The law and rules are the most difficult part of the wide web. A great number of big enterprises are trying to figure out how to protect their products from spreading in Internet. And it seems a bit like a fight with windmills. The opportunities the digital world is offering, are greater than the monitoring.
How can companies pretect themselves from massive copying? It seems, that instead of enforcing the rules that are not followed, it is easier to go with the flow and be innovative somehow. I am not sure if the (copying) restrictions are justified anymore, because it is so easy to get the products in easier way without paying for them. And I'm quite sure that many people doesn't even understand at all that they are doing soething wrong. Therefore - a company should have some new way of protecting themselves at the very beginning.
Friday, December 18, 2009
E&L: week11: The Uneasy Alliance: Free Software vs Open Source
For me, the difference between free software and open-source software is the same as described in the wiki introduction: same idea, different ways. I understand it as As Richard Stallman puts it: 'Open source is a development methodology, free software is a social movement.'
Review: Comments and ethics
As my coursemates have covered many interesting themes, I decided to choose the subject that intersests me most. This is actually 'Social Media, Viral Marketing and Crowdsourcing' (our team's subject) but it combines good with 'Social data for fun: ethic and privacy concerns on Facebook apps', 'Legal and Ethical problems with clips on YouTube' and 'Comments and ethics'. As the last is also connected with my every day job, I'll focus on that.
As there were only two people in the group, the amount of text is a bit smaller. But this way there was nothing supefluos and all I found was relevant and interesting. I'm definately coming back to the reference list/article collection.
Commenting in internet has lately become a big topic. Though the most known court-case about commenting - Delfi vs Leedo - started already in 2006, it had a progress during this year. The problem is: who is responsible for content of (anonymous) comments. Is it the commentator or the site that allows the comments? From this year Delfi has hired few moderators whose job is everything else but easy. Though it might seem like a easy one. The line between acceptable comment and not acceptable comment is thin. Besides that, people can be really agressive towards them when they have removed some (unwanted) comment.
This autumn 4 Estonian media companies (Eesti Ekspress, Delfi, Maaleht, EPL) came up with a campaigne "Ära sigatse" with slogan: 'Don't throw thoughtless comments - there is a person on the other side of screen'. Time will show, if this project justifies itself. Let's hope it does, because even now it can be said that the amount of "bad" comments is decreased. One interesting fact, though: comparing the comments to daily news articles and entertainment news articles, there's a concrete difference, as daynews get more sensible comments than the tabloids where the amount of thoughtless comments is bigger.
Both themes - the campaigne and courte case - are (slightly) covered in the groupwork. But what could have been done different/better? I didn't see any conclusion and disbutation on subject 'what could be done to improve the situation?' For example, I would have expected some discussion about anonymous and non-anonymous comments and a little bit more reasoned structure.
Nevertheless, the theme is interesting and the work got me again thinking of the ethical part of the comments.
As there were only two people in the group, the amount of text is a bit smaller. But this way there was nothing supefluos and all I found was relevant and interesting. I'm definately coming back to the reference list/article collection.
Commenting in internet has lately become a big topic. Though the most known court-case about commenting - Delfi vs Leedo - started already in 2006, it had a progress during this year. The problem is: who is responsible for content of (anonymous) comments. Is it the commentator or the site that allows the comments? From this year Delfi has hired few moderators whose job is everything else but easy. Though it might seem like a easy one. The line between acceptable comment and not acceptable comment is thin. Besides that, people can be really agressive towards them when they have removed some (unwanted) comment.
This autumn 4 Estonian media companies (Eesti Ekspress, Delfi, Maaleht, EPL) came up with a campaigne "Ära sigatse" with slogan: 'Don't throw thoughtless comments - there is a person on the other side of screen'. Time will show, if this project justifies itself. Let's hope it does, because even now it can be said that the amount of "bad" comments is decreased. One interesting fact, though: comparing the comments to daily news articles and entertainment news articles, there's a concrete difference, as daynews get more sensible comments than the tabloids where the amount of thoughtless comments is bigger.
Both themes - the campaigne and courte case - are (slightly) covered in the groupwork. But what could have been done different/better? I didn't see any conclusion and disbutation on subject 'what could be done to improve the situation?' For example, I would have expected some discussion about anonymous and non-anonymous comments and a little bit more reasoned structure.
Nevertheless, the theme is interesting and the work got me again thinking of the ethical part of the comments.
E&L: week7: The Author vs the Information Society
Brian Martin discusses in the 3rd chapter of his book Ínformation Liberation' the problems with Intellectual Property. According to Martin, challenging intellectual property must involve the development of methods to support creative individuals.
His strategies for improving: Change thinking; Expose the costs; Reproduce protected work; Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property; Promote non-owned information; Develop principles for crediting intellectual work.
I agree that the way of thinking has much power and influence to everything - including framing are thoughts in legislation.
Exposing the costs is in the interest of reducing the legitimacy of the world intellectual property system.
Reproduce protected work - I think this is the hardest part. Ofcourse it is not fair to reproduce smb's work freely but it would be really difficult to set up a penalty-system. Martin compares illegal copying with theft. There are so much information around us, so it is quite hard to "stay clean". Therefore I like Martin's idea to hold as much information as possible free by sharing it wisely.
I definately agree to the strategy 'Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property'. Being open-minded in whatever field helps to understand the rules better and to stick to them.
His strategies for improving: Change thinking; Expose the costs; Reproduce protected work; Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property; Promote non-owned information; Develop principles for crediting intellectual work.
I agree that the way of thinking has much power and influence to everything - including framing are thoughts in legislation.
Exposing the costs is in the interest of reducing the legitimacy of the world intellectual property system.
Reproduce protected work - I think this is the hardest part. Ofcourse it is not fair to reproduce smb's work freely but it would be really difficult to set up a penalty-system. Martin compares illegal copying with theft. There are so much information around us, so it is quite hard to "stay clean". Therefore I like Martin's idea to hold as much information as possible free by sharing it wisely.
I definately agree to the strategy 'Openly refuse to cooperate with intellectual property'. Being open-minded in whatever field helps to understand the rules better and to stick to them.
E&L: week5: Different People, Digital World
This is the place where we can say that Internet has made life better. At least for minority groups. In Internet everybody is equal and the "side-effects" cant influence the person to talk/collaborate to. Also, people with disabilities have equal chance in Internet to come with some good idea as every other.
Unfortunately, I can't come with some bright example of minority group could use the Internet to reduce prejudice an alienation.
Unfortunately, I can't come with some bright example of minority group could use the Internet to reduce prejudice an alienation.
E&L: week6: Social Engineering in Social Networks
Social engineers on internet field know how to take advantgae of people's weakness and natural state of mind. It is very easy to manipulate with people, because there is not so much paranoia that could prevent the frauds.
Though I find more interesting the cases of social engineering without technology, the first frauds that come in to my mind are manipulations that are connected with technology. It could be done very easilly. "Social engineer" just needs to know his/her victim (it is enough to know at least the age). The scheme is similar to thiefs. For "successful" criminal action they get to know the backround. Same thing is with social engineering. For example - a call for some elder lady who is being told that the caller is from the bank. He/she needs her bank account data to assure that also next retired pay will be transfered to the account.
How to avoid social engineering attempts? If people are familiar with some of these schemes they can be aware of the possibility of unpredictable frauds. A lot of conciosness can be gained through media.
Though I find more interesting the cases of social engineering without technology, the first frauds that come in to my mind are manipulations that are connected with technology. It could be done very easilly. "Social engineer" just needs to know his/her victim (it is enough to know at least the age). The scheme is similar to thiefs. For "successful" criminal action they get to know the backround. Same thing is with social engineering. For example - a call for some elder lady who is being told that the caller is from the bank. He/she needs her bank account data to assure that also next retired pay will be transfered to the account.
How to avoid social engineering attempts? If people are familiar with some of these schemes they can be aware of the possibility of unpredictable frauds. A lot of conciosness can be gained through media.
E&L: week6: From Hacktivism to Cyberwar
In August 2009 the fast-growing messaging service Twitter was attacked. Because of the attack the site was shut down for half the day.
"Twitter said later in its status blog that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through." At the same time Facebook also experienced problems.
I remember the live feed afterwards, where many people were talking about the shut down and asking: what has happened? (Though it didnt last very long.)
"Twitter said later in its status blog that it was "defending against a denial-of-service attack," in which hackers command scores of computers to a single site at the same time, preventing legitimate traffic from getting through." At the same time Facebook also experienced problems.
I remember the live feed afterwards, where many people were talking about the shut down and asking: what has happened? (Though it didnt last very long.)
E&L: week5: hacker ethic found in today's world
Hacker ethic found in today's world - I think it still is there, but not as much than before (when the sky was bluer and grass greener :). It is hard to predict what will happen in the future, because the amount of (online)information sharing has powerfully increased. Therefore I think the hacker ethic is rather decreasing. The more people dealing with hacktivism, the less the ethical rules are followed.
E&L: week5: The Hacker Ethic in a Networked World
For a start, I had no clue that hackers use among themselves slang for fun and social communication. Some of them were predictable, some not. I found more interesting the non-abbreviaton terms that are less technical. For example: dancing frog, angry fruit salad. Also drunk mouse syndrome that happens to everyone once in while. If the mouse cursor on the screen moves randomly, it can be corrected by replugging the mouse. I found out another recommended fix for optical mice: to rotate the mouse pad 90 degrees.
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