FINAL ESSAY

In today’s society, while the Internet has grown into a superpower of knowledge, information, money, shopping, music, relationships, etc. A number of extreme issues surround what is argued to be the most powerful leverage to find, manage and share information (Johnston, 2010). As the Internet itself has grown into Web 2.0, it has allowed for a number of sites and networks to branch out into a sub-culture of their own. These branches have then developed extremely contentious issues which over time are changing but are constantly present. While privacy has always been an issue surrounding Facebook in particular, a number of recent events have thrown Facebook and the like such as Twitter and YouTube and their privacy policies into the limelight to be questioned, analysed and severely criticised. In order to explicitly explore why privacy is such a contentious issue, this essay will investigate the recent suicide of homosexual student Tyler Clementi which highlighted this issue drastically and raised further issues such as the filtering and censorship system of social networking sites and how strict their privacy options really are.

On September 19, 2010, Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei live streamed their roommate, Tyler Clementi’s, sexual encounters with a man. When Clementi, a devoted and passionate musician and student asked his roommate Ravi if it were possible to have the dorm room to himself for the night, Ravi set up a webcam which recorded Clementi and another man performing sexual acts, and streamed it directly onto the Internet. Two days later on the 21st, Ravi attempted a similar live feed and on the 22ND, Clementi posted on Facebook he was about to jump of the George Washington Bridge which he then did and died at the age of 18 (Forderaro 2010, p.1). Coupled with a Twitter message on the same day as the first live feed from Ravi, “Roommate asked for the room till midnight. I went into molly’s room and turned on my webcam. I saw him making out with a dude. Yay,” (Forderaro 2010. P.1) the live stream of Clementi, without his knowledge or consent, has created a whirlwind of criticism of social networking sites such as YouTube and their censorship and privacy policies. YouTube’s privacy policy states that, “For content to be considered for removal, an individual must be uniquely identifiable by image, voice, full name, Social Security number, bank account number or contact information (e.g. home address, email address)” (YouTube, 2010). YouTube also maintains strict copyright laws, both this and it’s privacy policies should have rendered Clementi’s video inappropriate for YouTube based on the fact that Clementi was identifiable in the video, as was his counterpart, and the video was uploaded without his consent or knowledge. YouTube also, however, maintains it will only accept privacy violation complaints from the person themselves and only a third party if the first party does not have access to a computer, is a vulnerable individual or if the third party is a f (YouTube, 2010). Due to the fact that neither Clementi nor his family were aware of the video at the time, the removal of the video did not occur immediately. Patricia Lange in her 2007 article ‘Publicly private and privately public suggests’, ‘Intent, however, does not guarantee success, which depends upon the capabilities of interpreting parties, who may detect someone’s identity or decipher arcane meanings in videos’ (Lange, 2007). Clemetni’s death has certainly brought awareness to the state of privacy and censorship in social networking, particularly YouTube.

Ron Bowles brought extreme media attention to Facebook’s privacy policies when he collected private data from over 1 million Facebook pages and uploaded it to Pirate Bay, a bittorent download website (Chacksfield, 2010). Facebook defended their policies by maintaining that the information collected was off pages made ‘public’ by their users (ONE, 2010). They also then go on to ensure that, ‘People who use Facebook own their information and have the right to share only what they want, with whom they want, and when they want’ (Chacksfield, 2010). This particular happening, like that of the death of Tyler Clementi, launched Facebook into a frenzy of criticism and questioning which prompted a number of studies aimed at finding glitches in Facebook’s privacy system and consequently highlighting it’s danger.

Jones and Soltren (2005) explored the flaws in Facebook’s privacy system by surveying Melbourne Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard, NYU and University of Oklahoma students and explicitly analysing the system in terms of Fair Information Practices. They found that privacy on Facebook is undermined by three principles; users disclose too much, Facebook does not take adequate steps to protect their users’ privacy and third parties are actively seeking out end-user information on Facebook (Jones & Soltren, 2005). Jones and Soltren also noted that while Facebook does give users the option to disallow third parties to obtain their information, this method is not located on the privacy settings page (Jones & Soltren, 2005).

Govani and Pashley, in their 2007 study, explored student awareness of privacy implications when using Facebook (Govani & Pashley, 2007). By conducting a survey, it was found that majority of the students were aware of the possible consequences of providing their personal information on Facebook. While it was noted student’s seemed well aware of the possible dangers, it was also noted that they still felt comfortable providing it. It was seen that a vast amount of student’s knew how to protect their information but did not choose to do so.

Acquisti and Gross (2006) explored Facebook’s system by comparing data from a survey conducted among college students to the data retrieved from their Facebook pages. Acquisti and Gross (2006) then analysed the impact of privacy concern on the students’ behaviour and compare their actual behaviour with their stated behaviour. Also, when comparing members and non-members, it was found that those who displayed privacy concerns would still join up and reveal great amounts of personal information. Acquisti and Gross (2006) alluded to the possibility that some students’ manage their privacy concerns by trusting their ability to control the information they provide and the external access to it (Acquisi & Gross, 2006). They did, also, find majority of students were unaware of the size, composition and visibility of members profile on Facebook (Acquisti and Gross, 2006).

Through this exploration of Facebook, YouTube and a number of studies conducted on privacy matters, it should be noted that privacy is such a contentious issue because those who use such social networking sites are somewhat uneducated as to the extent their information can be used and by whom. While it seems gen Y are so implicitly involved in social networking, they are somewhat oblivious to how far their information can go, who may be able to view it and how it may be used.



References
• Acquisti, A., Gross, R., 2006. ‘Imagined communities: Awareness, information sharing, and privacy on the Facebook’, School of Public Policy and Management Data Privacy Laboratory
• Chacksfield, Andrew 2010, Facebook ‘hack’ puts private data into public domain, Viewed 12 October 2010,
• Dwyer, Catherine., Hiltz, Starr., Passerini, Katia. 2007, ‘Trust and Privacy Concern within Social Networking Sites: A comparison of Facebook and Myspace’, Americas Conference on Information Systems 2007,
• Forderaro, Lisa W 2010, ‘Private moment made public then a fatal jump’, The New York Times, September 29, 2010, p. 1.
• Govani, T., H. Pashley 2007, ‘Student awareness of the privacy implications when using Facebook.’ Unpublished manuscript retrieved September.
• Johnston, Andrew 2007, The Internet, Viewed 15 October 2010,
• Jones, H., Soltren, J.H 2005, ‘Facebook: Threats to Privacy’, Project MAC: MIT Project on Mathematics and Computing
• Lange, P.G 2007, ‘Publicly private and privately public: Social networking on YouTube’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 361-380
• ONE 2010, Hacker Published Private Information, Viewed 15 October 2010, http://www.one.com/en/web-hosting-news/website/hacker-published-private-facebook-information$19918465.htm
• YouTube 2010, YouTube Privacy Guidelines, Viewed 15 October 2010,

Course Evaluation

As I previously mentioned, this course has provided me with an enormous amount of information. All of which has been somewhat difficult to fully comprehend but it has been interesting attempting to.

At first I admit I had a different interpretation of what the course entailed. I did not expect the amount of digital talent I required to complete some of the exercises. While I certainly lacked the talent I think I made do with the information I was provided with and the talent of those around me when it came to employing our knowledge into digital work.

The assumption I made that the information I provided with would open many a virtual door and encourage me to question the impact of technology on society and vice versa was certainly correct. This information from this course has prompted me to question not only the knowledge I already retained but also the information I was to acquire from it. It has allowed me to view the virtual world very differently, as something not so mundane. While I certainly understood the role technology played in society before this course, I don't think I fully comprehended the extent of it's impact; an impact so extreme, humans are somewhat failing to keep up.

Despite not-so-funny jokes and CRAZY ramblings from a few of the lecturers, I still enjoyed their teaching styles. I deeply appreciated their obvious knowledge of and passion for the big bad virtual world and this certainly made it easier to learn.

Overall I enjoyed the course, despite my lack of technological talent. It was sometimes confusing, sometimes frustrating but always interesting.

Week 9- Tutespark/Tute Exercise

The thought of this essay is somewhat, well, horrifying. It's as if the semester has provided so much information and now, in under 1000 words, I'm supposed to express what I make of that information? Fortunately, a few of the possible essay topics have provided me with a lot of food for thought :)

Being a member of Gen Y and a Facebook addict I found both the third and fifith essay topics the most appealing. The third being 'Why is privacy such a contentious issue for internet users? Discuss with reference to at least ONE social network service (or other web2.0 service)'. I found this particularly appealing because I can certainly relate to the issue and the information I would hope to find if I began research on the topic, would in some way benefit me and highlight privacy issues I may be unaware of. I would certainly focus on social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace, but also delve further into the issue and also explore less renowned social networking and web2.0 sites.

If i choose to focus on the fifth possible essay topic, 'How do social media change our understanding of individual identity, with regard to the kinds of people we have in our social networks', I would focus again on social networking services and the way they have altered the definition of a 'friend'. For example, you may have ten people you went to high school with who, in reality, you would consider your friends. However in the virtual world it is very possible and common to have over 1000 friends and if your Lady Gaga, over 5 million. But would you consider one of those 1000 to be a friend just like one of the ten you went to school with? This is how social networking sites are changing what we consider a friend and to me, this is extremely interesting.

After contemplating the two topics I have considered, I find it likely I am to choose the fifth essay topic and focus explicitly on the way in which social media change our understanding of individual identity.

Week 9- Lecture

This weeks lecture focused explicitly on the world of cyberpunk (something which probably would have been more appropriate last week considering the tutespark...but anyway).

Daniel introduced us, firstly, to William Gibson; a leading writer for Cyberpunk and his work so far, something Daniel was quite clearly a fan of.

Daniel explored the direction of cyberpunk and its grotty themes; the lust-driven, money hungry, dark side of society a lot of us seem to ignore so easily, or in his words, "cold, hard, motherf$%&ing cash!"

I found the concept intriguing but unfortunately I did not leave the lecture with much food for thought. I was, however, motivated to get hold of a piece of Gibson's work, which Daniel clearly holds so highly.

Week 8- Lecture

This weeks lecture I found particularly interesting, despite the Einstein-Esq rambling of the lecturer. Virtual philosophy was discussed in detail in this weeks lecture, a concept I found particularly hard to get my head around, but still enjoyed trying to.

He began the lecture by introducing philosophy and some of its most famous faces, including Plato. The application of philosophy, a study of life that has existed for thousands of years, in the virtual world is an extremely interesting concept; something I have never even thought of, but the lecturer discussed it as if it was the most logical of ideas.

He discussed the way in which every image we see in the virtual world is a representation of life and the socialisation of a person allows them the ability to tell the difference. For example, when we see a box of tic tacs projected on the wall, we know, even though we cannot physically see the box of tic tacs, that it exists in reality. He then went on to explain that this was not always the case, but has developed over time immensely.

The lecturer explored the way in which the hierarchy that existed between reality and the virtual world has been destroyed, and that the two now exist in the same realm. He linked this concept to the film The Matrix and the way in which the film effectively applied this concept.

While this concept was extremely difficult to comprehend, it definatelty made me think about its existence and to question it immensely, not only in regard to the virtual world, but life itself and what allows us to believe what we see.

Week 8- Tutespark/Tutetask

In a society where technology and megacorporations rule pretty much everything, a sub-culture of predominantly technologically savvy people have chosen to paradoxically challenge the advances of technology that exist today. By creating a distopian world, cyberpunk effectively highlights a number of aspects including the negative impact of technology on humanity, the fusion of man and machine, the corporate control over society, uprising of the underground and ubiquitous access to information.

For this weeks tutorial, we were asked to create a cyberpunk of our own and in doing so, highlight one of the previously mentioned factors. I have chosen to bring attention to the fusion of man and machine by re-creating Richard Ingham's article, 'Scientists make artificial skin that can feel touch', by incorporating aspects from the 1999 film, Bicentennial Man.

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BIOTECH wizards have engineered electronic skin that can sense touch in a major step towards next-generation robotics and prosthetic limbs. The particular advancement is believed to improve upon the already rapidly rising success of the NBR-114. The lab-tested material responds to almost the same pressures as human skin and with the same speed.

Important hurdles remain but the exploit is an advance towards replacing today's touch-insensitive, clumsy robots and metal made,artificial limbs with smarter, touch-sensitive upgrades, they believe.

"Humans generally know how to hold a fragile egg without breaking it," said Ali Javey, an associate professor of computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, who led one of the research teams.

"If we ever wanted a robot that could unload the dishes, for instance, we'd want to make sure it doesn't break the wine glasses in the process. But we'd also want the robot to grip the stock pot without dropping it."


The "e-skin" made by Professor Javey's team comprises a matrix of nanowires made of germanium and silicon rolled onto a sticky polyimide film.

The team then laid nano-scale transistors on top, followed by a flexible, pressure-sensitive rubber.


A different approach was taken by a team led by Zhenan Bao, a Chinese-born associate professor at Stanford University in California.

Professor Bao's team's approach was to use a rubber film that changes thickness due to pressure and employs capacitors, integrated into the material, to measure the difference. It cannot be stretched, though.

"Our response time is comparable with human skin, it's very, very fast, within milliseconds, or thousandths of a second," Professor Bao said.

"That means in real terms that we can feel the pressure instantaneously."

The achievements are "important milestones" in artificial intelligence, commented John Boland, a nanoscientist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, who hailed in particular the use of low-cost processing components.

This advancement in artificial intelligence will not only improve upon the already existing ability of robots to act as housekeepers and house sitters but also introduce robots as much more profound substitutes such as babysitters, friends and even lovers.

In the search to substitute the human senses with electronics, good substitutes now exist for sight and sound, but lag for smell and taste. This obstacle, however, will hopefully be overcome in the near future.

Touch, though, is widely acknowledged to be the biggest obstacle and this just may just have also been overcome.


Professor Bao added important caveats about the challenges ahead.

One is about improving the new sensors. They respond to constant pressure, whereas in human skin more complex sensations are possible.

This is because the pressure-sensing cells in the skin can send different frequencies of signal — for instance, when we feel something painful or sharp, the frequency increases, alerting us to the threat. The ability to feel pain is also believed to be somewhat of a learning curve, teaching Robots, to some extent, what is safe and what is not, again improving upon the abilities of the NBR-114 profoundly.

In addition, Professor Bao warned: "Connecting the artificial skin with the human nerve system will be a very challenging task.

"Ultimately, in the very near future, we would like to make a skin which performs really like human skin and to be able to connect it to nerve cells on the arm and thus restore sensation.

"Initially, the prototype that we envision would be more like a handheld device, or maybe a device that connects to other parts of the body that have skin sensation.

"The device would generate a pulse that would stimulate other parts of the skin, giving the kind of signal 'my (artificial) hand is touching something', for instance."

In the future, artificial skin will be studded with sensors that respond to chemicals, biological agents, temperature, humidity, radioactivity or pollutants.

"This would be especially useful in applications where we want to send robots into environments, including space, where it could be dangerous for humans to go," said Professor Bao.

"They could collect information and send it back."


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/robotics-breakthrough-scientists-make-artificial-skin/story-e6frfro0-1225920548036#ixzz0zSdN6ysc

Week 7- Tutespark

This weeks Tutespark is leaked to the difference between open source programs and proprietary programs. We were asked to utilise an open source program for a few days and decide for ourselves whether we like it or not.

For a few days I have been using Mozilla Firefox rather than good ol' Internet Explorer and I only noticed one difference. Mozilla Firefox supposedly being a safer alternative to Internet Explorer, I did notice a number of warnings when I entered certain websites. I would also be questioned if I was aware of certain risks and if I still wished to enter the website.

These warnings were the only difference I noticed between Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. While it is only a subtle difference, it could make a huge difference in regards to exposure to harmful viruses.

I would definitely say I do like Mozilla Firefox and will continue to use it.