the communities. in saying that, online identity is pretty fluid. people can reveal as much about themselves as they choose, or even remain anonymous. but even an anonymous user is a participant in an online community.

'be here now' (miles) pointed out that "there's a huge difference between the world of online services before and after the invention of the web and of browsers that let us navigate it effectively... the advances in underlying functionality have been used to generate new applications of IT...". i was interested to learn about the first emoticon being sent, used to convey expression. it shows early attempts at forming social cohesion, an important factor in online communities, which begin when emotional bonds link individuals together. blogs, and blogging communities such as the one being simulated for our paper, are an example of how the internet and it's uses have evolved.

the berry piece we read also pointed out that, due to the unrestrictive nature of the internet, users see the internet as a vast public sphere. during our seminar time on thursday, my group discussed copyright issues. there was the expected talk about illegal p2p music downloading, but i was thinking more about intellectual property copyright. because i have written my opinions here in this blog today, in a so-called public space, does that mean it's ok for somebody else to claim my ideas (however yawn worthy they are) as their own? i'd like to think not, but is that legally accurate? also hearing about a research project in the states using facebook profiles made me rethink the amount of information, or the content of information, i post about myself on my social network profiles. while i do know of the dangers of posting too much info about myself on the internet, i don't think that ignorance is bliss in this case. whether i'm informed or not, i don't really want my social network profiles being used for research projects without my consent. so this in itself poses the problem: if the internet is a public space, is anything posted online off limits? by simply posting, does that imply my consent?

well i'm done now. cyas all in class.

post deux

are we meant to do another post this week yet? i think 9ams are too early for me, at the time i think everything is seeping in but it's possibly not... revision is in order i think.

if we are meant to post again, this probably won't count because i'm sleepy and need to go to bed. i just finished going over our readings for the week again - just reading my highlighted bits and bobs so i don't sound like a fool at tomorrow's seminar (fingers crossed! i think i've said that before, so you can tell i'm a superstitious person. therefore i guess you can start to form some ideas of my RL identity like we learned in todays lec! huh huh?)

well that's me done. cyas tomorrow, bright and early :)

hi everyone..

so here is my first post. i guess i'll introduce myself to get things started: i'm alana, i'm third year this year (doing a ba, majoring in coms and minoring in political studies) and i'm originally from invercargill. haha but don't hold that against me! i wasn't in dunedin last semester so it's been kind of hard to get used to the whole student thing again, but so far i'm really enjoying my classes. i'm home for the weekend since i didn't feel like being all flu-ridden in my flat watching everybody else party! lame.

even though i've used blogger before, i found even linking everybody to my blog pretty nerve wracking - it's different to be assessed on a blog, when before i've only just kind of fumbled around trying to make my other blog look pretty (thats about as tech-savvy as i get i'm afraid). fingers crossed i managed to link everybody properly. i'm not the most technical person around so this paper might be a bit of a challenge for me, but i'll give it a go. so far so good - i hope anyway.

i was a bit sick last week and so missed our first seminar on thursday... not a good start i know! if anybody else could please fill me in on what i missed i'd really appreciate it?!

anyway i'm looking forward to meeting everybody... it's kind of weird to read other people's blogs without putting a face to the name first, but i spose thats what the internet is all about :)

feel free to comment me as well guys!