Password protection law killed by House of Representatives

According to this article, a proposed law which would have limited how employers are allowed to control usernames and passwords of employees' social media accounts was voted against by a large majority in the US House of Representatives, which is an important half of the Congress. Interestingly enough, the vast majority of Democrats in the House were for the measure, and the vast majority of Republicans voted against it - coming out as winners.

This is incredibly frustrating to me. At first, I was going to be angry about how politicians don't represent the will of the people anymore, but once I saw the partisan split, it made me even more angry and further reinforced how, as an American citizen, I will never vote for a single Republican ever again until they clean their act up.

It seems to me that the Republicans are almost willfully ignorant. How can these Representatives who voted against the measure be so woefully out of touch? Do they really believe that it is in the best interest of the American people to have our privacy violated so obviously and egregiously? We could chalk it up to them being older, and most likely not computer-savvy, and blame this vote on the lobbyists who influence the Representatives.

However, I think this is the symptom of a greater problem. The Republicans, most of whom have taken on the title of "conservative," are going overboard in their conservatism. There is something to be said for conservatism, but in this time, this ever-changing world, there is not really a place for it. We are on the edge of the old world - gasoline power, incomplete civil rights, underestimating the power of technology - and the new - where alternative energies are possible, where all people deserve clear and sensible rights, and where technology and the forces that control it and spring out of it are addressed in a thoughtful and honorable manner.

How many House Republicans use Facebook? Probably very few. They don't understand how this decision will affect the common man and woman in America. This is a huge problem with Republicans as I see it - they find the voters who are afraid of change - the homophobes, the racists, the victim-blamers, the deeply religious - and they pander to them, shamelessly using them to push their agenda through. It works though, as we have seen, and there are people in America who are loving this, as they help contribute to the general decline of our rights and liberties in the name of order, false righteousness, and conserving all that is "good."

I used to be proud to be an American. I used to love what my country stood for, what we did and believed in as a nation. I'm not sure if it's because I grew older and wiser, or if it's because things have gotten so bad - maybe they've always been bad, and I just never realized. I hope that there are many Americans like me, who don't like what's happening and are willing to use their anger to make change. I'm tired of politicians and the "moral" right telling me what's good and how I should live. Although I plan to live in Canada, possibly forever, I want to contribute to a better reality for Americans who stay.

I think what is wonderful about technology, what the right doesn't yet completely understand, is the incredible potential it has to reach a massive audience. I believe technology can and should be used as a vehicle for social, and through voting, political change. I'll be posting this article on Facebook, and I hope the word will spread. I hope people will see what is going on and get angry. The fight isn't over yet.

Facebook takes a stand against nosy employers

According to this article, Facebook may take legal actions against employers who are found to be asking employees for their Facebook passwords. It is also against the Facebook privacy policy to share passwords.

I think this is a really important stance. Although it would be nice if governments made it illegal for employers to ask for social media passwords, this is at least a step in the right direction.

Some people may be outraged that companies even consider asking for such personal information; however, I can appreciate that perhaps some companies worry that their employees may be posting information or opinions on Facebook which may be harmful to the company. Despite this logic, they should still have no control over employees' accounts. The idea of it even seems Orwellian. When the line between work and personal life becomes too blurry, simply speaking one's mind on a non-work-related issue can become a job-threatening act.

This is clearly illustrated in this Twitter conversation between the two co-founders of tech start-up Geeklist and web-citizen Shanley Kane. In the conversation, which began with Kane's tweet about a scantily-clad model bearing the logo of Geeklist, Kane's employment at company Basho is brought up and threatened on the basis that Basho is a client of Geeklist's. Although Basho sided with Kane in the fact that the conversation had nothing to do with her employment there, she could have been unlucky enough for them to feel otherwise and lost her job.

In order for us to have a free and open society, we must have separations among institutions, divisions of power: between work and personal life, between church and state, and in many other more specific scenarios. If any one sphere of life absorbs too much of another, there is the possibility of tyranny. It is my personal belief that humans will and do take advantage of every scenario that is available for them to benefit from, and if we too easily give or vote away our rights and privileges, including privacy, we have only ourselves to blame.

Like another limb

I recently had an unpleasant encounter with my friends. After coming back from a walk outside, we all sat down to hang out and talk with each other. I unfortunately turned out to be mistaken on the latter. One of my friends pulled out her smartphone and started playing an attention-heavy game. My other friend opened her laptop, and after reading her Facebook newsfeed, began a conversation over chat. Hoping this would be temporary (as I don't have a smartphone and had nothing to occupy myself with other than the company of friends), I waited several minutes in silence before cracking a joke about how "we" were all so involved with our electronics, hoping they would take the hint. Without looking up, they laughed, agreed, and promptly continued with what they were doing. Frustrated, I left. The worst part is that this isn't the first time this has happened, and it happens with all sorts of people and all sorts of devices.

I agree that technology is fascinating. The things we can do and access using little effort and at great speeds within the palms of our hands are objectively awe-inspiring. There are opportunities to interact with people thousands of miles away in near real-time. It's easy to see why technology can eat up so much of our time. However, I think there's a problem when we begin to neglect the people we physically are close to in favor of playing with a phone, a computer, a tablet...

As seen here, 84% of teens own a personal media device. I imagine that for college-aged adults, that number is much higher. When I confronted my friends about the incident where I felt ignored after I had calmed down a bit, they failed to see the problem and had the attitude that I was overreacting. I guess I'll have to accept the fact that people today have become nearly inseparable from their electronics. I've heard some even take their smartphones to the washroom with them so they have something to read while on the toilet. I feel like a "get-off-my-lawn" type when I say this, but is it so hard to go without news or information for just a little bit, to spend time face-to-face, one-on-one, without texting or playing games? Yes, the virtual world is fantastic, useful, entrancing, but it's not real. When people get so absorbed in virtual worlds, they forget, overlook, and dismiss the multitudinous facets of our real world, where there is beauty in the simple fact that everything is flawed.

Stormclouds on the Information-sharing front

As you can read in this article, even legislators are at odds with each other when it comes to ACTA.
The popular opinion among Internet users is that ACTA and similar provisions are being forced upon an unwilling populace, and it seems that even some politicians are beginning to object. ACTA, like SOPA and PIPA before it, aims to control and limit the flow of information on the premise of copyright and intellectual property right infringements.
With the globalization of the economy, information and services (which often deal with information) have become the bases of the global market today.
This may be a bit of a generalization, but when it comes down to it, wars are fought over resources and ideas. Often, these overlap, and conflicting ideas are pointed to as triggers or reasons for war, but I believe that resources are the reason wars are fought.
It seems that the international debate about information is becoming more and more uneasy. The US is overstepping its bounds already, as we discussed in class with the Bodog.com example. It wouldn't be surprising if other countries followed suit, applying their copyright rules and laws to websites owned by companies located in nations outside their jurisdictions. It's disaster waiting to happen.
I don't believe any full-fledged wars will be fought about the Internet, but there have already been many riots. Until the issue of how to deal with copyright infringement on the Internet is resolved, there will continue to be conflict. Who knows how bad it may get.

Online Currency

This article discusses the theft of about $228,000 worth of online currency known as Bitcoins.

The intersection of currency and the Internet has always made me uncomfortable. I believe that the economy is a mostly abstract thing, as money has no value except for the value we give it, as illustrated with recent bubble bursts (auto and housing as well as others). Through speculation and other financial tricks, people can acquire large amounts of money just by knowing and gaming the system. This a tangent however.

I think that online currency or even financial interactions online are too easy to be taken advantage of by one party or another. I've heard of issues with PayPal where transactions go bad, and one party to the transaction loses money for various reasons.

Because the money is virtual, it is harder to keep a grasp on it, and more likely that hackers or even unscrupulous businesspeople will fudge the numbers. Cash is stable because it is a physical good. Much revenue can come from online business, but it is less trustworthy by far. If a system could come about for reliable transactions, the online market could live up to its potential much more. Not to mention data mining by credit card companies regarding purchases both on- and offline...

Encrypted hard drives now covered by 5th Amendment rights

In this US court decision, judges decided that the unnamed defendant would not be jailed for refusing to decrypt his hard drive to be used as evidence in a trial against himself. This decision rested upon the protection provided by the 5th Amendment to the US Constitution, which reads:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. (source)

The defendant claimed that the act of decrypting his hard drive would be testifying against himself, and the courts ultimately agreed.

As technology advances, old laws, precedents, and decisions are no longer relevant. Some may not apply, and many may not even exist to cover new technologies such as encryption, which our forefathers could not have foreseen.

I think this decision is extremely positive and important for the rights of the individual when it comes to technology. The government has certain rights, but they don't own us. The defendant in this case was accused of having child porn, and while I have a moral opposition to child porn, I think it was valuable that he stood up for his rights. It seems that the political trends in recent times are chipping away at individual rights, so it's necessary to defend what we have.

EU Decision shifts copyright blame away from social media companies

According to this decision by the EU Court of Justice, "The owner of an online social network cannot be obliged to install a general filtering system, covering all its users, in order to prevent the unlawful use of musical and audio-visual work."

I think that this is a great step forward in regards to Internet freedoms. Such a measure can prevent or safeguard against, in Europe at least, the enforcement of laws such as ACTA, PIPA, and SOPA, which if passed, will place the responsibility of policing for illegal content onto website owners.

For websites such as Facebook or Youtube, this would be an enormous, if not impossible task. It is undeniable that such laws threaten Internet freedoms. Although some people agree that illegal content has no place on the Internet (others believe that it is not illegal at all and that its distribution and use is considered to be a form of civil disobedience), the measures that would by enacted by these hypothetical laws are too harsh for our modern world. Large websites, which I assume make up a vast portion of the average Internet user's browsing content, would be shut down for the acts of individual users who have no affiliation with the company or website in question, other than that the users have accounts with the hosts.

I believe that it should be up to the administration of websites to decide what is not allowed on a website, as long as it is of no harm to others. If real child pornography appears on a website, that should not be allowed and the government of the appropriate country should be involved (through contact by the website administration - and if it is unreported, then action is necessary). In this case, real people (the child or children involved) are being harmed, not only physically, but in the fact that their likenesses appear on the Internet in such a cruel and violating fashion. There should be little tolerance on this matter.  This is a side point in the matter, as the content which is targeted by laws like ACTA, SOPA, and PIPA most falls under copyright concerns.

While it is important for an artist to have copyright or some sort of right over his or her own work, the music and movie industry are pushing too far in this matter. Perhaps they are losing money through piracy, perhaps not. The point is, they still make enormous sums of money. I believe that bubbles in the economy should not come about, as the only outcome is burst - which harms basically everybody involved. Although the bloating of the entertainment industry has not been referred to as a bubble in popular culture, I believe it is. It's disgusting that these people have so much money when people are starving all over the planet. As it stands, I have no sympathy for these companies and fully absolve these ridiculous excuses for law they wish.

Piracy not slowed by shutdown of Megaupload

http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/09/megaupload-shutdown-did-nothing-to-slow-piracy-study-finds/
According to this article, illegal or grey-area file-sharing didn't slow with the recent shutdown of file-sharing website Megaupload. Although global Internet traffic decreased temporarily, it was found that much of the content was moved to other sites in other countries.

It seems that the United States government is playing "Whack-a-mole" with piracy. With one targeted site banished, others arise or become more popular. As the suspect content moves elsewhere, the situation is becoming stickier. Despite its declining economy and international power, the US is pressuring other nations to follow in its footsteps on the path to war against abstract concepts. Joining the War on Drugs and War on Terror, the War on Piracy seems to be the US's latest in a series of misguided attempts to exact control where no control should be. Standards of living in the Western world on average are higher than they ever have been in the past. We have more and more time to spend to ourselves, and seemingly through the eyes of the government, more time to spend potentially doing wrong. Although in our modern world it is less clear where to draw the line on certain issues such as censorship and file-sharing, with the technology of the Internet acting as a means of global interaction,  the US has attempted to draw these lines closer to home than most would hope. Despite the public outcry against SOPA and PIPA, many US legislators still naively support such acts.

The Internet represents a new age, where people around the world can share content with each other almost simultaneously. Of course this presents the possibility of crime, but when it comes to file-sharing, the US is fighting a losing battle. According to work done by professionals at the University of Minnesota and Wellesley College, US box office sales are not affected by piracy. It makes sense for the US to take a strong stance against the distribution of actual child pornography online, since harm is directly done in the production of such materials. Only monetary harm could be brought about by the sharing of movies or other materials, and this impact seems to be less than the fat cats in Hollywood fear. This is also good for them, since it seems there's not much they can actually do about piracy. If there is a way to share things, people will share them. Laws are not absolute and do not represent morality.