We're all creepers sometimes--I'm definitely guilty as charged.

After Googling myself, one page came up that was actually me. It was the second page (surprisingly) where it was me, listing me as photographer for the Cactus Yearbook. When I type in "Brandi McCormick texas" that same result comes up on page one. Needless to say, a lot of results came up that weren't me, obviously. I have to say that I am all for free and public information available online. Our society has been headed in that direction for a while now, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. That being said, I wanted to say a few random things:

1) Last year, one of my friends from high school turned me on to whitepages.com. If you haven't used it and are feeling in the mood to be uber-creepy, check it out. I was able to find the home phone numbers and addresses of lots of people I know, with directions to their house, alternative phone numbers, and sometimes email addresses. Even creepier, lots of times it will list all of the residents of that household or who are in some way related to that family/household. To embarrass myself for the sake of the class, I will tell you this: After reading up on bios and personal information of a favorite famous actor of mine, I knew what his hometown was and that his dad was a doctor. With this information, I was able to go to whitepages.com, and find his parents house, address and phone numbers, by means of deduction. Now I have that so I can send them my screenplay in hopes of giving it to said famous actor in hopes of him reading it and me subsequently becoming famous. All thanks to the convenience and big-brotherism of Google search!

2) "it's looking a lot more like an all-things-to-everyone portal and less like simply the world's best search engine"...yes yes yes! This pretty much sums up my thoughts about how Google will eventually just take over the world: search, Google docs, the G1 phone, etc.

3) I have never Googled anyone I was interested in, dating, or anything. Although I guess I can see where it might feel like you are protecting yourself by checking up on them, I think it's a little too hardcore for my liking to do my own personal background check of someone on Google, when I probably don't know enough about that person to weed out the real information about them with the irrelevant information.

Protect yo'self

I can't tell you how many times during my time at The Daily Texan I received phone calls from frantic UT graduates begging for us to take down a comment or guest column from the Web site they had published during their undergraduate career with little thought as to how it might affect them later. Although it can be argued that taking content down is against some sort of journalistic ethic or obligation to preserve history, most of the time we obliged them because we all know how much it blows to have sucky google results when you're applying for jobs. 

Internet privacy is one of those nagging subjects that comes up in my life semi-frequently and every time I'm reminded of it, I get nervous and want to change the subject. My Facebook profile is set to private, my Twitter updates are protected, my Webspace isn't shared... what else can I do? I fully admit to "vanity googling," which I started doing a few years ago to find my published articles. With a unique name, most of the first few pages of the 4,610 results that come up for my name are actually about me. Almost all of them are professional or school-related. The other day, my friend and classmate googled me during our multimedia lab and complimented me on my results, "Nice google search!" I thought it was really funny but also a really great compliment. Good google search results matter a lot for an aspiring journalist. 

But there are actually two embarrassing items that come up when you google my name. Both are comments I accidentally left on statesman.com telling some DT senior reporters to cover breaking news which we, as a student publication, hadn't heard about yet. (In case you didn't know, The Daily Texan sort of likes to think of itself as competing with the Statesman... silly, I know). "COVER THIS ANDREW!!!" is one of my comments left at the end of a breaking news story. I meant to e-mail the link to him and am not sure how it ended up as a comment, but to this day I wonder if the Web editor knows it was The Daily Texan news editor that posted those comments.

I am personally horrified by the amount of information you can find out about people through Google. If I search myself in a people finder, I can find my age, state and city of residence and parents' names (listed under "related people"...yikes!) And while I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I agree with Simson Garfinkel in that we can and need to do something about it. I liked his analogy about the environment and privacy. It was ignorant to think that pollution was an uncontrollable side effect of industry and economic development. Likewise, it's ignorant to think that privacy violation is a side effect of the Internet that we can't do anything about. 

I do think, however, that the privacy issue will result in another digital divide: that between educated Internet users and those not aware of the potential for privacy invasion. And, as pointed out in the first reading, the super savvy (and wealthy) have more sway in getting web content taken down so it won't show up in search results. One of the ways we can "fight back" according to Garfinkel is by "being careful and informed consumers." Well it seems then that the first step to combatting this scary problem is by educating people about it. 

The Future of Reputation: when poop goes primetime

This post is more questions than answers or opinions, so please bear with the incessant questions. I'm usually not like this. So let me start this off with a question: Remember the Dog Poop Girl from South Korea? Like in her case, there have been several cases where people have become vigilantes/voyeurs online.

On Facebook, 'I keep an eye' on my friends, update my status so they can do the same with me. Like danah boyd said (with regard to social networking sites), “Many began participating (in social networking sites) because of the available social voyeurism and the opportunity to craft a personal representation in an increasingly popular online community.” In that case, how much privacy can you have online? Are people deliberately taking social interactions between friends to the public sphere for others to witness? Like in the offline world, are people judged with regard to their online associations; a group identity that is 'reinforced by the collective tastes and attitudes of those in the group?' Then, to what extent does privacy play a part in reputation?

Most people feel that the current laws regarding privacy are not adequate to protect people’s reputations. Daniel J Solove's book, The Future of Reputation, takes this issue further and talks about how the Internet is changing the publishing industry. And this time, it’s not just celebrities – blogs’ egalitarian nature ensures that it’s everybody. It’s taking our reputations and private lives online, making it hard to understand the legal issues of privacy.

Like the dog poop girl's story, information spreads like a wildfire on the Internet. And many times, it affects peoples reputation and privacy. In the offline world, the law would come into effect; but online law has its shortcomings in protecting people. Like the media has its own rules, media such as blogs and social networking sites do not have any modes of censorship in most countries.

Just because something is available on the Interenet, does not necessarily mean it is public in theory; and just because something is not does not mean it is private. If someone is having a private conversation in a public place, does that automatically give you the right to be a part of that conversation just because you happen to be there?

User-created content like wikis and blogs create a conflict with regard to the freedom of speech. Like people establish norms, can they also police what people do/write online? The fact that there are defamation law suits based on blogs, is testimony to the fact that privacy and reputation is something that needs to be looked at. Can the rules and freedom of the press also apply to the Internet?

I wonder as we get further into the digital age if there’s going to be any repercussions for not participating in the online cultures. What happens if employers or schools search for your profile and don’t find one? Can that say something negatively about who you are? Instead of searching to find out the negatives can’t the profiles be used as a positive (the potential employee is social and has friends).

I was commenting on a friends blog when this showed up:

The picture is my profile picture on Facebook. This was when I was reading someones blog - for the first time! Remember those annoying IQ test ads? When it was celebrities, I didn't care much. But when they pull up a random picture of me and challenge others to an IQ test, I don't take very kindly to that.

So I guess my question really is: What is private and why it should be? If nothing is black and white; and we live in the gray, the question really is: can there be a gray online? And is getting peoples personal information from whats available ethical?

"People who don't pay for their news should go to jail" - Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large of Hearst Publications

I was watching this clip on the Colbert Report. Its a 'debate' between Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large of Hearst Publications and Stephen Colbert. The debate talks of free news, draws parallels between free news and the illegal downloading of music and dying newspapers.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/67095/the-colbert-report-wed-apr-8-2009

SPAM...

I have never had any real problems with spam on my email account so this section kind of surprised me. Sure I get the On campus events and parking information regularly (actually I get them twice because I work for the school as well) and they are annoying but I avoid giving my email address out to just anybody or anything I sign up for on the Internet. Needless to say this reading was eye-opening and I think we are on the right track to stopping it.

First off, people need to be smart and careful with who they give their address too. I know that spammers can do searches and hack in and find email addresses but the same concept can be taken to bank accounts. People can steal our identity and you wouldn't just throw your pin number around right? If spam bothers you, take action. I have a separate junk email account that I have created when I sign up for things online and they want an email address. Things like ebay alerts and youtube emails that I do not care about go to my account separate from school and important stuff.

Also we shouldn't get caught up in the hype of "spammers controlling the Internet" and surf the Internet afraid. Sure its a problem, but lets not get carried away with front page story headlines. People love doomsday stories so I do not think we should worry too much. One remedy is to fight back and possibly spam the spammers. Who knows if this is possible but like anything, sometimes people only understand retaliation.

Just don't open anything you don't recognize like "you just won a million dollars."

Spam Wars

I was never really sure what spam was until reading this section in the book. It's characterized as "unsolicited commercial e-mail." Although I don't think all spam is bad, I do think most of it is annoying

I thought this video was a little geeky and funny to discuss spam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcB2xiTPlFM

iPhone Cha-Ching

Like my smartphone presentation said, third-party developers are making BANK on iPhone applications. 

The SPAM war

NBC Dateline show on Spammers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17713446/

What is Spam?

What is phishing?

How serious is the problem? (Consider the Moore's law.)

What would be the consequences if we don't stop Spam?

What is the economic model behind Spam? (If it costs $200 to send 1 million messages, how many responses does the spammer need to break even?)

What is the technological principle behind Spam? How do they get our email addresses?

As a user, how should we respond to Spam?

What solutions exist?

1. Technologically: Filtering software at individual, corporate network, and ISP levels. Would this work? What are the problems associated with this solution?

Consider the positive correlation between filteration rate vs. false-positive rate

Example: Brightmail's database approach (70% vs. .0001%); Spam Assassin and Spam Killer (95% vs. 1%); SpamNet (user voting); Bayesian filter, which learns over time (99.8% vs. .05%).

Black lists vs. white lists

2. Economically: Changing the way email works, by imposing postage to email messages (real cost or computational cost) and making email traceable.
Would this work? What are the problems associated with such solutions?

3. Legally: U.S. CAN-SPAM law (effective Jan. 2004). Would it work? Why or why not? (details of the law on wiki)

Questions to think about:

1. Today's email system was designed 20 years ago for a small number of people who know each other. Unintended consequences of technology!

2. 90% of Spam is sent by fewer than 200 people. Extremely high external cost.

3. Can you solve a social problem by technology alone, law, or what else?

iTunes prices are CHANGING!!!

If everyone isn't already aware, check out this article! iTunes announced Tuesday that prices for iTunes' songs may no longer all be 99 cents! Some can be $1.29!

What?! We we just talking about this in class, so I found the article interesting. The article claims the user can have the choice to reject this new system of pricing... by not purchasing iTunes. Which, by the way, holds 87 percent of online music download sales in the U.S., according to CNET.

Music or e-book: What's a fair price?

99 cents or $9.99?

Kindle Readers Ignite Protest Over E-Book Prices:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/04/kindle-readers.html

Somehow, you can always get it for free

I was definitely a Kazaa user back in the day. I remember thinking how amazingly brilliant this new technology was. A way to circumvent the system and get music for free and the ability to share it with your friends? Um, sign me up!

I won't lie--when it comes to certain artists, there is no doubt in my mind that I will go buy the album so I can have it for myself. But, that isn't just an issue with paying for music, that's my own personal thirst for a material album in my hands. But no matter....I must say that even if these record labels and musicians want to seek people out and sue them because they have been "illegally" downloading their songs, GET OVER IT. Eventually, I am going to get it for free if I really want it. My friend could buy it and burn me a copy. My friend could buy it in iTunes and put it on a burned CD with other songs they bought on iTunes. I'm still getting it for free. It's not like they don't probably give all their friends and family free CDs. How is that different? And they are given to talk show audiences for free all the time. It's all over the place, all around us whether they like it or not.

The fact that these artists are being so incredibly stingy about losing a little money when they are making millions of dollars a year kind of makes me sick. Really? Come on.

I think Kazaa, (I personally use Limewire) like the programs before it will be here for a while. At least as long as people want some music for free. And that seems like a while, right?

Woman charged $220,000 for file sharing

http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6237195350&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T6237195354&cisb=22_T6237195353&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=6742&docNo=13

This woman had to pay so much money. I am sure she wished she went to Wal*Mart and bought her CD's instead of having to pay over $9,000 per song now!

Kazaa

In my true and honest opinion, I think the idea behind Kazaa is brilliant. People sharing their love for music with one another is one way to view it, yet another could be the exploitation of artists and their music.

After reading about the way Kazaa was set up among the different countries and extremely decentralized, I thought to myself how smart these people are. They know what a majority of listeners want and how to get it to them...free music that is easily downloaded.

Throughout the reading, I did get confused with a lot of the technical aspects. However, one major question that was proposed was does the "power to kill Kazaa ultimately rests solely in the hands of the service's users?" In my opinion, I believe that it really does. As hard as the article led me to believe about tracking down the right people for a lawsuit, it really does come down to the users themselves. I agree that until something better comes along, Kazaa will hold its power. That principle lies within so many aspects of life. People are like lemmings at times - they will stay on one train until someone discovers something bigger and better and then they will jump to another. It is more or less a humanistic quality.

P2P and a mixed cd

I am one of those people that does think it's important to support artist say most of my itunes is paid for...which is depressing when I look at how many songs I have.

I do love it though, when i get a fun mixed CD from a friend, but how is that not the same as downloading music I have not paid for? I almost always download a copy onto my personal library, and therefore get a copy of the music for free. I do, however, have a friend who is very strict about this, and won't take CD's from people unless he had the music himself, I'm not this strict about it.

With Kazza, the music of our middle school years, it was just so easy to download the music, I would find myself downloading songs I had never even heard before. Now with iTunes and the feature to sample 30 seconds of the song before buying, and it just as easy to find what you are looking for.

I do however, agree with Tori that music is expensive, and that more people would cut back from illegally if music was cheaper.

Me want music

Both my parents have been musicians for most of their adult lives and freaked out when they found me downloading free music from Napster in seventh grade. 

"You should always pay for music. Think of the starving artists!!!" 

I'm not sure if I actually responded with this, but I would now: "What about the overwhelming percentage of profits that go to big, corporate record labels?" Plus, there are ways to get around the piracy issue, at least if you're Radiohead. 

After its EMI/Capitol contract expired with the release of its last album in 2003, Radiohead, the most infamous of infamous bands, ditched the label and made its latest album In Rainbows available for however much users were willing to pay for it (as little as 45 pence, the shipping and handling fee). 

The article linked above points out many advantages to this business model, even if users choose to download the album for free. For example, Prince distributed copies of his latest albums in a newspaper and subsequently sold out 21 shows.   

And while it's easy to say, as in the Wired article, 'Fuck the Industry,' I also have the concern my parents instilled in me about trying to find a business model that drives as much of the profit towards the artist as possible. Radiohead's business model appears to be the most effective, seeing as how even users who don't choose to pay for the album are required to register their information and can therefore be targeted for later marketing campaigns or ads. 

I think this quote from the above linked article says it all:

"Radiohead are clearly trying to build an independent business model that suits their needs. Unless record company giants wake up and find a model that delivers real value to artists, technology will continue to bypass the record companies, and in comparison piracy will seem a relatively small problem."

Free music downloads via Kazaa

Kazaa, a web application that allows users to exchange a basically unlimited supply of music MP3s, videos and more, has attracted 60 million users around the world (Todd Woody, "The Race to Kill Kazaa"). Kazaa turns a profit by selling ad space through its application without charging the user a cost for downloads; therefore making Kazaa an extremely popular choice for music download.

Kazaa was able to escape the wrath of Napster's copyright infringement lawsuit because the company is very segmented with no clear person to sue... "There is no plug to pull" writes Woody in his article, "The Race to Kill Kazaa" (304).

The global entertainment industry banded together to try to shut down Kazaa, but the U.S. District Court judge was looking at the logistics of the situation: with Kazaa employees and central unit split up and separated across the globe, "Does Sharman (the company with ownership of Kazaa) do enough business in the U.S. to be lawfully included as part of the Morpheus-Grokster lawsuit (agaisnt file share)?" (305).

I think because of all the loop holes and technicalities the indsutry had to face to begin legal proceedings with Sharman (and the rest of the Kazaa network), it makes it easy for a company to become secretive and allow users to access free music download. I also think music download is too expensive - CDs can cost $20 - but I wish there was a more happy medium. Record labels and the artists deserve their fair cut of the music they make, but they shouldn't be able to charge an unreasonable fee for it. I think the proliferation of the Internet, combined with audience frustrations over the cost of CDs led to the creation of free music download.

The gift of the iPod

News media is going crazy over the gift giving habits of President Obama and his family. He got criticized for bringing DVDs that aren't adaptable in England in the past; now Obama gives the Queen an iPod! Read more.