Web Culture in our Digital Age

In award-winning journalist, Mathew Ingram’s article, Is the UN the Next Big Threat to Internet Freedom?, he explains how the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), an arm of the United Nations, wants very much to take over management of the Internet. One member of the bipartisan committee of U.S. congressional officials that wish to resist this attempt , Representative Fred Upton (R-Mich.), said in a statement before the hearing that:

International regulatory intrusion into the Internet would have disastrous results not just for the United States, but for people around the world.

This is interesting since Internet-control bills such as SOPA and PIPA –

bills that would have imposed a wide range of responsibilities on Internet service providers and others in the name of copyright protection and were widely criticized for infringing on freedom of speech and the open Internet.

– were making their way through the Senate and House of Representatives earlier this year. The rationale for the ITU’s move seems to be that because the Internet is a global entity, it should be managed according to global standards. Currently control over the fundamentals of internet like domain names lies with ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers), which is a private, U.S.-based nonprofit organization.

Ingram also explained that Federal Communications Commission member Robert McDowell also warned that some of the countries that belong to the ITU,

re-interested in restraining the essential freedom of the Internet because it causes problems for dictatorships and autocracies…

Moving control to the UN could be very dangerous, We will be at risk of losing the open and free Internet that has brought so much to so many. It’s practically the only place where true freedom of speech can take place. Blocks could be made to specific websites or services based on regional law. Also countries that want to censor the Internet or shut it off completely are already doing it. They’re not asking for the U.N.’s permission. Giving these countries the political cover of international approval would be a bad thing. I personally believe that this will never happen; the mass just won’t let it occur. The open Internet is central to people’s freedom to communicate, share, advocate and innovate.

In the early days of the Internet, online and offline identities were often kept separate. Anonymity was more commonplace. But today, verifying online identity is an increasingly important consideration as more official business is conducted online. There are many different online identity management solutions available and in use by various large companies, governmental entities and other organizations. These use different technologies and aren’t generally compatible with one another. The situation is a little like the state of offline identification credentials in the US, especially before 9- 11, with each state issuing its own driver’s licenses or ID cards.

In 2011 the plan, called the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace encourages the private-sector development and public adoption of online user authentication systems. As Natasha Singer explains in her article, Call It Your Online Driver’s License,

 The idea is that if people have a simple, easy way to prove who they are online with more than a flimsy password, they’ll naturally do more business on the Web.

Singer explains that the authentication proponents and privacy advocates disagree about whether Internet IDs would actually heighten consumer protection.

  — or end up increasing consumer exposure to online surveillance and identity theft.

The system would allow Internet users to use the same secure credential on many Web sites. This can be both a good and bad thing depending on the way you look at. It would be beneficial in the sense that people won’t have to memorize different passwords for different accounts. On the other hand gathering information all in one area can be dangerous; if people start entrusting their most sensitive information to a few third-party verifiers and use the ID credentials for a variety of transactions, authentication companies would become “honey pots” for hackers. Google already has a free system, called the “Google Identity Toolkit,” for Web site operators who want to shift users from passwords to third-party authentication.

Also the government would need new privacy laws or regulations to prohibit identity verifiers from selling user’s data or sharing it with law enforcement officials without a warrant. So which would you prefer: one key that opens every lock for everything you might need or would you rather have different keys for different locks?

When we go on the Internet, we are like Hansel and Gretel leaving information breadcrumbs—birthdays, financial histories, relationship statuses etc. Who’s collecting these bread crumbs? Advertiser use marketing pitches that use data about an individual’s online activities in order to tailor ads to that person, called ad tracking. They have used ad tracking to estimate the return on investment (ROI) of advertising, and to refine advertising plans. A debate over ad tracking has come into light. Natasha Singer, a graduate from Brown University with a degree in comparative literature and creative writing and writer for New York Times, gives more perspective in her article “Factions Feud over Online ‘Do Not Track’ Standard.”

The Federal Trade Commission now says privacy-related harms needn’t be economic or physical but can also include practices that “unexpectedly reveal previously private information” like purchasing habits. Earlier this year President Barack Obama endorsed “Do Not Track,” a browser technology that would limit tracking and potentially block ads like Amazon’s that target you based on your past Web surfing.

On the one hand, consumer advocates argue that Internet users should be able to limit that kind of online surveillance. On the other hand industry groups also said any system should still permit companies to collect information about users’ browsing activities for market research and product development purposes. Co-chairman of the Tracking Protection Working Group, Peter Swire said that “Do Not Track is

a kind of digital equivalent to the “Do Not Call” list, a national registry in the U.S. through which consumers may opt out of phone solicitations.

I think that the Don Not Track system is a work in progress, if done correctly it can work out great. Some consumers do prefer and don’t mind it, while others feel it is an invasion of privacy. People have to have a choice because many of the times consumers would not have bought a product had it not been for the ad tracking/ad that was sent to them specifically. I know it has been the case for me. Also, there has to be a way that enforcers ad networks and data brokers to honor the don’t-track-me browser flags, otherwise they can easily ignore it. A balance needs to be found between the two. Enforcing the policy for everyone would probably bring down profit companies make. And not putting in something for those whom really are bothered by invasion of privacy would anger them even more. Like Swire said:

 The overarching theme is how to give users choice about their Internet experience while also funding a useful Internet.

(Marcus and Ange are in the infirmary. He just getting check that he doesn’t have a concussion.) 

Marcus: Alright, Ange I-I didn’t want to tell you this, … I was hoping it was just my imagination…

Ange: Marcus! What is it?

Marcus: It’s..It’s Zeb and Masha

Ange: What about them?… they did this?

Marcus: No! They’re gone!… Taken actually. I tried looking everywhere for them and Carrie Johnstone and her stupid goon squad, but I couldn’t find them. They’ve disappeared!

Ange: Wait Marcus slow down! I think you should get checked again.

Marcus: No! jus listen for a sec. It’s the bogeywoman woman, the  “Severe Haircut Woman,” her real name is Carrie Johnstone. As the temple was burning I noticed her walking around with a camera. Remember when you asked me what was wrong?

Ange: Yea

Marcus: Well I froze and tensed up because it was her. She passed right by me and I didn’t want to say anything or think anything of it, but when the explosion happened… (Staring off into the distance)

Ange: What?  Marcus, what happened?

Marcus: It was her, she did it…. I saw Masha and Zeb walking very stiff and walking very close behind them were a pair of large men in stocking caps just like the ones Carrie Johnstone had been wearing. There was something wrong with them, and I couldn’t place it for a moment, but then it hit me: they were darktards. They disappeared in the dark of the open playa and that’s when the explosion happened.

Ange: The DHS? They’re back? But why?….it’s that USB file Masha gave us. They’re after it.

Marcus: (in a startled voice) The USB! (searching around in his pockets…then pulling it out)

Ange: Marcus if this is what they’re after, then it’s only a matter of time they realize Masha and Zeb don’t have it…and they’ll come after us.

Marcus: We need to get out of here

(back in San Francisco, in Marcus’s room. Marcus and Masha are sitting on his bed talking. Darryl walks in the room)

Darryl: He man what’s up, you left a message on phone, sounded all worried. I came over as soon I could. What’s wrong?

Marcus: Alright Marcus, man I know you been through a lot the past couple of years, but something’s come up.

Ange: I told him to leave you out of this.

Marcus: Ange I’m giving him a choice.

Darryl: A choice for what, what’s going on?

Marcus: Remember the lady that took us, Carrie Johnstone, the DHS?… They’re back. They after this (takes out the USB) and they took Masha and Zeb.

Darryl: What is that?

Marcus: That’s the thing. We don’t know yet, but you can’t see it unless you’re in. Masha and Zeb told us to guard it and if anything were to happen to them, we have to scream it from the mountaintop. Me and Ange got a plan, but we need your help. It’s going to dangerous and life threatening. So you can walk away or pull out the laptop and take a look at this with us. You know, “Red Pill, Blue Pill” kinda thing.

Ange: Nice to know you still have your sarcasm Marcus.

Darryl: Marcus what happened to me, still haunts my dreams. I can’t sleep or even walk home without thinking someone is gonna come out of nowhere and pull me into a van and drive off without anyone even knowing I’m gone.  

Marcus: I understand Darryl…

Darryl: But it’s time I get over those fears and fight back… so count me in. What’s the plan?

Marcus: Well we’re meeting an friend of mine I met at college at this address, where it’s safer and we know for sure no one is watching. Then we can get started.

(Underground room- Marcus, Ange and Darryl walk into the room. Charlie already there)

Marcus: Darryl this is Charlie, Charlie this is Darryl and you’ve already met Ange.

Charlie: hey guys what’s up… We should probably get started. Marcus hand me the USB.

(Marcus pulls out the USB and Darryl pulls out his laptop. They all sit around the laptop. They plug in the USB and open the files.)

Darryl: Holy Shit! This is supposed to be our government protecting us? Whatever happened to our right to privacy?

Charlie: Please tell me no one here has gotten a flu shot recently?

Marcus: Not me. Ange?

Ange: No, I’m clean.

Darryl: Same here, clear.

Charlie: And to think my mom was whining about me not getting one, talking about now I’m going to get sick.

Darryl: And what exactly do you plan on doing with this.

Ange: Hack into the network and broadcast it on national television.

Darryl: do you have any idea the damage it’ll do to the government.

Charlie: I mean cameras and tracing calls is one thing. But microchips and tracking devices?, that’s whole other playing field.

Ange: And they’re telling people it’s the flu shot. I mean look at it, it’s the size of a dust grain no one would ever know.

Marcus: It’s time we take our freedom back and letting everyone know about this is the first step. Like Masha said, we got to “shout it from the Mountain tops” and what better way than national television.

After learning that Darryl is still alive from a former DHS prisoner, Marcus decides to come clean about his secret life to his parents and an investigative reporter. The story is published and the world discovers who M1k3y really is. Eventually he becomes the figurehead for a new counterculture rebellion. But this rebellion makes him a marked man. Marcus along with his girlfriend Ange it then taken again by the DHS. At the end, Darryl is rescued and Marcus returns home when the California Highway Patrol raids the DHS prison by order of the Governor.

Marcus had used culture jamming to deceive the DSH, tricking their systems into registering thousands of false terrorists. He uses Xnet to coordinate with others making people all over San Francisco show up as terrorists in the DHS databases. He hoped that the credibility of the DHS would weakened in the public eye, and more people would support the techno-revolution.

Culture Jamming is a form of political communication that has emerged in response to the commercial isolation of public life. Many culture jams are simply aimed at exposing questionable political assumptions behind commercial culture so that people can momentarily consider the branded environment in which we live. It is a form of “subvertising”. The basic unit of communication in culture jamming is a meme. An internet meme may take the form of an image, hyperlink, video, picture, website, or hashtag. It may be just a word or phrase. We’ve seen plenty of them on Facebook; the thing is however, not many people- including myself until doing this blog- know that the meme was initially meant for the purpose. The question is whether  or not it’s getting the point across today? Do you see a meme as something to laugh at for a few seconds or do you really see the culture jamming aspect of it and think about the message coming across?

Cory Efram Doctorow is a Canadian-British activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books. Doctorow is blogger, journalist, and science fiction author of the novel Little Brother

The story revolves around a rebellious San Francisco High School student named Marcus Yallow, who is also well known by his internet username w1n5t0n (pronounced Winston). One afternoon when playing an Alternate Reality Game (ARG) called Harajuku Fun Madness with his friends Darryl and a couple other friends. They witness a massive terrorist attack on the Bay Bridge. While trying to get help for Darryl, who was stabbed in the ensuing chaos, Marcus and his friends were all taken into custody to a secret location and falsely identified as terrorists by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). After several days of questioning and miserable conditions he along with with other friends, besides Darryl,  are released. non of them are aware what has happened to Darryl. When they return to San Francisco they discover that the city has come to a halt and that the DHS has turned the city into a police state with checkpoints, surveillance, and internet monitoring.  Marcus decides to use his advanced technological knowledge to fight back against the DHS and find out what happened to his friend Darryl. Under the name M1k3y he started Xnet that united the rebelling teenagers, allowing them to organize anonymously. They started jamming DHS’s tracking system by switching peoples’ identity on transportation passes

I thought I’d mention that it was rather nice that throughout the novel Doctorow begins each chapter with a little paragraph where he describes to whom the chapter is dedicated. Each paragraph is dedicated to a different bookstore that he loves and has helped him in his career.

All the events that occured up to chapter 10, I thought were pretty crazy. Marcus gets his debit card refused, because the government used cards to spy on people. He goes back to school and sees a camera in his classroom. The Government put a camera there to keep the children safe. It kind of makes me wonder whether theirs really freedom in a place where we can always constantly be watched. There are magnetic barcode labels and cameras everywhere. We live in a 24hr surveillance society especially in our digital age where majority of the people carry electronic devices like: ipads, ipods, cell phones, laptops etc.

In chapter 5 Marcus was creating an alternate operating system called ParanoidXbox, a system that assumes that its operator is under assault from the government and it does everything it can to keep your communications and documents a secret. As he’s creating the operating system he talks about how technology made him feel. It made him

feel: in control. My technology was working for me, serving me, protecting me. It wasn’t spying on me. This is why I loved technology: if you used it right, it could give you power and privacy.

I think this doesn’t leave any power and privacy for us, non-internet savvy people. it’s is almost as if the power and privacy is for an elite group, seeing as since not everyone on the planet, I’m sure, can create an alternate operating system or even anything along those lines.

Writer for Forbes Magazine, Andy Greenberg is a technology, privacy, and information security reporter and most recently the author of the book This Machine Kills Secrets. In his excerpt from the book, The WikiLeaks Spinoff That Wasn’t: An Exclusive Excerpt from This Machine Kills Secrets, he talks about the attempted launch of OpenLeaks. At the Chaos Communications Camp hacker conference in Germany, former WikiLeaks spokesperson Daniel Domscheit-Berg launched four days of public testing of OpenLeaks. There were thousands of hackers present to actively probe the site and seek out its vulnerabilities in a crowd-sourced penetration test. However, OpenLeaks could not even get online.

OpenLeaks was aiming to be a service provider for other parties, those who want to accept different material from the anonymous sources making the site more transparent and clear than WikiLeaks. Also, unlike WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks would not host the leaked documents, but this site would act as the middleman between those persons who want to obtain all the leak material and whistleblowers.

However both sites have the same general intent (which is the real subject of discussion): publishing submissions of secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous news sources and whistleblowers. Internet has not only made privacy an issue for individuals, but even for governments. Governments have been trying to keep their intentions secret since the beginning. The number of new secrets designated as such by the U.S. government has risen 75%, from 105,163 in 1996 to 183,224 in 2009, according to the U.S. Information Security Oversight Office. And the more secrets leak, the worse it is for government credibility.

Representative, Adam Schiff (D-CA) released the following statement, posted on his site, in response to the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive State Department document:

“I deplore the potentially treasonous disclosure of classified and sensitive national security information, and urge the Department of Justice to bring any responsible party to justice. I also condemn the ongoing WikiLeaks release of a quarter million diplomatic documents, which will cause immeasurable harm to our diplomatic efforts, and worst of all, may expose our sources of information to great danger.”

However, I don’t think the government can try and address only the government’s privacy and not address everyone else’s privacy on the internet. I think that’s it is kind of an all or nothing issue. And it will be especially difficult when our society is headed toward openness and transparency; everything being online and in the public eye. It’s a radical transparency and like Andy discusses in the video below these types of leaking sites are secret-killing machines that continues to evolve beyond WikiLeaks, as a movement of “hacktivists” that aims to obliterate the world’s institutional secrecy.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwLTSZT8zA4[/youtube]

In a time where many things are done on the internet, what is left for print? Alessandro Ludovico is the editor in chief of Neural, the Italian/English new media culture magazine and writer of the article Revenge of the Print. Ludovico argues that the common belief, print will one day be obsolete, simply didn’t and won’t happen.

What is more: paper and the printed medium at large have significantly contributed to the spread of new media culture and consciousness. So paper is here to stay.

Ludovico explains that print, in fact, seems to have succeeded in making an efficient synergy with the internet. He gives one example, bookcrossing:  distributing texts within a network.

Joining a simple mechanism of tracking, everyone can leave a book in a public place that anybody else can pick up, doing the same after reading it. In this case the data network is just the informative infrastructure to ease the free exchange of culture in physical shape among thousands of practitioners.

I had never heard of book crossing and it actually seems really interesting. He compares this to ebooks which has instead caused a struggle to preserve the right of the publisher. However interesting bookcrossing may be though, I don’t think that this stops more internet users to use e-books or the internet instead of print. Even in my classes more and more students are using e-books. Also many of our SCU classes don’t even bother with collecting hardcopies of papers. I’ve heard several of my professors say “let’s not waste paper” and turn in things using the Camino drop box. I was on a plane last weekend and looking around I noticed several young people on their nook, kindles and other e-readers; and the much older people reading their hardcopies and paperbacks. The younger generations are more internet oriented and so I do think that there is a possibility that print will be obsolete. And it’s not just books that are being printed less and less, but magazines and newspapers and even advertisements. It’s has become about easiness and efficiency and I think as long as we keep moving in that direction there will be less and less print.

Ludovico also mentions that print legitimizes a lot what is on the internet. With internet being accessible to many, it is difficult at times to distinguish what is fact more trustworthy

In the era of ‘unstable media’, paper is the most ‘stable’ medium in the complex and fast-changing mediascape.

I definitely agree with this; however, with things like JSTOR and Google Scholar it has become much easier to distinguish what is fact and legitimate, what sources we can and shouldn’t use.

I came across A Revenge of the Print open group facebook Page that actually began last year. It was a campaign to get as many people as possible to self-publish in 2011, and is now continuing this year because of last years huge response. So perhaps print is here to stay, what do think?

In Danah Boyd’s article Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life, she discusses MySpace and its effects on youth between the ages of fourteen and eighteen years of age. Danah Boyd is an American social media researcher known for her public commentary on the use of social networking sites by youth. The article studies American youth engagement in networked publics and considers how properties unique to such mediated settings affect the ways in which youth interact with each other and their identity formation.

I argue that social network sites are a type of networked persistence, searchability, exact copyability, and invisible audiences. These properties fundamentally alter social dynamics, complicating the ways which people interact.

Boyd explains that in everyday life we use our bodies along with our speech to express information about ourselves. This process is extremely important for being socialized into a society and teenage years are ideal for developing these skills. But in cyber space the physical body does not exist so the impression management skills take on a whole new meaning,

people must “learn to write themselves into being”.

I did find her article to be out-of -date seeing as since most teens are now completely on Facebook. However, I did find her argument, on networking sites as a structured-free environment for teens, to be very interesting. Boyd contends that online access offers a whole new social realm for youth, allowing teenagers to take part in an unregulated space while being in an adult-regulated world. I agree with Boyd in saying this. Social networking sites make it easy for the younger generation, to quench their boredom and curiosity in a society where their lives are highly structured with school and afterschool activities, after which they are expected to either study or spend time with their family. The social networking sites, like myspace and Facebook allow them the freedom that isn’t really offered in their real world. However, how does this affect the core skills (needed to be socialized into a society) that are developed through real experience?

In Andrew Keen’s Digital Vertigo (Introduction and Chapter 1), Keen understands and accepts the benefits of technological novelty before cautioning us of the dangers.  Andrew Keen is a British-American entrepreneur  writer, broadcaster and public speaker. He is an acclaimed speaker on the international circuit, speaking regularly on the impact of new technology on 21st century business, education and society. He cautions that social networking could have adverse effects that have not been well-thought-out by people. 

Keen argues we have moved on to a third wave. There is not just internet now but we are moving onto a social society; everything is moving onto the social sphere.  We have moved from web 2.0 to web 3.0. Web 2.0 tended to be anonymous; web 3.0 is far less anonymous.  By doing so people have not realized that by becoming connected we are disconnected and become isolated from one another.

What I glimpse that late November afternoon in Bloomsbury was the anti-social future, the loneliness of the isolated man in the connected crowd.

I agree with in saying that we have overlooked the ant-social aspect of social media. That in being everywhere we in fact nowhere.

Absolute unreality is real presence, and the completely fake is also completely real.

Digital technology has transformed

From being a tool of second life into an increasingly central part of real life.

I do think however it will be difficult to reverse this or make people aware of what is already happening. Society’s innovation is on a fast-track where we are constantly trying to create.

In an interview with The New York Times, (One on One: Andrew Keen, Author of ‘Digital Vertigo’) Keen was asked what should come next. His answer was to focus on privacy and make things perishable.

It should be like drawing something in the sand in the desert. Facebook won’t do this but others will and there are some of the smartest people I know working on new companies that focus on privacy.

Keen is currently the host of “Keen On”, the popular Techcrunch chat show. In an interview (Why Privacy is the Valley’s Next Big Thing) with David Cho (CEO and co-founder of Sidebark), they discuss Keen’s belief that 2012 will focus on privacy. Cho believes that his company will give us the security to share even our most sensitive data with our friends. In 2011, CHo said that 350 billion photos were taken but only 50 billion were shared on sites such as Flikr, Facebook, or Google +. The number one reason people did not share photos was privacy. Cho discusses two kinds of privacy: social privacy which is something found on Facebook. And institutional privacy which is trusting the company with the data given which can’t really be found with Facebook since it’s an advertising company.

I find that privacy is a little difficult with the internet. Even if it’s private, once it’s on the internet it’s there forever and available for those searching and hacking. Also, in a society were advertising is huge, will this privacy concept as a business model for a company, really take on and become a thing of the future?