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[gu-newtechgenius-blog]

The New (Anti) Social Age

For more on New Communication Technologies, check out my blog: http://gu-newtechgenius.tumblr.com/

Society has become consumed by all the new technology that has been accepted in recent years. With snippets of footage of people doing this on a day to day basis, I talk about the new social age that has seemingly become anti-social

[the-bleedingedge]

Anonymous: Modern Day Robin Hood?

The advances made in technology during the last 20 years has brought growing fears around information kept by various governments and corporations around the world. Privacy, it seems, has become somewhat of an elusive luxury. The Internet and its social media sites like Facebook, have meant that anyone, anywhere is able to search a name and discover details that were, before the internet, unknown. As a result of these issues and the growing evidence that governments and businesses are not disclosing crucial information that the general public have a right to know, cyber activism has become a very real part of our society. This online activism, known as ‘hacktivism’ can be described as politically motivated hacking (Mikhaylova 2014, p. 1) and has become synonymous with what is now the worlds largest collective of hacktivists, the ‘Anonymous’ group. The group is described as “loosely associated” with a “decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives” (Kelly 2012, p. 1678). In other words, Anonymous describes itself as an internet ‘gathering’ rather than an official network with specific guidelines and rules. Due to this loose association and the idea that members must remain anonymous, the group has come under a lot of scrutiny in regards to the actions of certain members. As any person can label themselves as ‘Anonymous’, misconstrued opinions and ideas of what is right and wrong has brought about demonstrations that have been seen by the general population as controversial and wrong. It can be noted that because there is no one member in charge of Anonymous, issues like anarchy and disorder within the groups structure and actions has caused issues in the past and most likely will do in the future.

The consequence of the disorganisation within the group is the questioning of whether or not Anonymous as a hacktivist network is a necessary function of 21st Century citizens to keep check on governments and corporations. In order to answer this question, evidence from the past must be inspected, specifically in regards to the overall fear and mistrust held by governments and corporations toward Anonymous and whether these suspicions prove these entities (governments and corporations) need to be held accountable by a separate operation that isn’t biased (Anonymous or another similar organisation). As well as this, it must be noted whether Anonymous’ cyber demonstrations can be described as vigilante activity and if yes, can their behaviour be justified as good and necessary? As a part of this, the consequences of the collective having no rules or specific guidelines must be considered. Moreover, how can members be stopped/held accountable if and even more so, when, their hacktivism turns into cyber terrorism in order to maintain itself as a necessary function in 21st Century society.

Governments and corporations have been notoriously skeptical of hacking and as a result, hacktivism - and rightly so, as said by Richard A. Clarke, a former special advisor on Cyberspace Security to President George W. Bush,

“The threat is really very easy to understand. If there are major vulnerabilities in the digital networks that make our country run, then someday, somebody will exploit them in a major way doing great damage to the economy. What could happen? Transportation systems could grind to a halt. Electric power and natural gas systems could malfunction. Manufacturing could freeze. 911 emergency call centers could jam. Stock, bond, futures, and banking transactions could be jumbled. If that major attack comes at a time when we are at war, it could put our forces at great risk by having their logistics system fail.” (2003)

Clarke points out the detrimental effect hacktivism could have if unregulated. It is also important to distinguish the difference between hacking and hacktivism. Mikhaylova explains that “hacktivists share many, if not all, of the principles of the original hacker ethic. Both hacker and hacktivist ethics are libertarian and anarchist in nature: their ethics puts them “on a collision course with the commercial-industrial complex who wish to own and control the Internet”” (2014, p. 3). Mikhaylova goes on to distinguish that “hacktivists are different from other types of hackers because their motivations are driven by the pursuit of social change, as opposed to seeking profit or intellectual pursuit" (2014, p. 1). In other words, hacktivists are hackers who take on more of a ‘cyber vigilante’ role as opposed to a criminal one (Serracino-Inglott 2013). It is evident from this why governments and corporations are afraid of hacktivism’s potential; many point toward the thin line between hackers and hacktivism. These entities also note that Anonymous’ lack of guidelines can and have lead to members crossing that line- thus making the groups function unnecessary to society as it ceases to keep check on the behavior of governments and corporations.

The Anonymous network’s previous demonstrations have publicly exposed confidential and sensitive information from many public and private agencies. Many would suggest the networks political motivations can be summed up as ‘vigilante’ behavior. Serracino-Inglott makes parallels to Anonymous’ cyber vigilantism and fictional heroes like Batman and Dirty Harry- characters who “defend the weak when the law fails them” (2013). As with any story that hinges on a Robin Hood-esque, ‘steal from the rich and give to the poor’, philosophy, there is always going to be one side that comes out better off. Many scholars argue Anonymous’ are not cyber vigilantes, rather they are website vandals and criminals. Sharon D. Nelson, president of IT and Computer Security firm, Sensei Enterprises, explains in an interview with academic Joe Drysart for his thesis on Hacktivists, “Anonymous is heroic to many people who are sick of government lies and weary of government intrusion.” Nelson goes on to highlight inherent risks Anonymous take by exposing information that could be detrimental to national security (Drysart 2011).

It can be seen from their history that Anonymous attacks have been for many different reasons, both positive and negative. For example, in 2011, Anonymous hacked a website called ‘Lolita City’, advertised through ‘Hidden Wiki’: a site found on the dark web which is a part of the internet that can only be reached through special tools and could be described as the underworld of the internet. Lolita City provided a platform that allowed paying pedophiles easy and open access to child abuse pictures. Anonymous launched a two pronged digital attack, firstly taking the website servers offline and secondly, publicly exposing the login details of its 1500 users. This assault was seen in the media very positively, as Hidden Wiki as a site is incredibly unsavoury, offering not only avenues to pedophilic content but “promotes money laundering services, contract killing, cyber avenues to order restricted chemicals, along with instructions on how to make explosives (Williams 2011). In a stark comparison to it’s more ‘heroic’ demonstrations, Anonymous has also been known for it’s revenge attacks on organisations that it’s members do not like. As an illustration, in 2012, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) shutdown MegaUpload, an illegal website where users could pirate copyrighted films and television shows. Anonymous, whose members were unhappy the site, which was at the time the fifteenth most popular website on the internet, was shutdown. The group retaliated with a revenge attack whereby they shutdown government sites like justice.gov, the US Department of Justice, the FBI website itself and many other entertainment industry sites like Universal Music Group, Motion Picture Association of America and Broadcast Music Group (Internet Strikes Back: Anonymous’ Operation MegaUpload Explained 2012). Opinion differs on whether this attack was titt-for-tatt revenge on the MegaUpload shutdown or rather a warning to governments and corporations on the capabilities of the Anonymous. What is obvious is the differing reason behind Anonymous attacks and the risk this kind of unpredictable behaviour can bring.

In conclusion, it can be seen that the network has the potential to keep check on governments and corporations but in order to become a necessary function in 21st Century Society, it must stay within the bounds of hacktivism and not escape into the realm of hacking. Anonymous’ previous demonstrations have been effective in placing fear within governments and corporations. This fear is warranted within the risk caused by the unpredictability of what it’s members could do if they go too far. As demonstrated, Anonymous’ mission is to be political vigilantes, which if justified as ‘good’ and for the benefit of the majority would be highly beneficial to society in ensuring transparency within large entities whose actions affect many. Unfortunately, at this stage due to its previous actions, Anonymous ceases to be a necessary function of 21st century citizens to keep check on governments and corporations because it does not always stay true to its hacktivist philosophy.

References can also be found in full here.

A copy of my research development can be found here.

[the-bleedingedge]

Obama may not have the courage to pardon Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, but he could at least exonerate Stephen Kim, Jeffrey Sterling, Thomas Drake, and John Kiriakou.

Is the worldwide hacktivist network ‘Anonymous’ a necessary function of 21st Century citizens to keep check on governments and corporations?

To Be Continued...

[gu-newtechgenius-blog]

Unknowingly Immersing in Politics

This weeks theme was surprisingly one of the most interesting weeks so far; technology and politics. I have never been someone who consciously reads into politics, as much as my Dad has pushed the idea, but I have definitely learnt this week that I unconsciously do so. For example, whenever I share something or like something on Facebook that’s to do with Donald Trump or Tony Abbott, I am unconsciously immersing myself in politics. One of the most well-known ways I do this is by signing e-petitions. My latest is the petition to stop live baiting in QLD, which has recently been of interest after NSW and ACT banned greyhound racing. Whilst this was for a task, I would really appreciate if you could sign this petition too by clicking HERE.

Whilst I didn’t look into the Australian Governments “Clean Feed” plans I do feel like censorship in a democracy runs on a grey line. Democracy is defined as, “A government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections,” (Merriam-Webster's Learner's Dictionary, 2016). It is by the people, which is the only reason why we can sign petitions and speak our minds. Censoring completely contradicts that; it manages what people say and what they are aloud to express. This can sometimes be a good thing but it can also make real world issues deceiving, which is where the grey line sets in. A great example of this is just by looking at Barack Obama’s twitter account. Just in his bio it says that most of the time it’s not even him on twitter, it’s his staff. Whilst occasionally he may leave his initials to let the world know it was his tweet, it can already be assumed that whoever run his twitter, run what he says when he posts as well, no matter the authenticity. Even the most powerful man in the world is being censored in his own democracy.

But in light of it all there is some good in technology and politics. For example the National Broadband Network (NBN). It allows people to communicate with people on the other side of the world, entertainment on a number of devices, being able to learn through the use of fast internet. It’ll eventually become the new Telstra. Even just by looking at my Federal member in my area, Scott Buchholz. Just by looking at his most recent speeches and matching it with his Twitter account, I learnt that he is a firm believer in ending violence against women.

(Buchholz, 2016)

This was further reiterated when I read his speech he presented in White Ribbon Day last year when he, with no censorship, said, “That is one of the wonderful parts of being a federal member: being able to help those in need... I will stand up, speak out and act to prevent men's violence against women,” (Buchholz, 2015). While of course this was written and he would’ve had some help, you don’t continuously show your support for something you don’t actually support. And with the use of twitter, he’s able to get the word out on a massive scale. That’s because technology and politics have evolved to mould with each other and has allowed people to become more involved in politics, sometimes without their realisation of it.

Resources

[gu-newtechgenius-blog]

Social Monkeys

This week, the inevitable theme of social media came about. How we use it, does it effect us, do we rely on it, are we safe? Our task was to create a survey and collect responses, but I took a bit of a spin on it instead of solely just asking questions about social media. So I focussed more on Facebook and Instagram, as they are probably the most used social media sites in recent years. So after going on Survey Monkey, creating a survey and posting it on Facebook, and collating the results, this is what I’ve gotten from it.

Firstly, as seen from the graph below, despite me thinking people would be on Instagram more, results show it is quite the opposite. Even more, respondents stated that the ratio was closer to 5:1 hours per week. This surprised me at first but then after more thought I realised there is more to procrastinate with on Facebook. There are games (if you’re into that), ads to shop online, shared articles, status’, links, funny animal videos, etc. Whereas Instagram is solely just scrolling through photos until you get to where you last left off.

In addition, when asking what site is more social, 69.44% believed Facebook was which isn’t much of a surprise really since you are able to leave status’, share links and videos and most importantly, instantly message friends and voice call. 

However, what confused me was the fact when one of the questions was what site do you feel is safer only 44.44% said Instagram but then when asked if they felt Instagram needed more privacy settings like Facebook, 58.33% said no. My only conclusion from this is that those on Instagram firmly believe that there is more than enough privacy considering if you’re on private people can’t see your profile at all. As a user of Instagram, I also believe this.

As to WHY some are more inclined to Instagram compared to Facebook, most of the responses incorporated trending themes such as their parents being on Facebook and not Instagram, gets away from older generations, it’s “cooler”, and it’s easier because it shows rather than explains, enabling people to be more creative on Instagram with their photos and to keep up to date with what people are doing (especially with the new addition similar to Snap Chat, but that’s a blog post in itself).

In conclusion, I believe the comparison to Facebook and Instagram isn’t by what they have and what is safer, it is what is the latest and cooler; which at the moment is Instagram. The older generations tend to go with Facebook while the younger generations tend to go to Instagram no matter the risk or what it offers, although even I can agree that it is a hobby to create the perfect theme on my Instagram feed.

Resources

[the-bleedingedge]

This week in class we were charged with the task of exploring technology, politics and the way we use the internet to become online activists. In class, our tutor asked us if we fashion ourselves to identify as activists online. Had we ever shared a news article that we felt our friends and family needed to hear about? Had we signed an online petition? Do we follow lobby groups or politicians?

When we think about activism we often picture protestors or people who tie themselves to trees so they don’t get cut down. We don't think of sharing a post on Facebook to raise awareness.

Nonetheless, our tutor proved to us that even the smallest acts of raising awareness can be activism.

We were given quite a few tasks this week, which I'm going to try to tackle in under 500 words. Sadly, the amount of questions given this week amounted to 130 words so I don't have very many left. To make this easier for myself, I'm going to use our questions as headings but I apologise in advance for the length:

Sign an e-petition. I went to google and searched the words 'petition website' and received quite a few search results. I clicked the first result which was a site called 'change.org'. It gave you the option of making your own petition or browsing other peoples. The only way you could sign or create a petition was to give your email and sign up. I receive too many emails so I didn't bother to go any further and sign any petitions.

Respond to a professional blogger at a major news site. This task confused me, I wasn't sure if the question was meant to read journalist instead of blogger as it directed me to a major news site. I tried to think about the kind of journalist that is more of a blogger and came to the conclusion that a journalist/blogger is probably someone who write 'fluff' pieces. I decided to go to the most major 'fluff' news site I could think of. BuzzFeed came to mind so I typed that into my browser. I perused the home page until I came across a post called 'Justin Bieber's Lock Screen Is A Bunch Of Photos Of Justin Bieber' by BuzzFeed Staff member, Christian Zamora (2016). I responded the following:

What is Barak Obama up to today? Can you send him a message about the importance of freedom on the internet? To find out where POTUS is today I went to the White House's website. From there I clicked on to the President’s Schedule. Today, Obama is in Lake Tahoe, Nevada to deliver remarks at the 20th annual Lake Tahoe Summit. At the top of the page there were links to posting him a message via Twitter, Facebook or Email. I could send him a message about the importance of freedom on the internet but unfortunately I don't think he'll personally see it so I'm not going to.

What are/were the Australian Government's plans to censor the internet (the so-called "Clean Feed")? A Clean Feed is an internet 'filter' that was proposed to block access to around 10,000 websites as of December 2008. The designations would be controlled by the same authority that rates film and television shows. After public backlash in 2010 the Coalition parties announced that they would not vote for the proposed policy. However, in June 2011, Telstra and Optus announced they would voluntarily block access to a list of websites that was provided by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Dudley-Nicholson, 2011). Further, in 2012 the Australian Government dropped the proposed plans for an internet filter and instead made it mandatory for all Internet Service Providers to filter certain child abuse websites as a sort of 'meet in the middle' solution (Cullen, 2012).

What place does censorship have in a democracy? This question has no right answer. Internet censorship, if done with good intentions, keeps internet users safe from coming across websites deemed as offensive, obscene or against the law. However, many Australians have asked how much is censored and how is the government using the information they are censoring? It also begs the question of what right does the government get to decide on how Australians use the internet? Freedom of speech and press is written into our constitution and it is a blurry line of whether censorship is putting a restriction on what is considered a right for all citizens (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, 2011)

What are the benefits of the NBN? What potential form(s) will the NBN take when it is finally rolled out?

The benefits of the NBN is supposed to mean fast and reliable internet for all Australians. When it’s fully rolled out, the NBN will be able to be used not only by a home computer but also, EFTPOS Terminals, fire and security alarms, emergency medical buttons, faxes and typewriter devices and other similar technologies (NBN, 2016).

Find out who your local, state and federal representatives are. Send one a message. Look up the Queensland or Australian Hansard to find the last time your local member spoke in parliament. Let your local member know what you think about their last speech.

For privacy reasons, I don't want to disclose the locality of where I live by providing the names of my local, state and federal members. You can however, find out yours by going to the ourcommunity website. Once you click through you can find out your members website and contact them via letter, email or through their linked social media sites. In order to find out when they last spoke in parliament you can go to the websites of whatever parliament you are looking for (state or federal) and search your members name to find their most recent speech.

[the-bleedingedge]

My Friends and Social Media

This week our task was to create a social media survey via the website SurveyMonkey and invite people via social media to participate. We would then need to analyse the results. I knew it was going to be hard to get a lot of results from my survey if I posted a link to it openly on my Facebook page- with no obligation most people would rather not waste their time. So with this knowledge I asked myself who would be obligated? After not much thought the answer came to me: my friends and family!

As I thought more on the subject I began to actually wonder how my immediate circle uses social media differently to me. People often say you are the average of the people you surround yourself with and I wondered if this is true when it comes to social media. It is and was pretty easy to assume that my friends would of course use the same platforms I do- often our social media accounts are an extension of our actual social lives. 

So off I went to my Facebook page to message my girlfriends and try to rope them into my 1 minute survey. And because they are good friends they all filled it out! I expressed my gratitude to them and promptly went to analyse the results. 

In total I asked six questions with multiple choice answers: 1. What social media platform do you primarily use? 2. What is your least favourite social media platform? 3. Have you ever made a friend on social media? 4. Out of these options, which platforms do you regularly use (at least once a week)? (options were: Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube) 5. How many hours per week do you usually spend on social media? 6. How important is social media in your day to day life? From the results I could see some very clear similarities in how my friends use social media to how I use it. 7 out of 15 of us use Instagram as our primary platform (see below) with Facebook coming in second.

For me, Instagram is my primary form of social media on a day to day basis. and I supplied this answer when I took the survey myself.

Another similarity between us as a friendship group is that over half of us listed LinkedIn as our least favourite platform (see below).

I wondered why LinkedIn was the least popular amongst my friends. Alex Shaak of The Huffington Post made some interesting points when she wrote that millennials don’t like LinkedIn for four reasons: “there is no one really to connect with, it’s too structured, it’s not a ‘fun’ social media” and finally because “people can tell when you’ve looked at their profile” (Shaak 2016). 

I’m not sure if this is true for my friends but it certainly is for me. The only reason I ever made a LinkedIn profile was for a university assignment (and I promptly deleted the account as soon as the semester was over). Social media is for personal time, I don’t want to be spending that time looking for job connections and networks. In saying this though, I may change my mind on that once I get into looking for career prospects closer to graduating.

As much as there were plenty of similarities, there were a few differences between our regular social media use and the opinions we have on it. The most interesting to note was the varying results from the question “How important is social media to your day to day life?” 

For this question I gave 4 options and as you can see my friends all admitted social media was important to them in some way. How important was the difference:

I asked myself if I thought I could live for a week without social media and came to the conclusion that I doubt I could. This is interesting considering I grew up without social media and the big platforms I used in my survey have only recently become part of my day to day routine. Could I wake up and not check Instagram? Could I not spend my lunch break browsing Pinterest? Knowing my friends that answered ‘somewhat important’ I wondered if they were lying to themselves and should have answered ‘very important’?

It all goes back to the question of whether the internet controls us or if we control it? With technology advancing as rapidly as it is I think these are questions we must answer for ourselves. Otherwise I fear we might end up relinquishing the control we do have of our privacy, safety and minds.

[the-bleedingedge]

The 2016 Census and it’s inevitable internet drama

During our time off during Week 3, the Census date came around. This year the Census moved to being almost completely online. Instead of large paper forms being sent out to each household, a small letter containing a specific log in number for your household arrived with detail on how to get online and complete your census. 

Typically, as is normal with anything the government tries to accomplish in this country, the 2016 Census brought about harsh criticism. The backlash began around it’s new privacy policy. Changes were being made to how long the data from the Census would be kept and also it is now compulsory to submit your name when filling out the form (Allen, 2016). Obviously, concerns like this should be taken seriously and many Australian’s used their favourite Social Media platform, Facebook, to express these concerns. 

The world has become a scary place, online threats like being hacked and having your identity stolen are very real realities for a lot of internet users. Cyber safety must be taken seriously and it was interesting to see so many Australians distrusting of the Australian Bureau of Statistics- not because the Bureau was going to leak the information or give it away to anyone that wants it, but more so, people were asking questions about whether the servers could be hacked from the outside.

This conversation becomes even more interesting when we think about how many marketers have servers filled with our information. In the midst of all of the controversy it seemed as if many Australians were not going to give over their information to a government agency whose sole purpose is to find ways to build on our infrastructure but very interested in giving over any kind of information to receive a free voucher from their favourite store.

Should we be more careful about the information we give to private companies for marketing purposes or was the Census uproar simply evidence of how quickly a message can spread on the internet and how quickly people are willing to jump on said message without doing any research or thinking on if they truely agree?