ESSAY!

Online privacy concerns are as individual as people them selves. If you ask a person for their bank details they are more then likely to refuse to give them to you. However, with social network sites like Facebook, Myspace, and twitter, many people will put other personally identifiable information on the internet. While they will not post their bank details, they will post their phone number, address, employer and education. Other people will not even post the town in which they live or adjust their account settings to hide this information. This essay will examine online privacy focusing on the social network Facebook.

As state previously many different people will disclose differing levels of information on their Facebook accounts. But what makes a person disregard their own privacy to post personal information like their birthday, political views, home town and intimate photos? 'It is the need for popularity that is driving people to disclose more personal information on Facebook than they normally would.' (Hughes p.3) While revealing to much information can be risky from a safety standpoint, 'maintaining too much privacy can be socially limiting.' (Hughes p.3) The idea behind Facebook is to interact with other users, omitting some information may limit the users ability to interact with others on the site. For example if you do not post your birth date on your profile your friends will not be able to wish you a happy birthday. Or if you do not post the school you attended, old school friends may not be able to connect with you.

To encourage users to disclose their personal information Facebook includes a template for users to fill out their information when joining, 'this creates a “norm” regarding what specific information to disclose based on what others have disclosed.' (Hughes p.3) However it is not just static information that users are encouraged to share but current changes in their lives through the “status update”. This provides users with a constant stream of information about what other users are doing. 'In this way, popularity and disclosure become inextricably linked. People with a high need for popularity may indeed care about their privacy, but they may not be willing to sacrifice their popularity by implementing privacy controls.' (Hughes p.4)

Differing people may have different levels at which they wish to disclose their information. The personal information which you may not want to make public may still end up on Facebook. 'You may not disclose personal information, but your online friends and colleagues may do it for you' (Levak p.100) While you may choose not to disclose some information your actions may not be enough 'to protect your privacy in the interconnected world of the internet' (Levak p.100). The concern is that a user can upload photos of himself with a group of friends, without being required to ask the permission of those friends. (Brooks p16) This opens up the possibility for personal information which you did not want to be made public becoming so by someone else’s actions.

The ramifications of your information becoming public can vary depending on what the information is. A simple picture might display you in an embarrassing situation this may get you into trouble with your parents or partner; however if the photo shows you when you are working it could cost you your job. This also gives way to false or inaccurate information being placed on the site. 'Despite this, there is no mechanism, on Facebook at least, by which an aggrieved individual can protect his privacy by requiring the friend to take down' (Brooks p.16) the information. As it stands if information you do not want to become public, be it a photo, where you live or what school you went to, does get placed on the internet there is little that can be done to remove it. This makes it difficult for anyone who wishes to have a tight control over their personal information to do so as you can not control what others put on their page and no way of having it removed.

While this is a concern a study conducted at MIT has shown that it is the friends you are linked to and what information they provide about them selves that can reveal information about you. The study analysed 4000 Facebook profiles, including links to friends. From the study the researchers where able to predict, with a 78% accuracy , whether the profile belonged to a gay male. (Levak p.100) The information collected from a Facebook profile 'can form a distinctive social signature.' (Levak p.100) Therefore it doesn't matter if you or your friends do not post some information about your self, just by being linked to certain people can reveal information about you.

What makes online privacy such a contentious issue would be a combination of the above topics. First a person needs to weigh up how, and what, they value as private information, and whether this out-weighs their social desires for popularity. Then they need to monitor their friends actions with regard to their own information. Finally they need to consider who they are linked to as friends, because just from the people you are linked to can give statistically probable information about yourself.

Considering all that has been looked at here it maybe best for people who want to retain full control over their personal information to not participate in sites like Facebook. If they are going to participate on these sites it would be best to consider what information they want to make available and take action to limit what they do not want to make available to the world.

Bibliography

• Brooks, Gary. 2007, 'Friends on Social Networks can be a Threat to your Privacy': New Media Age, pp.16

• Fogel, J. and Nehmad, E. 2009, 'Internet Social Network Communication: Risk taking , Trust and Privacy Concerns': Computers in Human Behaviour, Vol 25, pp. 153-160

• Gelman, Lauren 2009, 'Privacy, Free Speech, and “BlurryEdged” Social Networks': Boston College Law Review, Vol 50, pp.1315 – 1350

• Hughes, D. 2009, 'Facebook Users Disregard own Privacy to be Popular': Privacy Journal, Vol 35, pp. 3 – 4

• Levak, B. 2010, 'Online Privacy Vanishing': Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, Vol 59, pp. 100 – 101

• Nelson, S. Simek, J & Foltin, J. 2010, 'The Legal Implications of Social Networking, Vol 22, pp. 1 – 35

• Strahilevitz, A. and Lior, J. 2005, 'A Social Network Theory of Privacy': University of Chicago Law Review, Vol 72, pp. 919 - 997

Week 10 - Course Eval.

So after 10 weeks of this course how do I think it stacks up? Well the best thing about this course is each week there is a new and interesting topic to cover. Many of the topics were new to me and some not. I can definitely see that many of the topics will help later in my degree and further into my professional career.

I do have 3 things that I didn't like about the course:
1. The lectures should start on time... We are timetabled to start at 10am so the lecture should start at 10am not 10:15.This just eats into time that could be spent explaining a topic more. If people are late that is their own problem, and I'm sure the lectures can have their chat later in the office.

2. More organisation with regard to the tutorial tasks. The items like the 30 frame movie, cyberjamm and cyber punk were good tasks, but looking for the answer to a bunch of questions that had nothing to do with the course was a big waste of time. Speaking of a waste of time, sitting around in the class room while our tutor tried to find out what it is we were ment to be doing that week.

3. Better communication about what is expected in these blogs. It is pretty pointless to get feed back in week 9 about the first half of the posts when the second half are due in week 10. The marking criteria should have been available at the start of the semester so we knew what it is you are looking for and a better explanation of what is expected.

I understand that this course is more relaxed then some others but you can still be relaxed and have organisation. Especially considering this is a large class communication needs to be spot on so all 300 of us are on the same page. In all I did enjoy the content of the course I think with some refinement of the tutorial tasks and the other points above will make the course a lot better.

Week 9 -Tute

After reading through the list of questions we have to choose for our essay I have decided to go with question 6 -

Increasingly mobile devices are an aid to the gathering and reporting of information, both by professional journalists and “citizen journalists”. Outline the advantages and disadvantages of this sort of news gathering. How might it impact on journalistic practices and news values and ethics?

The reason I chose this question pretty much came down to the tute exercise. I really enjoyed the process of making our own news story and find the concept of citizen journalism interesting.

My plan of attack on this question will be to find some examples of citizen journalism, both positive and negative. I'll also look for some journal articles and credible online sources that can support the positive and negative arguments.

A possible problem I see my self having is the word limit. This is a very involved question with a lot of areas to cover. I'll need to keep my arguments to the point and make every work count.

Well this is the last post for a week while we have semester break.... And let me tell you, it is long overdue!!

Week 9 - Lecture

This weeks lecture topic was Cyberpunk... which would have been better to have last week... considering the tute exercise we had. But anywho I get over that.

Once again Daniel opened me up to another interesting topic. Thankfully this week was much easier to follow compared to last week. Daniel manage to explain a bit about cyberpunk and were it all began. Cyberpunk's common theme or tone is the dark seedy side of humanity; lust for something and capital, which is street cred or as Daniel put it cold, hard mother f#$%ing money.

Daniel also talked about William Gibson, who is a leading writer on cyberpunk. We watched some clips of him and his work at the end of one William mentioned Gabriel's hounds, Daniel asked if anyone knew what he was talking about... No one did so he left it to us to find out.

What I found was either it is a reference to a band or a pack of hounds lead by the Angel Gabriel. I think it was a reference to the later. The hounds are ment to fly across the sky and bring ill fortune and death to anyone who hears them. So they are a kind of dooms day, end of normality kind of thing, which is a theme of cyberpunk.

With the semester break coming up I think I'll hunt down one of William Gibson's books down and see if it's all that Daniel made it out to be.

Week 8 - Tute

For this weeks tutorial task we were asked to research a cyberpunk theme, find a creative piece that reflects that theme; then link the two to a current news story. We then had to re-write the news story to include the cyberpunk piece showing it as a prediction of what is occurring now.

I chose the theme of "corporate control over society", which is basically the oppression of a larger group or society by another, either a corporation or government. The creative piece I used was a 1995 movie called "Hackers", it tells a story of a group of hackers who are being framed by a oil company for causing a oil spill. The group of hacker try to revel the truth that the company is causing the spill them selves to cover up the millions of dollars that have gone "missing".

I found an article on the ABC news site about the Rio Tinto executive who was arrested for stealing secret competitor information and the link with the Chinese governments involvement in hacking international companies to gain secret information and also to frame company employees.

My edited news story is below.... I'm off now to go update my laptops firewall before I fall victim to something like this....

Rio hacked at time of Hu arrest

Rio Tinto has been attacked by computer hackers, in what experts say is a growing global problem.

Rio Tinto's computer network was attacked by hackers around the time of Stern Hu's arrest, the ABC's Four Corners program has revealed.

Rio Tinto declined to comment on the incident, but former Rio employees and a senior government source have confirmed the company's Singapore office was taken off-line for three days to upgrade its security.

Senior mining executives also told the program that fellow mining giant, Fortescue Metals, was targeted by cyber attackers.

The Chinese embassy has denied any government involvement in the attacks.

But international security expert Professor Alan Dupont says there is increasing evidence that China practices commercial espionage.

"I think China, in particular, has seen opportunities to gain competitive advantage commercially through accessing commercial secrets," he said.

"I think that's become now part of a conscious strategic policy by China to improve its competitive position in all those fields."

“I think that's becoming now part of a conscious strategic policy by China to use hackers to steal commercial secrets from international companies”

Former CIA case officer Daniel Slane told the program there had been many cases of hackers stealing commercial secrets from US companies.

And he said there was a lot of forensic evidence that pointed to the culprits being based in China.

Former CIA case officer Daniel Slane told the program this was a bigger issue then most people are aware.

"We believe that numerous corporations have been attacked, not only in the United States, but worldwide, and many of them are even unaware that they're being attacked," he said.

In a bid to shift the focus from the Chinese government they are using their hackers to place false evidence onto the computers of innocent parties. Reminiscent of the 1995 film Hakers where a large corporation uses the cyber word to frame a group of people for an illegal act committed by the corporation.

However in the present day it is not a corporation but a government which is using the cyber world against innocent people.

It is easy for China to use government hackers to steal information from an international corporation and even place incriminating evidence onto the computers of the employees of the company; which looks to be the case in Sturn Hu’s situation.

Computer security expert Ajoy Ghosh said hackers in other cases had gone as far as planting child pornography on victims' computers so that authorities had a reason to seize the computer.

"They can also insert files on to the travelling executive's computer and a common thing to do is to insert compromising material, perhaps it's a photo of that executive in a compromising position. Perhaps it's child pornography.

"Increasingly, there's a recognition that national security agencies and hackers for hire are being used to gather economic information."

With institutions like the Chinese government undertaking these acts we are in for a very uncertain future where our safety is not guaranteed and the information on our computers may not be our own.

"So once you've infected the computer the hacker has full access to that computer. So the first thing they can do is to browse files on that computer. They can copy the files from that computer to their own computer," he said.

"They can also insert files on to the travelling executive's computer and a common thing to do is to insert compromising material, perhaps it's a photo of that executive in a compromising position. Perhaps it's child pornography.

"Inserting child pornography has the benefit that later on the authorities can come knocking on the door and seize the computer legitimately because it has child pornography on it."

Mr Ghosh said hacking was increasingly becoming big business.

"There are multiple reasons that your computer might be compromised," he said.

"Increasingly, there's a recognition that national security agencies and hackers for hire are being used to gather economic information."

Editor's Note (May 11, 2010): A portion of the article claiming that Chemical Abstracts Services' (CAS) computer system had been breached by Chinese hackers has been removed. After the broadcast of Four Corners CAS told ABC this was untrue. They told us that several university systems with access to the online research tool SciFinder were hacked but at no time was the IT security system at CAS breached.

Week 8 - Lecture

Ok... so that was a little full on to say the least.... Covering 2000yrs of information in 40min was hard for my brain. Starting with Plato and his philosophical ideas, through to electrodes in the brains of monkeys. Yes it was all covered.... What I took away from the lecture was to question reality. What makes something real? Does virtual reality make what is being displayed real because we can see it?

While I was extremely engrossed with what was being said I think more time is need to full explain the theories and allow it to sink in. Hopefully some of the topics will be built on in the weeks to come.

To get a bit more of an idea of what was covered in the lecture I did a search online on the topic of reality and virtual reality. Some... most of what I found was useless but one page stuck with me.... While I'm not 100% on the credibility of the author "Ken Ward", he does talk about some stuff I remember from when I was doing a science degree in Canberra. This particular page talks about the fact that the way we see and how we interpret that information is dependent on chemical and electrical reactions in the brain. The easiest way to think about it is most people see grass as green, but a person with colour blindness sees it as brown... so what we perceive to be reality may not be what others would call reality.

Well that's a little full on so I'll leave it there.

Week 7 - Tute

So this weeks tute is researching some topics and discussing what I find. Here I go....

1. What is creative commons and how could this licensing framework be relevant to your own experience at university?

Creative Commons was introduced to us in the lecture, I had never herd of it before but I like the sound of it. I think while copyrights have their place in protecting a persons creative works. There are situations where the rigidity of the copyright doesn't allow for current uses of works. I got this quote from the Creative Commons website to help explain;

"Creative Commons is a world wide project that encourages copyright owners to allow others to share, reuse and remix their material, legally. We offer a range of free licences that creators can use to manage their copyright in the online environment, each providing its own specific protections and freedoms. We have built upon the “all rights reserved” of traditional copyright to create a voluntary “some rights reserved” system."

While I don't think Universities would accept some works from other artists even under a creative common license, there could be a way for it to work. Just as with an essay you provide a bibliography, if you where to create art or music with creative common work you could provide a reference to the original piece and the creator....

This may not be a area that I use a lot of academically but it will definitely by something I'll be using personally and professionally.

2. Find 3 examples of works created by creative commons and embed them in your blog.

This question I had a bit of trouble with. I found it easy to get creative commons licensed work, many search engines now provide a "creative commons" option and sites like flickr have heaps of examples. However I found it difficult to find a creative work which was made from the use of creative common licensed work.

3. Find an academic article which discusses creative commons using a database or online journal. Provide a link to and a summary of the article.

I found this article called "Made for Sharing" by Eliza Williams it gave an overview of creative commons and it's beginnings as well as the benefits and pitfalls of the licenses. I have provided a link to the full article and bellow is an abstract.

Abstract:
"AB The Creative Commons company has created a system of alternative copyright licenses. The company was formed in 2001 by a group of cyberlaw and intellectual property experts, an MIT computer science professor, and an Internet publisher. According to co-founder Lawrence Lossig, the company is attempting to generalize the free cultural production approach of the computer software movement. Its licenses aim to provide an alternative copyright system that is more in line with the sharing ethos of the Internet and the creative possibilities of digital technology. For example, the Attribution license allows others to use a person's work as long as that person is credited as the creator. "

4. Have a look at Portable Apps (a pc based application) – provide a brief description of what it is and how you think this is useful.

This is another new topic for me "portable apps". A quick search showed me that they are pretty much a program that doesn't store information on the computers hardware. I found this awesome site called gizmo's freeware review which has a whole heap of portable apps. and some info explaining what they are for the uninitiated like me. The benefit that I see of these types of programs is that you don't need to have it installed onto the computer so you can use it where ever you go, internet cafe, uni, friends place.