My project is devoted to raise people's awareness of protecting their internet privacy.
Here is the URL of my Website: http://huc117.wix.com/internet-privacy
2015年12月9日星期三
2015年11月22日星期日
Paris--Journal/Blog Entry #9
The recent Paris terrorist attacks has shocked the World. It's the worse terrorist attack since 9/11. While everyone is praying for Paris, the internet is keeping us updating with the first hand information of what is happening in Paris. Friends and families also uses the internet to communicate with their loves one to find out if he/she is ok. Police officers and rescuers are able to react quicker to those who need help since emergency phone line could got jam by too many calls. Although some time the internet could turn into a bad thing and became terrorist's recruiting and communication tool, we can't deny that the internet serves more pro than its con.
To give you a better illustration of how the internet helps people in the crisis, I have to bring you back to 2008. In 2008, Sichuan, China, had an magnitude of 8.0M earthquake. There were more than 60 thousand victims dead in the crisis. I followed all along the way of how the internet react to this disaster. It was a horrific event and I cannot forget how the internet helped us unit against it.
In 2008, I was already a two year internet user and the internet had been very practical amount all the major cities in China. And I was already in the U.S. at that time. Not long after the earthquake happened, a news just popped up on my computer said Sichuan just had an earthquake! According to an article I have read, the fastest news were published just 10 minutes after the earthquake. Just 4-5 hours after the earthquake, there were 30 millions searches about Sichuan earthquake on the search engine. Imagining that it might takes a minuses for everyone to know what just happened in Sichuan.
Yet, what's more surprise is what happened after. Many Sichuan people was able to reach out their family by using internet. Many people posted photos and videos on the internet to show people how bad was the earthquake. Many family that couldn't reach out their loves one posted missing post on the interest. Those missing post were gathered on the website and people spread them to anyone they know. Police posted self rescue information on the internet. Many people donated money, supplies, even blood for Sichuan. Moreover，some of my internet friends even drove to Sichuan to ship supplies and became a volunteer. There were 3000 people were saved because of a post on the internet expressed the village needed medical and food supplies.
Now imagine if we didn't have internet at that time. It might takes days for us to know. We couldn't reach to our loves one to make sure they are safe. We would have no way to find our loves one when they missing. There will be less people to donated because they probably just don't know how bad it was. The self-rescue information might have save a lot people. The 3000 people could have died in that village. After all, the Internet still save more people them it kills. So, I believe the Internet is actually a good thing.
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/2008-06/12/content_8353357.htm&prev=search
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&u=http://news.xinhuanet.com/society/2008-06/12/content_8353357.htm&prev=search
Trolling and Selfies--Blog Entry #8
Have you ever been trolled before? I did. I have seem a lot of troller on the internet and in my real life. Moreover, I just got trolled recently in the campus. By definition, trolling on the internet is to post immature comments with stereotypes content. These comments often have thoughtless conclusions and the only mean they posting them is to bring unpleasant emotion to other people. Now, the definition of trolling has expanded. Any behaviors that is associated with intentionally hurting people‘s feeling. Let's pause for a moment, do all these look familiar to you? If so, you have probably seem a troller in your real life. The difference between trolling on the internet and trolling in the real life is that real life trollers troll not only with words but also with unwanted physical contact which offends or hurts other people. Just recently I was victimized to this kind of trolling. The person did disrespectful physical contact to me just because he didn't receive the attention he wanted.
Now we have a pretty good understanding of what trolling is. You might wondering why would anyone does it. If you take a close like to those trollers's behaviors, some of them do act like Sadism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Yet, what's more is that trollers crave for other people's attention. One of the main reasons they troll is that they could not get enough attention from other people. Also, they seem don't have the social skill to get people's attention in a right way. So they post those insulting comment or do disrespect physical contact which just drives people mad. One by one, people will start to criticize them of what they have done. But these critical will only bring satisfaction to them instead letting them realize their mistake. And internet anonymous and wold wide net just help those real life trollers, who depress themselves because of social pressure, "release" themselves.
Selfies is very popular way of express ourselves nowadays. I don't have any friends who love to post their selfies every day. Yet, I know many people on the internet do that. However, I don't think it a "crime" to do so. It's just annoying. I guess not one want to go out with a friend who takes picture of themselves every 10 minutes. And one thing I have learn from looking on selfies is that don't ever trust picture of someone because they were all edited. I don't think taking selfies is associated will any mental problem. After all we all have some narcissism inside of us.
Now we have a pretty good understanding of what trolling is. You might wondering why would anyone does it. If you take a close like to those trollers's behaviors, some of them do act like Sadism, Psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. Yet, what's more is that trollers crave for other people's attention. One of the main reasons they troll is that they could not get enough attention from other people. Also, they seem don't have the social skill to get people's attention in a right way. So they post those insulting comment or do disrespect physical contact which just drives people mad. One by one, people will start to criticize them of what they have done. But these critical will only bring satisfaction to them instead letting them realize their mistake. And internet anonymous and wold wide net just help those real life trollers, who depress themselves because of social pressure, "release" themselves.
Selfies is very popular way of express ourselves nowadays. I don't have any friends who love to post their selfies every day. Yet, I know many people on the internet do that. However, I don't think it a "crime" to do so. It's just annoying. I guess not one want to go out with a friend who takes picture of themselves every 10 minutes. And one thing I have learn from looking on selfies is that don't ever trust picture of someone because they were all edited. I don't think taking selfies is associated will any mental problem. After all we all have some narcissism inside of us.
2015年11月8日星期日
"Always on" Might Means "Always be harm"—Journal/Blog Entry #7
As we discussed in the half period of the course, internet has revealed it self as not only a powerful tool in the modern society, also as a potentially treat to our privacy, language, personally, and even life. When I first finished reading Chapter 10 of the book Always on and watching the TV show CSI: Cyber, now I have a more clear illustration of the topics we have mentioned. Moreover, I am knowing what are some consequences to be always on.
The first consequence that is mentioned by the book is the personal consequence. As people always want to connecting——sleeping by the phone, reading and writing text anywhere, post status while eating, they become sort of "public exhibitionists". They share everything about themselves in anywhere while doing anything. Ironically, phone supposes to make people more efficient in work and communication, now it makes people less efficient because they are always available and sharing. Even more dramatic is that, by doing so, we become more lonely. We are not sharing our information to others, but we are ‘‘fill[ing] the slow gaps by talking on mobile phones while walking down a street or waiting for a traffic light to change(Always on).’’
While our personal life-styles have change by internet, our cognitive also change. We all believe taking stuffs from shop without paying for is not a right thing to do. Yet, a lot of us listen to music which downloaded on the internet without paying for them. Computer also change the way we think about multitasking. Study found we are not only bad at multitasking, we can not even be distract while we doing computer-relate work. If we would receive a e-mail while doing computer-related work, we would spent more time doing something else on computer after finishing reply the e-mail. Information technology seems created an addicted and attention disorder amount people who rely on it.
Moreover, the addiction of using language technologies has dragged people away from face-to-face communication. We focus more on the interaction in the virtual while we could easily talk to people right in front of us. In the book, Baron referred Thomas Friedman's story on the way home in taxi. Both the driver and him were onto their devices instead of talking to each other. Stanford's Norman Nie also reported ‘‘Internet use at home has a strong negative impact on time spent with friends and family as well as time spent on social activities.’’ It seems modern Americans have isolated each others by connecting too much. However, the strength of our relationship appeared as strong as before, regardless of more internet use. A Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that the more we are online, the more we spend time with each others offline or on the phone. In addition, communication technologies allow parents and their children become closer. But people argued that they also become an obstacle for children to grow up since they ask more to their parents for advice. Lastly, the internet has brought down our anticipation. Now, we can easily know everything around our social circle right after it had happened. By simply a phone call or sever text message or a updated Facebook status, we could have the first hand information of everything.
If these consequences do not sound serious enough for us, or to say, they are minor details compared to the next idea, lack of security in cyber space is actually result people's death. Sounds scared? I am also shocked after watching the TV series CSI: Cyber "Hack E.R". In the show, a hacker hacked into a hospital's system and treating to kill patient in each four hours if they don't pay the money. First the hacker hack into a patient's drug pump and inject a lethal dose of morphine. CSI team discovered that the hearth rate monitor was also manipulated by hacker to show constant hearth rate, so that no doctor will know her condition. Hacker also controlled the ventilators which were taken back by CSI agent. lastly the hacker still manage to kill another patient by changing the drug whom was prescribed.
As we give up our information, control, and even life to a machine, it is scared to think what people could do with it. As the customer end, we sometimes have not idea of the consequences. It is up to the private company and government to help us protect our privacy and life. The private company should carefully exam their employees and devices that could become potential treats. Government should also help to create a authority that will check all the potential weak points in the important facilities like hospital. They both have responsibly to keep people's privacy information stay private, and to protect our life against crime.
However, the bottom line of cyber security in government is not to steal the information from the people they are trying to protect. Many people argued that they have nothing to hide so we should not worry about government peek in our information. It is so wrong to think so. I think privacy is the last fig leaf of humanity. Giving up our privacy means giving up our humanity. We all have things that we will only do when we alone and we will only tell the people we trust. Although become anonymous in the cyber space is impossible, become we always leave trace while online, we do not want people to know where we are or what we are doing, even we are doing nothing wrong. In addiction, government is run by people. How would you know that your privacy photographs which you don't want anyone to see is now on someone else's computer? Maybe one of FBI agents is watching them now. I think we need to set some lines of how we use computer technology and how we protect us against cyber crime.
The first consequence that is mentioned by the book is the personal consequence. As people always want to connecting——sleeping by the phone, reading and writing text anywhere, post status while eating, they become sort of "public exhibitionists". They share everything about themselves in anywhere while doing anything. Ironically, phone supposes to make people more efficient in work and communication, now it makes people less efficient because they are always available and sharing. Even more dramatic is that, by doing so, we become more lonely. We are not sharing our information to others, but we are ‘‘fill[ing] the slow gaps by talking on mobile phones while walking down a street or waiting for a traffic light to change(Always on).’’
While our personal life-styles have change by internet, our cognitive also change. We all believe taking stuffs from shop without paying for is not a right thing to do. Yet, a lot of us listen to music which downloaded on the internet without paying for them. Computer also change the way we think about multitasking. Study found we are not only bad at multitasking, we can not even be distract while we doing computer-relate work. If we would receive a e-mail while doing computer-related work, we would spent more time doing something else on computer after finishing reply the e-mail. Information technology seems created an addicted and attention disorder amount people who rely on it.
Moreover, the addiction of using language technologies has dragged people away from face-to-face communication. We focus more on the interaction in the virtual while we could easily talk to people right in front of us. In the book, Baron referred Thomas Friedman's story on the way home in taxi. Both the driver and him were onto their devices instead of talking to each other. Stanford's Norman Nie also reported ‘‘Internet use at home has a strong negative impact on time spent with friends and family as well as time spent on social activities.’’ It seems modern Americans have isolated each others by connecting too much. However, the strength of our relationship appeared as strong as before, regardless of more internet use. A Pew Internet & American Life Project study found that the more we are online, the more we spend time with each others offline or on the phone. In addition, communication technologies allow parents and their children become closer. But people argued that they also become an obstacle for children to grow up since they ask more to their parents for advice. Lastly, the internet has brought down our anticipation. Now, we can easily know everything around our social circle right after it had happened. By simply a phone call or sever text message or a updated Facebook status, we could have the first hand information of everything.
If these consequences do not sound serious enough for us, or to say, they are minor details compared to the next idea, lack of security in cyber space is actually result people's death. Sounds scared? I am also shocked after watching the TV series CSI: Cyber "Hack E.R". In the show, a hacker hacked into a hospital's system and treating to kill patient in each four hours if they don't pay the money. First the hacker hack into a patient's drug pump and inject a lethal dose of morphine. CSI team discovered that the hearth rate monitor was also manipulated by hacker to show constant hearth rate, so that no doctor will know her condition. Hacker also controlled the ventilators which were taken back by CSI agent. lastly the hacker still manage to kill another patient by changing the drug whom was prescribed.
As we give up our information, control, and even life to a machine, it is scared to think what people could do with it. As the customer end, we sometimes have not idea of the consequences. It is up to the private company and government to help us protect our privacy and life. The private company should carefully exam their employees and devices that could become potential treats. Government should also help to create a authority that will check all the potential weak points in the important facilities like hospital. They both have responsibly to keep people's privacy information stay private, and to protect our life against crime.
However, the bottom line of cyber security in government is not to steal the information from the people they are trying to protect. Many people argued that they have nothing to hide so we should not worry about government peek in our information. It is so wrong to think so. I think privacy is the last fig leaf of humanity. Giving up our privacy means giving up our humanity. We all have things that we will only do when we alone and we will only tell the people we trust. Although become anonymous in the cyber space is impossible, become we always leave trace while online, we do not want people to know where we are or what we are doing, even we are doing nothing wrong. In addiction, government is run by people. How would you know that your privacy photographs which you don't want anyone to see is now on someone else's computer? Maybe one of FBI agents is watching them now. I think we need to set some lines of how we use computer technology and how we protect us against cyber crime.
2015年10月24日星期六
What They Are and Why People Blog--Journal/Blog Entry #5
This Monday we discussed the purpose of blog. People blog for many different purpose. Mainly, they wish to share their idea to other people. Moreover, writing on the blog could help them analyze their idea and think more critically. As each student of this course were assigned to create a blog, we are certainly have our own idea of how blogging relate to what we have learned in class.
Each week, the professor will ask us to write a blog post that's relevant to the topic we had discussed in the class. As we are writing the post, we either have to do some research about the topic or watch a video about the argument. I have written three blog posts for the class. And I think this is a very effective way of learning purpose. By writing blog, we not only refresh our memory about we have heard in class, also we could analyze our own idea behind the topic. We had to gather more information on the internet and came up our own conclusion on topic. Regardless of right or wrong, we are able to bring out a thoughtful idea with some solid evident. In addition, we can share our own idea to the classmates. So, we are learning collectively without speaking in the class or being at a same place. It is definitely more convenience and easier. However, I would not choose to blog if i weren't require to do so simply because I don't think some one would read my post. However, after I have more knowledge to my computer science major, I would consider create a blog about how to programming and share my own technic on writing program. I think it will help me to develop my idea in my career.
As it shows, I think blog is also very effective in every aspect of our social life. Like people argue the internet is destroying English language, because too many people use shorten words in online communication. Yet, writing blog it is very formal way to share something in our life. We tend to use formal grammar and correct words to describe even a very small event in our life. Also we don't put random thoughts on the blog. For example, if I would write a blog to share something about my major, I wouldn't write something that I have no knowledge of or something very short, because it will not be convincing and can't help me thinking critically.
The popular blog that I find more interesting to me is the Slash Gear. it a blog focus on all kinds of tech gadgets we use. From cat exercise wheels to cars and phones, he review all kinds of cool stuffs that consumers might like. His twitter has more than 36K's followers. I think this blog is very effective. The blog owner try out all the products and recommend it to people with very strong knowledge and evidence. So, that we have more knowledge when we buy them. thus, we could avoid going to the trap in the advertisement. I don't think I could write a blog like this, because it requires a lot passion and time to maintain a such blog. Thus, I yet have the knowledge to do a throughfull review that can share out to many people
Each week, the professor will ask us to write a blog post that's relevant to the topic we had discussed in the class. As we are writing the post, we either have to do some research about the topic or watch a video about the argument. I have written three blog posts for the class. And I think this is a very effective way of learning purpose. By writing blog, we not only refresh our memory about we have heard in class, also we could analyze our own idea behind the topic. We had to gather more information on the internet and came up our own conclusion on topic. Regardless of right or wrong, we are able to bring out a thoughtful idea with some solid evident. In addition, we can share our own idea to the classmates. So, we are learning collectively without speaking in the class or being at a same place. It is definitely more convenience and easier. However, I would not choose to blog if i weren't require to do so simply because I don't think some one would read my post. However, after I have more knowledge to my computer science major, I would consider create a blog about how to programming and share my own technic on writing program. I think it will help me to develop my idea in my career.
As it shows, I think blog is also very effective in every aspect of our social life. Like people argue the internet is destroying English language, because too many people use shorten words in online communication. Yet, writing blog it is very formal way to share something in our life. We tend to use formal grammar and correct words to describe even a very small event in our life. Also we don't put random thoughts on the blog. For example, if I would write a blog to share something about my major, I wouldn't write something that I have no knowledge of or something very short, because it will not be convincing and can't help me thinking critically.
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| Some blog posts in SlashGear |
2015年10月10日星期六
"Connected, but Alone?"--Journal/Blog Entry #3
This week, we watched a very interesting Ted-Talk. Sherry Turkle (The Specker) brought out some very profound questions about how technologies have changed our life and our relationships in a bad way. She mentioned that although those online communications are a better way to learning our self and to improving our life, we spent too much time on connecting instead of having a true relationship with peoples. These ideas are so novel since we so used to technologies, we tend not to thinking what these technologies leading us to. In fact, according to a survey, 64% of the American adults have at least one smartphone(Pew Research Center). As one of regularly internet user, I believe there are some trues in this speech while a little of them are overstated.I believe in face-to-face communication as what Sherry Turkle believe, even through i use internet in a daily basis and I text a lot. When I was a child, the internet hadn't been very practical in our region. Me and my friends were always play together, even when we played video games. I think spending time with friends talking to them is essential to a friendship. While some people might argue that sending text is also a way to communicate, the problem is that you cannot understand the feeling through text. Some one might send you a text saying that he is happy but he is in stress. You have not idea of which moon of the person who is in the another end of the self phone. If you don't understand he/she feeling, building a strong relationship is utterly impossible.
However, nowadays, technologies has changed the traditional way of building relationship. A picture in the speech is a prefect illustration of this contemporary phenomenon. Turkle took a photo of her dangerous and her dangerous's friends watching their phone while they were together. "They were being together while not being" Turkle stated. This is the side effect which internet has brought us to. This phenomenon is so practical in my country that people cannot have a party without asking everyone to giving up their self phone because everyone will be busy on their screen instead of talking. As Turle stated, they just want to customize their life and only listen to the things that interested to they. I think this is the thing which people need to change. People need to listen to others even if they don't agree or they feel bored because this is the only way to understand someone. Choosing not to listen is not only disrespectful, and it will make people choose not to listen to you. "You aren't trying to understand me, why should I?" This is how the misunderstanding start.
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| Phones were collected in a dine |
Nonetheless，after all the counter examples of internet, I don't think internet will destroy our life. There are a lot of people believe in face-to-face communication, like me. We also need to see the bright side of internet. For example, I have a relative who was coming to The U.S. to study. He used internet to find all his schoolmate even before his class started. Some of them became his roommate before he rented an apartment. Lastly, They became very close as friend. Internet is not the sin. it's how we use it. If you could balance your life and your online life, connecting will only helps you, not harts you.
2015年10月3日星期六
Questions of War Games--Journal/Blog Entry #2
We had watched a interesting movie on the Monday which called War Games. Although it has a very science-fiction story, it revealed a lot of problems regarding to the internet and computer at that time which is still relevant today. Especially today, people are more and more aware that internet security and internet privacy are very important, since almost half of the world is using the internet. However, no matter how good we are at defense, people always find a way to get around the defense or even destroy it. Lets discuss what are the differences and similarities between today's world and War Games world.
Nowadays, we don't use phone calls to connect to the internet any more. Instead, most of us use cable internet access and digital subscribe lines. The cable internet access use the line which originally designed to connect television signal. Basically, we can connect to the internet via a modem which connected with a television cable. The digital subscribe line is different. It uses telephone line which is similar to dial-up connection, but without occupying the phone connection. It means people only need one telephone line for both internet connection and telephone use. I use digital subscribe line at home. Although there are many more methods to conned to the internet, such as FTTH, BPL, etc., the most common wire connections we are using are those two. We also use Wi-fi and 4G for wireless connection.
The giant computer, WOPR, in the movie is called supercomputer. It exists in many countries around the world. They were designed to process an enormous amount of information which normal computers have no capability to do so. The information they process a day requires a personal computer running endlessly for decades to solve. It's a powerful tool which can be used in terms of research, military purpose, decryption, and more.
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| Tianhe-2, The most powerful supercomputer, designed by National University of Defense Technology, China. |
In the movie, it seems like WOPR could communicate with people like a human. We have developed a way allowing a computer to study the human's way of thinking and learning. It is called artificial neural network. This technology was inspired by the way nervous work in our brain. Computers which use this technology are able to drive a car, to judge an article, to identify a particular photograph. This technology has been applied in many fields, like google search engine, email spam filtering, etc..
However, hacking into a computer is not as easy as in the movie. David was able to see the password of school server in the drawer of his school office. Yet, we are smarter now. We don't put passwords around to let people to find out. Hackers often use Trojan Horse or system weak point to hack into a computer system. Trojan Horse is a software that serves like a back door. If your computer downloaded it in the system, it will automatically install and run quietly, without notifying you. It will recall all the passwords you entry and sent it to the hacker. Also, back door hacking is also possible. Many manufacturers of computer left a back door in the hard drive for maintaining purpose. Like BIOS backdoor password allows other people to bypass your BIOS password. Even system has back door. In addition, social engineering is used by hacker to get information from people they want to hack. A Hacker can use this information to guess target's password.
As we can see, as technology developed, we achieved many things that we thought that we unable to achieve. Some of ideas in the movie were purely a fiction. However, we face the same problem as before. How to keep our information safe and protected is still a question for all of us.
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