Paranoia

So I think I've come to a realization about my internet paranoia. Ok here goes...With all the people on the internet (really think what that means, its a pretty ridiculous amount of people) there is no way that any company/government/system could store all of our information i.e. every website we go to/all our emails/our facebook/our comments/our posts and everything else we do. Maybe I'm wrong, but its just not possible to store all that data from everybody. So what do they do? They take snippets of our internet lives, and yes, they tell a great deal about us, but its not as invasive as I previously thought. Why have I come to this conclusion? Ask yourselves, what are they doing with this information? Well, for the unbelievably overwhelming vast majority of us it is purely for advertising purposes. Go down this blog and look at the Google disclaimer about how they store emails. All they do is pick out key words using computer software (not people reading) and use them to advertise to you. Ok, now you might be saying "Well its not Google I'm worried about, its others obtaining that information."...and this is where my personal revelation comes in. No matter how well protected, no matter how many laws we have, the government will always be able to track you, they will always know what you've been looking at. As far as the internet is concerned, the United States government is omnipotent, and they always will be. If your a little paranoid about the internet, the sooner you realize that the better. It doesn't make a difference how far we come in terms of rallying people for a privacy act, the government will still have access. Why? Because they feel that they have to much to lose to not keep up their omnipotence. Now I am about to go back on a a big thing I've said in class. If you accept that the government will always track you, and if you don't want to be tracked...don't use the internet. Also, on Google, I have really been thinking (and its been freaking me out lately because all my adds on facebook are freakishly relevant, I was showing Pat in class, every add on the side of facebook was directly responding to a word in my activities profile section.) I'm just not sure if I give a shit about that. I mean, what harm can come from that? I am a consumer and they know this. Is it really that invasive to have software track my habits and offer me something I may like? I think the analogy of having someone follow you around and track your habits in real life is irrelevant here due to me beliefs on the difference of face to face interaction as opposed to non (see down in the blog). So to sum up. The idea of paranoia about the internet to me is fading fast because 1. The government knows if they wish, and that will never change no matter WHAT (so why worry about it?) 2. Google and others have so much data to catalog that they cannot really invade you in the way most of us are thinking, they use SOFTWARE to pick out simple KEY WORDS that creates an advertising profile for you. This is where I will lose many because many believe that this is too invasive. I simply disagree from my personal standpoint. I just don't attribute a software as capable of judging me (I think thats what a lot of us are afraid of, being judged) so I don't worry about it. Ok so to really close, can anyone come up with a situation (besides facebook pictures popping up to discourage employers from hiring me) that will change my "who cares" argument? The only thing I can think of us down the line things coming up that political opponents/rival businesses would use against me. My only argument to that is that about 80% of the population probobly has the same sort of embarrassing shit so we are all sort of unified in that way? But maybe that is a bigger deal than I am anticipating.
-Mateo

blackboard scanning vs. discussions

I really didn't enjoy our last class nearly as much as the one before. I thought the long discussion really got a lot of people involved and answered a lot of our questions. This "scanning" the blackboard for ideas and interests just did not work at all for me. I thought 2 classes ago was great. We really got into some good stuff thagt people were passionate about and I was quite dissapointed that we did not do that again. I bet that if we discussed each chapter as a group everyone would have learned WAY more...but thats just me
-Matt

Delete Cyberbullying

Delete cyberbullying. It's just like regular bullying, but with more transaction fees.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1831186

Class quote of the day:

If I want you to know what I'm doing in my home...I'll invite you over -James Gibney

GMail and such

So I found out (through Google) that Google does in fact read your emails on Gmail, but not the way you might think. You could imagine the logistical problem of hiring enough staff to read all those emails productively. Google uses an extremely advanced supercomputer-esq software program. It goes through all Gmails and chooses keywords that are advertising friendly. If you tell your friend your going to Vegas this weekend you'll get a how to play poker advertisement because the software program picked out the keywords "going to Vegas." For me this is not as bad as what I originally thought. It is a mindless computer picking out keywords, not Dale sitting there with a Mountain Dew and a chew going through my life story. The potential for abuse is still there, but I mean, what doesn't have the potential for abuse online anymore? If I sound apathetic to this whole situation of privacy let me assure you I am not. I am pissed that all this information is out and about.
The "What do you have to hide?---So what do you care" argument is so silly. The poeple who say it aren't silly (I tottally see where your coming from), but it's just a little ignorant. Just because you don't care doesn't mean otheres wont. Who are you to tell people how to feel about their privacy? Maybe it doesn't make a difference if they have this info, but maybe it does. Peoples privacy is a very touchy subject, and its something that America prides itself on. We have privacy, i.e. freedom in this country. You must respect a persons right to feel upset or violated, because if you get real....they are being violated in a way, we all are. It just depends on how much it offends you.

Here is Googles explanation (Type in "Does Google read your mail?" into Google)
"Privacy is an issue we take very seriously. Gmail is a technology-based program, so advertising and related information are shown using a completely automated process. Ads are selected for relevance and served by Google computers using the same contextual advertising technology that powers our AdSense program. This technology lets Google target dynamically changing content such as email or daily news stories.
Because the ads and related pages are matched to information that is already of interest to you, we hope you'll find them relevant and useful.------Wow!

9/2 class notes

9/9
Politics and the Internet

-We recognize that the problems and issues we face with computers and the internet are not
new. They had to figure out how to carry a pencil and not lose it.
-Recognize the inextricability of the human and the technological.
-No separation between the human and the technological.
-Artificiality is natural to humans. Humans are not 100% determined by the environment
-No such thing as a pre human being that is later determined by technology.
-Visual organization of space is determined by culture
-Humans are inextricable from technology not simply an effect.
-What matters for analysts and critiques of digital media (our class), is not the question of is technology good or bad, right or wrong, but: how does it work, what does it do, what does it entail. What is it making how is it making, how is it making us, is it making us?

Ong
-Primary frame of reference is to distinguish between oral cultures and literate cultures
-Radically different worlds
-Secondary orality
-Oral cultures characterized by a sort of impermanence, as so as my word is said, it’s gone.
-Experience the word as an event, it stops
-Writing tends to pin things down
-Just because something is penned down doesn’t mean it’s certain or clear
-Enables abstraction,
-Oral combat


McClullan
-Acoustic mode/space (orality) established through speaking or yelling
-Radio and TV create new type of acoustic space
-You can stop reading if you close your eyes
-Acoustic space more immersive, harder to avoid even if you don’t want it there



Levinson
-Jodi Dean on acoustic space: When thinking about acoustic space think about
-amplification-
-Storage
-Transmitted
-4 Types of acoustic spaces
-Unmediated hearing (radio, TV, cyberspace)

Criticisms of Levinson
-Pg. 6 “We create and remake cyberspace by using it...Physical bodies play no role”
-In some ways that’s true (facebook) on the other hand there are aspects of the internet now that are
simply delivery systems
-Pornography means bodies play a role
-Pg. 7 “The online villager can live anywhere in the world, engage in dialogue and exchange information across the world
-False, we don’t speak/read every language
-Few of us are comfortable trying to do things in other languages
-Stay within own language groups
-Denies existence of firewalls (youTube in Turkey)
-Not every place in the world has electricity
-“Myth of accessibility”
-Less corporate gate-keeping of news
-Not true
-Anyone can be an author
-Expert knowledge is available to anyone
-How do you know?

Second Assignment

               I believe we are shaped incredibly by technology, but we still have some say. We pick and choose technologies based on our interests, how do we get those interests is hard to say, was it the chicken or the egg? This word, technology, I believe, needs some clarifying. I don't consider language or the pencil part of my meaning of "technology. I know that at some point it was, and the argument is there that it still is, but I just don't mean any of that stuff when i say technology and I believe many agree with me. 

               I like this idea of secondary orality. Stories, ideas and news are now passed face to face (sort-of) through applications like youTube. Im gonna pretend I'm from the 50's for a second and say that this is pretty neat. Stories, news and ideas are absolutely better expressed and enthusiasm mirrored when you can see a talking real live person expressing something. Reading can lay the fundamentals and the data, but the face is a timeless story teller that is respected in countless cultures as the only means of communication. Even when these cultures acquired writing skills stories were still passed orally because of the impact they have and the traditions that they hold as a daughter learns a folk story from her gramma.

        In closing, I underrepresented our obsession with technology, and there is an obsession. We are our own person but are extremely influenced by technology. I would say you are shaped incredibly if you are an avid CNN watcher, this means that you are heavily shaped by using technology, the television.