The Cyber Battlefield

     Is what you're reading on the Internet real information? The lecture about WikiLeaks highlighted a factor that will influence the landscape upon which the world is transitioning to. There is an information struggle that has existed for as long as people have been around. Back in the day, a smaller Internet had less volume of webpages from which to access. I remember it being a lot easier to sort through what was valid, what was misleading, etc. However today, you sometimes have to comb through pages and use multiple search filters to try to get anything of decent value. The liberalization of thought through the Web has caused an influx of bias that eclipses reputable sources. So, how exactly did WikiLeaks complicate or improve the reliable information process, and what are the consequences of Assange's deliberate mayhem?

     According to NetCraft, there were only a a few million sites at most back in 1996, but today that has inflated to over 506 million.

     This shows that not only is there more information, but also a lot more people on the field. That raises the potential of people who have the ability to penetrate systems or disrupt networks. Enter WikiLeaks, who has managed to open a jar of secrets about the government and people from all over. Crowley in his lecture advocated a "zone of accountability", but nonetheless stated that a level of secrecy is necessary to maintain a safe society. So what is better? An Internet with all the secrets inevitably exposed as more people attack systems, or a more regulated Internet that puts down groups like WikiLeaks in the future yet preserves safety? Crowley said that exposures like these can inhibit international relations, harm the people mentioned in those documents, and create more narrow communication channels in the government. Thus, you already see a former representative of our government advocating closing up information flow. Yet, you do not want to everyone to see everything that was said, especially if some of it was "in the heat of the moment".

    Nonetheless, WikiLeaks is a bastion of no-censorship but with the tact of a young kid. They could have freed the information, but withheld or at least blank out names of spies and the like. However, I think names of more influential people should be kept, especially if they are elected by people. Sites like these are the watchdogs of freedom of information and trying to keep the filters down. These tailored Internet searches already complicate an already arduous time finding facts that are true and reliable.

WikiLeaks has created a fork in the road where the Internet will either open more up, like Facebook, or create walls. Ultimately, I think WikiLeaks goes a little too far with the lack of discretion in what they release. Some trade secrets should be preserved such as our top secret research or opinions in critical negotiations. Although, what comes out of it and why the government pursues them should be noted to people. So,  between the U.S. and other countries and its own citizens should be clarified. The good thing about WikiLeaks is that they get the media and hence the general public more interested in Internet censorship. People should be able to express themselves, but the Internet has to become a tool of information sharing, not secrecy, filtering, and tracking.

Seeds of Change or a Lobster in Water?

     When I see and hear of these movements, I notice the underlying frustration, the mental anguish, and the pilot light of hope for a better day. The Occupy Movement is a westernized version of the protests that occurred in Egypt and other Arabian nations, but much less violent, as would be expected of people of the West. However, the fact that many from various cultural backgrounds have been able to get behind a banner of some kind is remarkable in itself. Even though this banner has yet to materialize a unified vision outside of the 99% or big banks suck mentality, there are seeds of possible change have been planted; the question becomes: are we the flailing lobster just realizing the boiling water or is a possible systematic overhaul possible?

     
      Yes, the usual advocates of change and mostly shenanigans, Anonymous, is back at it (and apparently Scream is out before Halloween to protest too). Gladwell a year ago provided a harsh criticism about social media's influence on creating systematic change by stating:

      "...by lauding Internet organizing, we wannabe revolutionaries “have forgotten what activism is.”(Gladwell and Social Media)

     By essentially deflating the balloon on the party, Gladwell believes that the revolutionary mindset is just not there, and, at this point in time, I will have to agree with that sentiment. I do admit that I am quite surprised that this has grown internationally this quickly. The sentiment is there, but the protestors are not taking matters into their hands more. If they just let business go on and just sleep outside Goldman Sachs, I highly doubt Lloyd Blankfein, CEO of the investment bank, is going to give a hoot about it. People in the 60s were passionate to the point where rules would be broken and protestors would get into others' faces. People today still have the subtle belief that they are powerless and are hoping some group will change it all for them. So, they like the Occupy pages on Facebook and sit on benches outside buildings. Steps must be taken to walk the walk as well such as creating a vision and a plan of action for this vision.

     This Occupy movement can be seen as a flattener of sorts where the layman will get back at that mean ole' 1% and get some better slices of the cake. Morozov is pretty much a yes man for Gladwell by believing that change and equality cannot come just through the Internet, but, rather, people need to be unified and coordinate in person instead of relying on an Internet connection. He might even go as far to say that the corporations will engineer Internet propaganda to make the protestors look incompetent and lazy. Thus, the dark side of the Internet can reveal its ugly head. They do it with TV after all.

     Overall though, it cannot be argued that this is a step in the right direction. For years, people would complain to friends and family, and that was about it. With the advent of social media though, the statuses' and Twitter updates create an echo chamber for people to hear others and catalyze a movement. In a flow-like manner, technology like computers enable the social media which creates world-wide groups to correlate occupy locations and times. The ensuing globalization is created through this web of Internet groups, which is proven by the fact that 1,500 cities all over the world have been occupied. So, for now, the lax approach to this has been underscoring its potential. There has not been even 200 arrests during this whole event on Wall Street. So, while Occupy as it stands is futile in potency, I can feel the vibe of possible change over the horizon if a unified voice emerges.





   

Is the Appetite for Technology too Great?

     The question I pose in the title says it all: is the hunger for technological solutions more than we should strive for? What are the ramifications? But seriously, stick around for a bit. The Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment brought new reverence for rationality and its subarea of science and the ensuing engineering. There are issues with this though and that is our growing digitization, lack of self-sufficiency, and allowing the technology itself to overtake our natural world. Are there solutions to these?

     We are now so immersed in the digital age that it is hard to think of the last time we went a whole waking day without technology let alone a week or longer. There is hearing loss with Ipods, thumb pangs with texting, and awful vision from looking at the computer screen (I can attest to that!). Facebook depression is another term the docs are throwing out there (Tech and Health). The lack of interpersonal communication is also evident; for instance, I sometimes have troubling making plans with people because all they do is text instead of meeting me really quick or making the phone call. I anticipate only a rise in those with a lack of social skills, especially when we have kids.

     As was said in class, technology is promoted yet rarely questioned. Does humanity ever question our use of technology in every facet of our lives? Sure, it is easier to just pop food in the microwave, but can you cook raw meet if you ever had to? How about growing your own food, doing household repairs, or making a fire that even a caveman could do! People always think technology will always be there, and I hope it is to a certain extent as well. However, warfare could cause people to be displaced without anything, and, if you think that disaster relief can save millions across a wide region, you might be disappointed. It is essential to build life skills in pure survival for you never know when you will need them.

     Now if we continue with technology as we have been, the above can occur. Nonetheless, what if we went faster, faster, and faster? The so-called technological singularity can occur where machines eclipse humans in intellect, and our advances in technology happen at a pace we have never seen before. I believe the human race will inevitably hit an information overload point, but the advances in robotics and artificial intelligence can help make sense of it all. However, I disagree with the people who believe the robots will take over. For one thing, a robot is only as smart as the code, and I don't anticipate a program malfunction will cause the robot to think: "kill all humans!". That is mere Hollywood speculation. More realistically, the machine will probably just not work, and the engineers will spend weeks trying to figure out why.

     Yet, I firmly believe we will achieve intelligence amplification of our own brains eventually, and thus more discoveries will occur. In a few hundred years (or less!), human-machine interfaces on the biological level will happen, but I personally hope that it will be within in reason and our humanity is not stripped down to a robotic persona.

      I will leave this blog with a question for you to ponder: what direction will we take? A future of technology enveloping every section of our life to an extreme, a moderate world with it used wisely, or some kind of retro let's-all-go-caveman style kind of movement? Personally, in addition with what I stated prior, I believe people will ultimately use it more in the middle. Remember, technology is neutral; it is the people who use it that give it the bias. It would be nice to take a more biological approach where we grow our houses (MIT Fab Tree). To kick back and blend with the world around us is truly soothing. To me, our society is akin to a child with a new toy. We are in the infancy of technology, and over time we will learn when it is appropriate to use it. However, that will not come without some growing pains!

Fuels of the Good and Dark Sides of the Internet

     We spent this week delving into the more malicious side of the Internet. Ideas like surveillance, identity theft, and censorship covered the verbal landscape, touching on areas in which the majority of Americans are particularly sensitive to. However, what is the overall force that is pushing initiatives such as these? How about the forces that drive expression, freedom of sharing, and anonymity?

     This debacle was inevitable.

      Throughout history, there has always been the basic power struggle between the rulers and the ones who adhere to their leadership. There was probably tribal leaders in the cave days who would punish members of the tribe who communicated with other tribes. Likewise, we have the shady North Korea, who casts a thicker overcast on their peoples' eyes than State College clouds.

     Entertainment is enjoyable. It can bring a divergence away from homework, and it can bring people together to bond in a game. However, people in our country tend to overdo it I think. According to Time Magazine, Americans spend over half their free time watching television and literally spend about $706 billion dollars on entertainment in 2004 (Entertainment Spending). That figure I highly doubt has changed with the improvement of cell phones, video players, video games, and music players.

       So these television screens and other entertainment are like the "bread and circuses" Dr. Tapia mentioned in class. When so many of people our age (of all ages really) take part in entertainment to such an extreme degree, do you really expect them to know how to interpret national issues when they have never done so before? It's like asking one who has been using a bike for their whole lives to now use a car with no practice. The identity theft instill a sense of fear of being online, so they will seek out for organizations to protect them, not before giving them their information! The surveillance will cause paranoia, so people will one day be afraid to surf the web on controversial things, thus being a kind of censorship in itself. The censorship where your search results are modified for you that we spoke of in class was interesting. Any kind of filter is indeed a censorship, and the Internet can be censored in a covert manner like this so people will not notice.

     Yet, there is also the side that yearns for freedom of expression and anonymity. In other words, it is what the Internet originally represented. It was a lower quality user interface because Google searches didn't tailor themselves to your interests and so on. Don't worry, the horror drowns me too. However, it created a sense of freedom to explore without any feeling of someone looking at monitor of what you are doing (well besides ISP personnel). I would think that most people want that kind of online environment. However, it is not in the interest of those who hold the influence right now. Censoring messages and keeping checks on people helps maintain the status quo, and those who benefit from the status quo the most are those having surf and turf on their personal yacht. Of course the RIAA will try to find people who share music files since they lose money out of their pockets! Keep the wage earners in line to continue to make money for your institutions; is this not like China? How else could you control over a billion people on a giant national landscape with the advent of the Internet?

     In the end, this struggle between Internet freedom and Internet control is a by-product of class struggle. Those in power would rather maintain current way of things as they benefit from it. People on the outside of power circles who like to find unique things and have a sense of potency at their fingertips that they lack elsewhere. The fact that you have a world's worth of knowledge and opinions right on a screen gives a feeling of insight. But, why would a ruling body want to hear contradicting opinions? Thus there is censorship and surveillance. A person's fingers can type to entertainment and education, but those same fingers can also block millions from exploring the Web.

Think Tanks of China

     Since we are in a kind of segue in the realm of debate, I decided to explore think tanks in China and  outline the major players in this up and coming country. The Brookings Institute did an analysis on them and stated that in 2009 China started to fund think tanks in ways not seen before in the country where the term "people" pervade every single propaganda idea. Specifically, they mentioned the emergence of a so-called super think tank:

    "In March the State Council approved the founding of a new think tank in Beijing, the China Center for  International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE)"        CCIE Home

      Now, the biggest difference between an American think tank and the CCIEE is that the Chinese think tank is essentially, as one would expect, closely tied with the government. Their scope is to be under the guidance of the National Development and Reform Commission. A closer look at their leadership shows how many of them were close with the upper echleons of Chinese leadership. You can see former governor's of provinces, people on the People's Congress, the chairman of the State-Owned Assets Supervision and Administration, the Vice Premier of the State Council of China, and so on. 

                                        Leadership of CCIEE
     While CSIS may sport Henry Kissinger, these Chinese think tanks sport the majority of their leaders as political influentials over just scholars. However, CCIEE is close to the powers that are similar to how many think tanks are in the DC Area. According to Brookings,

        "CCIEE’s close ties to the Chinese leadership is its physical proximity to the levers of power—its current office is located only a few hundred meters from Zhongnanhai, the headquarters of both the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council."

     So, one would expect that the "research" that comes out of these think tanks will be more biased than the advocacy think tanks over here in the States. Since it's extremely close to the Communist Party, one can probably assume that the think tank will be used as a puppet to take blame for the party's errors as well as to promote whatever agenda they wish to address. Thus, it makes me wonder whether it is possible for China to ever have an honest think tank climate given the Commmunist Party's vice grip on the country as a whole. Nonetheless, it must be understood that these think tanks will be the big collaborators with our "Big Five" over here as well as competitors in the global plane of ideas.

     I stumbled across this video where a Chinese think tank is attempting to suggest that India should be divided as a whole, which is astutely pointed out is due to an inherent fear of the growing might of India's own economy. Even though there is pervasive poverty in the two countries, these countries are going to be heavyweights combating it out over many major issues in the far east for a long time to come. Let's hope they never go to war! Anyway, here is the video:

     In the ever enlightening comments that are from Youtube, one can see a flame war with the Chinese attacking the Indian report. I had a roommate who just came from China freshman year, and, every time we discussed India, he spoke of them in a negative light calling them "dirty" with negative body language to boot. Whether these neighbors don't like each other because of economic reasons or cultural, I am not sure. Overall though, I wanted to show how the Chinese will be using a think tank's research as a way to make political statements as time goes on. Will these Chinese think tanks induce more think tanks to take up the political voice with diluted research is something I am interested in seeing.