Cyborgs and the future

While the new 'Terminator' series on TV2 - The Sarah Connor Chronicles - is a really good show, it hasn't exactly helped me when trying to explain the content from our last lecture to my friends and flatmates. People seem to think that the introduction of cyborgs to earth = destruction of the planet. While we could see what Kevin Warwick describes as a superior species of humans replacing the traditional one, the growing relationship between man and machine does not have to be a scary idea.

If a cyborg can be described as "a living being who contains technological elements which replace and/or enhance physical parts", then people who have hearing aides or false limbs could technically be described as "cyborgs" - but these things are not harming anybody, simply making sure various humans live a good life. The possibility of microchipping humans for medical reasons has also been raised, which I think would be a fantastic idea and would save many lives!

I personally am not against the idea of microchipping people. The thing that worries me is not that we will have a piece of technology inside of us, but rather just what that technology will be used for. Lucy blogged last week that clubbers in Spain are choosing to have RFID microchips implanted as an alternative to carrying around a VIP membership card, which can be a hassle when going out dancing at nightclubs. For these people it has proved to be something that has made their life that one bit easier. While a credit account at a bar and speedy entrance to the venue is one thing - having our entire life based on RFID chips would be another. There would have to be some kind of definitive code/privacy statement before I signed up, as I would be a little worried about what kind of information each place I visited could access - the pizza order clip Erika showed us in class being a good example of this concern.

If the day comes that all privacy concerns are eliminated and a good RFID system is set up, then I wouldn't be concerned about becoming a "cyborg" at all. Why not improve our lives where we can? Things like this will not roll out over night, but I believe society will slowly move closer towards it every day.

Wikipedia update

It has been about eight weeks (over a month!) since I updated the Studholme College wikipedia page with possibly (but probably) false information regarding the Castle Street riots. The sentence I had entered was still there tonight, however there was a little note saying that citation was needed.

I have deleted the sentence as a courtesy to Studholme College, however it does go to show that not all incorrect information is picked up on in Wikipedia and may sometimes go unchanged - so user beware!

Breaking news in the blogs

The last thing I expected to come out of this assignment was to have my blog referenced to on the front page of the NZ Herald!
I guess it really does show the growing place of blogs in society; that they can often beat the mainstream media to break news.

HUGE Bebo error! (UPDATED)

We all seem to trust that the information we provide to social networking sites such as Bebo and Facebook is safe and secure, and that our account really is our account that nobody else can access or view certain parts of. However an incident such as the one that has occured tonight makes you think differently about your privacy and security in online communities.

At about midnight tonight I was logged in to Bebo under my own account when next minute I noticed I was apparently a member of various 'groups' I had never been a part of before. It was then that I realised Bebo had me signed in under the account of a random girl from Christchurch - with full access to all her information and account features. A couple of minutes later I was suddenly logged in under yet ANOTHER random person's Bebo account, and it was a couple of minutes before Bebo logged me out completely. Obviously this was some kind of error that Bebo has to account for, but in the few minutes that I had access to these peoples accounts I could have done some serious damage, data gathering, or other things we all assume could not happen to our account.

I just hope that nobody randomly has access to my account in the past or future!

UPDATE:
12.30am: Bebo has signed me in again under a strangers account, I now have full access when I Iog in to this girl from Christchurch's information. The girl tells me she has been into 20 peoples accounts tonight and has had friends deleted from her own account.

1.30am: Bebo is now signing me in to various strangers accounts every 10-15min or so. They seem random, yet mostly from New Zealand and a couple have been from Dunedin.

5.30pm: Bebo has still not addressed the issue, which must be some kind of server error. The switching of accounts seems to becoming more frequent, and somebody who has been in my own account kindly uploaded a folder of pornography...

The Ubiquitous Internet

Looking around my living room right now I see 3 News on the television, yet all four of us in the room have laptops sitting on our knees - also browsing through other information over the internet at the same time. The thing is though, that none of us think twice about it! This is just another example of the internet being ever-present and always accessible in our lives.

Back when people first began to move from dial-up to broadband/wireless internet one of the major talking points was that "wow, you can have the internet on all day and it won't hold up the phoneline!". A few years later and this is something that we simply take for granted, yes the internet is on all day but nobody ever seems to talk about it as a point of interest. Just like electricity, it is not until it stops working that we realise how much we were using and relying on it; at our flat the wireless router sits under the desk in my bedroom, and if I accidently kick the power cord out of the wall it takes no more than a few minutes for somebody to be knocking on my door saying "what's happened to the internet?!?".

The same can be said for mobile phones, as when the telephone was first invented it was something that was seen as a novelty, yet now the majority of us keep our mobiles at our sides 24/7. We use them to arrange our daily activities and our social lives at a more convienient pace, however most people do not regularly think about just how much they are using them. Despite this, the majority of us would turn around and go back home if we realised we had forgotten our mobile! I personally feel somehow cut off from the world if my phone dies when I am out in public.

I feel slightly uneasy about saying it, but access to a mobile phone and to the internet are things that I guess I now expect in my life. However, this looks like it is becoming an increasingly common view in society.

Tuvalu, dotTV, and the Digital Divide

I watched a really interesting video in the university library this week called "Paradise Domain". The video basically talks about the damaging effects globalization has had on the small South Pacific nation of Tuvalu. Tuvalu is one of the poorest countries in the world and in the past has relied on only the harvest of coconuts and fish for survival. Apart from a few people in the government, the country does not really have internet access, so in 1999 the Prime Minister made the decision to sell the rights of their ‘Internet country code top-level domain’ – ".tv". - to American company dotTV, which is today owned by VeriSign. The company wanted this domain due to it being the abbreviation for 'television'. dotTV made the deal to pay Tuvalu $50 million over a course of ten years, to give them a seat on the company's Board of Directors and give them an equity stake in the company.

After the introduction of this new money the government made a few improvements in the capital Funafuti, but Funafuti was a small island capital and when electricity and television was introduced 70% of the population moved there, meaning there were 400 people living per square kilometre. This saw the little facilities they had strained, rubbish overflowing the streets, and there was not even enough access to drinking water.

The Tuvaluan government does not fully understand what they have sold to the Americans, and after the deal simply believe that computers are the way to financial success. The amount of money generated from the dotTV deal made the Tuvaluans seem to think that computers are even more important than food. They have set up schools where the children learn verbally how to use programs such as Microsoft Excel - they do not always get to use computers, but read out as a class the functions of the "taskbar" and other such things.

The Advisor to the Prime Minister, Koloa Talake, holds the seat on the dotTV Board. A dotTV representative stated that he plays a “pivotal role” in the company and can be involved in all decisions, However Koloa Talake does still not know how to send an email, and was unable to explain why the company were interested in the ‘.tv’ domain. The Tuvaluan government has not invested the money in much needed areas for development, such as the healthcare sytem and in sustainable measures of accessing food, but instead used it to buy computers and television sattelites - things that undeveloped countries associate with the Western developed countries.

Access to laptops may be one way to consider global social inequality, but food is more important in terms of general life and survival. As seen in the case of Tuvalu, many people are now saving up to buy computers - but in their lifestyle computers are not even going to be any use. The DVD I watched stated that "four or five of its fisherman are lost every year because they cannot afford compasses for their boats". The Tuvaluan people seem to think that computers will be the answer to all their problems, however their time and money could be invested in much better ways before they even think about (or need) computers.

ECHELON and Surveillance

What's the bet that "ECHELON" is in fact one of the keywords that ECHELON itself searches for? That means that we will get a few extra page views on our blogs from some government official who's job it is to make sure we are not plotting a terror attack on George W. Bush (However, those last few words are probably more likely to draw them in anyway!!!).

On one hand I agree with people who say that it is a breach of our privacy to have the government watching over our online activity. However at the same time I say that, the majority of us do not seem to have a problem with a police presence in society - watching over the general activities in public to make sure nobody does anything illegal. If we agree that our online presence is today becoming more and more an extension of our physical lives, then is it so wrong to have some kind of similar online surveillance? When people worry about their online privacy, it is probably things such as the slightly embarassing email they may have written to their girlfriend that they are scared of having people read. I am sure that the government officials who are using ECHELON do not actually have time to read these kinds of things, as they should be more concerned with activities like a terror attack on Bush.

However, like has been the case with some real life policemen, there are some who would find a way to abuse the system internally - meaning there should definitely be some kind of policy amongst the few people who "know" about it to prevent an abuse of the system.

Oh, and for the record, I don't think deflating a spy base dome would really be the best way to voice your opposition to ECHELON. Just putting that out there.... lol

Speaking of digital media...

Speaking of the idea of getting music via the internet in a completely legal way, it seems Coldplay are giving away a digital version of their new single free for a week at coldplay.com.

This comes as "bands seek new ways to sell their music and connect with fans, particularly over the internet" says Stuff.co.nz.

I've got my copy.

©opyright

Copyright has today become an extremely relevant issue to people who, in the past, would never even had to bother about it at all. This is mostly due to the increase in communication technology and the ease in which people can access and share various forms of media and works.

We all know that they main issue surrounding copyright at the moment is the use of p2p filesharing websites. A lot of these websites claim that they have no control over what their users happen to be sharing as the content is not stored by them, and that they did not create the site with the intention of it being used to share illegal copies of files. This is rubbish, the video I posted below talks about how most of these sites only came about as a replacement of Napster, and the #1 use of filesharing software seems to be to exchange mp3 files. Do any of you know anybody that has downloaded Limewire with the intent to share something mainly OTHER THAN mp3s??

Companies like iTunes are trying to combat this and offer legal downloads of mp3 files and albums, however I do not see this as taking away too much from illegal downloads, as I believe the main reason that people get songs online is not for the convenience of time, but for the fact they do not have to pay for it. If my conscience played on me to the point where I wanted to pay for music, I would make the trip to the CD store (if there are any left these says) and get the physical product for only a few extra dollars, as that is a much more satisfying purchase than and invisible mp3 file.

Here is the video I found on YouTube that talks about copyright and some of the key legal issues relevant to the video sharing community, and in particular a case involving YouTube itself: