Cyberbullying defines the new form of harassment which utilizes technology to torment it's victims. In this new age of cell phones, computers, PDA's, IM, and digital photography technology has become a tool of bullies. Cyberbullying is used in varying forms of severity, from a simple annoyance to threats and stalking. Teenagers and young adults are mostly affected by this new form of harassment, however it can affect any age group. Cyberbullying is become a very large issue in many public schools and high schools.
Cyberbullying has snowballed into a very large problem for a lot of people, this is due to the relative anonymity of the Internet, which makes the act easier to commit without fear of punishment. This anonymity also leads to the attacks sometimes becoming more vicious, thanks to the lack of actual personal contact. The trouble with conducting these verbal beatings online is that many people are now connected through social websites like MySpace and Facebook and that sometimes means a wider audience. These websites also lead many bullies right to their victims because they publish personal information on them for the world to see.
You can avoid becoming a victim by utilizing some common sense while using the Internet. Be very wary when you post personal information on the web, be sure you know exactly who is going to have access to it. Do not let the situation escalate, a common phrase used is “Don't feed the troll” consider simply ignoring the attacks. Take steps to avoid the attacks by changing email, if the attacks continue, you might consider legal action. Always remember to document the bullying, keep a record of any offensive emails or online harassment. If the attacks are of a threatening nature, report it to the local authorities.
Personally I agree wholeheartedly with the opinion of this article, cyberbullying is becoming a big issue in todays schools. With the advent of social media websites kids are publishing way too much personal information on the Internet. There needs to be more awareness among kids and their parents about the dangers of bullying and harassment.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Copyright and the Internet Precis #4:
Students attending Swarthmore College came across over 15,000 private emails and memo's from Diebold election systems. Unfortunately thanks to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which practically gives private parties a veto power for online content, the students would find themselves unable to publish their findings. Copyright law is starting to seriously effect the Internet and Internet-based publications. In response to this a movement is forming, a movement against the further erosion of our civil liberties and the further distortion of copyright law.
These leftist reformers imagine a world where copyright law gives individual creators the exclusive right to profit from their own intellectual property but only for a short period of time, this gives them incentive to innovate. These people fear a time when simple things we take for granted are going to have a price tag attached to them, a world where something as frivolous as reading text is going to cost 25 cents a line. They theorize that at that point, there is no going back, and they are urgent to prevent it at all costs.
The great worry is that most Americans aren't even aware of the consequences of the decisions being made in the name of fighting piracy. The leftist reformers want to return the the Jeffersonian era of copyright law, a truly free society. A member of this movement, Lawrence Lessig, is the founder of creative commons, which is a sort of weak copyright. It allows creators to exert control over their own creations, but at the same time contributes it to the Internet as raw source material free to copy or modify.
The reformers argue that the Internet has changed the world, television, print and all of the older formats are losing out to a bold new experience in which everyone has a democratic voice in the creation and distribution of content. This is the new world, the old business model is flawed, the recording industry for example, all they do is control distribution, record company execs don't contribute anything. On the flipside you have people who want nothing more than to put a price tag on everything, that 1000 little micro payments is much more democratic than a creative commons license.
A new idea is being brewed by Copy Left and two students at Harvard law school. This idea is that all content online would be registered with a central office. The central office would then tally how often the content is downloaded and compensate the creators on that basis. The money would come from a tax on things like blank cds and recorders. A bold compromise in a heated battle between the entertainment industry and leftist reformers like Copy Left.
I really have to side with the leftist reformers, I feel like the big business of the entertainment industry is nothing more than a scam. Artists and creators manufacture the content, all the execs do is control the distribution and demand a percentage of the profits. Now they are drowning because artists have found a way of controlling distribution themselves, the Internet. Record companies have already begun to fight back against this cultural revolution, but in my honest opinion I hope they never win.
These leftist reformers imagine a world where copyright law gives individual creators the exclusive right to profit from their own intellectual property but only for a short period of time, this gives them incentive to innovate. These people fear a time when simple things we take for granted are going to have a price tag attached to them, a world where something as frivolous as reading text is going to cost 25 cents a line. They theorize that at that point, there is no going back, and they are urgent to prevent it at all costs.
The great worry is that most Americans aren't even aware of the consequences of the decisions being made in the name of fighting piracy. The leftist reformers want to return the the Jeffersonian era of copyright law, a truly free society. A member of this movement, Lawrence Lessig, is the founder of creative commons, which is a sort of weak copyright. It allows creators to exert control over their own creations, but at the same time contributes it to the Internet as raw source material free to copy or modify.
The reformers argue that the Internet has changed the world, television, print and all of the older formats are losing out to a bold new experience in which everyone has a democratic voice in the creation and distribution of content. This is the new world, the old business model is flawed, the recording industry for example, all they do is control distribution, record company execs don't contribute anything. On the flipside you have people who want nothing more than to put a price tag on everything, that 1000 little micro payments is much more democratic than a creative commons license.
A new idea is being brewed by Copy Left and two students at Harvard law school. This idea is that all content online would be registered with a central office. The central office would then tally how often the content is downloaded and compensate the creators on that basis. The money would come from a tax on things like blank cds and recorders. A bold compromise in a heated battle between the entertainment industry and leftist reformers like Copy Left.
I really have to side with the leftist reformers, I feel like the big business of the entertainment industry is nothing more than a scam. Artists and creators manufacture the content, all the execs do is control the distribution and demand a percentage of the profits. Now they are drowning because artists have found a way of controlling distribution themselves, the Internet. Record companies have already begun to fight back against this cultural revolution, but in my honest opinion I hope they never win.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Final Web Site Project
I didn't know where to "submit" my topic so I'll just do it here, my web site is going to be a personal gallery of my own work, something like an online portfolio.
Monday, October 27, 2008
CyberSquatting Precis #3
CyberSquatting is the act registering a domain name that infringes upon another person's trademark, or rights of trademark. Cases are usually brought to trial if something called “bad faith” occurs, this is defined by four main characteristics. One, if a domain owner purchased a domain only in order to ransom it to the highest bidder. Two, registering a domain name in order to keep the owner of a registered trademark from using a domain name relevant to the trademark. Three, creating a domain name for the sole purpose of disrupting a competitor's business. Four, Intentionally using the domain name to attract would-be visitors for the trademark.
If a judge finds a complaint to be equitable then the plaintiff can seek money for actual and statutory damages. The defendant will be required to halt all use of the domain for injunctive relief. The persons involved will also have to pay court and lawyer fees. Recently quite a few conflicting court cases have been decided on the subject of CyberSquatting, more often than not it is a celebrity who is seeking a domain in their name, but find it to already be taken.
Such was the case with Jerry Falwell, a evangelical pastor who found his name to be an already registered domain. The registrar Gary Cohn, used the site to parody the actions of the evangelical pastor, such as his opinion about the September 11th attack, gays, pro-choice groups and non-Christians in general. Falwell's lawyers have attempted on numerous occasions to shut down this domain but they have always failed. Most recently Falwell appealed to the UDRP, who in turn rejected his claim saying the website was "a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name."
Such was also the case for Julia Roberts, a famous Hollywood actress. The case was based on whether Julia Roberts had trademark rights over her name, and while she had no registered trademark on her name, she argued that she had common law trademark rights because her name had acquired a “secondary meaning.” Eventually the panel ordered the domain name transferred to Julia Roberts. Similarly in another case, the estate of Jimi Hendrix sought the domain name JimiHendrix.com, which was currently under the ownership of the supposed Jimi Hendrix fan club. As it turned out there was no fan club and the domain was being held for the sole purpose of being sold to the true owners of the trademark. The panel ordered the domains immediate transfer to the Jimi Hendrix Estate.
I believe that it's important to keep the Internet free from what I would call classism. I feel that the ability that certain celebrities possess to assert common-law trademarks on something like a first and last name is practically unconstitutional. What happened to every man created equal, why is popularity a question when determining the rightful owner of a domain name. I think it should be purely first come, first serve when domains are being sought. If someone is allowed to assert control of a web domain for simply being famous, than there is something wrong with the current regulations.
If a judge finds a complaint to be equitable then the plaintiff can seek money for actual and statutory damages. The defendant will be required to halt all use of the domain for injunctive relief. The persons involved will also have to pay court and lawyer fees. Recently quite a few conflicting court cases have been decided on the subject of CyberSquatting, more often than not it is a celebrity who is seeking a domain in their name, but find it to already be taken.
Such was the case with Jerry Falwell, a evangelical pastor who found his name to be an already registered domain. The registrar Gary Cohn, used the site to parody the actions of the evangelical pastor, such as his opinion about the September 11th attack, gays, pro-choice groups and non-Christians in general. Falwell's lawyers have attempted on numerous occasions to shut down this domain but they have always failed. Most recently Falwell appealed to the UDRP, who in turn rejected his claim saying the website was "a legitimate noncommercial or fair use of the domain name."
Such was also the case for Julia Roberts, a famous Hollywood actress. The case was based on whether Julia Roberts had trademark rights over her name, and while she had no registered trademark on her name, she argued that she had common law trademark rights because her name had acquired a “secondary meaning.” Eventually the panel ordered the domain name transferred to Julia Roberts. Similarly in another case, the estate of Jimi Hendrix sought the domain name JimiHendrix.com, which was currently under the ownership of the supposed Jimi Hendrix fan club. As it turned out there was no fan club and the domain was being held for the sole purpose of being sold to the true owners of the trademark. The panel ordered the domains immediate transfer to the Jimi Hendrix Estate.
I believe that it's important to keep the Internet free from what I would call classism. I feel that the ability that certain celebrities possess to assert common-law trademarks on something like a first and last name is practically unconstitutional. What happened to every man created equal, why is popularity a question when determining the rightful owner of a domain name. I think it should be purely first come, first serve when domains are being sought. If someone is allowed to assert control of a web domain for simply being famous, than there is something wrong with the current regulations.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Big Brother Precis #2
Google as a Big Brother
Today, the search engine Google dominates almost every aspect of web search. This is due large in part to Google providing the most results per search, Google is able to do this because they possess the massive amounts of resources needed to dynamically crawl a large percentage of the Internet. Google is easily king in the world of Search engines, providing 75% of the external referrals for most websites. Google has sparse competition with Yahoo, Alta Vista and the newly founded Microsoft Live Search. If these search clients don't pick up the pace, they are going to be crushed by Google, which would mean a internet-wide monopoly on web-search.
Google was founded with good intentions, always repeating the motto “Don't be evil”. Originally the main page was completely free of advertisements or any sponsored results. Now almost have the page is delegated advertisement space. As it seems Google is trying to make as much money as possible, which is really what any business strives for. The trouble is that this business has a deep value to the accessible content on the web, and Google's competition is doing nothing to stop them. Yahoo is much more interested in acquiring large sums of money from pay for placement advertisement, than actually trying to compete with Google.
If Google continues down this path eventually they may corporatize search and in the process destroy the open Internet. Google has always spoken out for net neutrality, yet if people only have to pay to get to the top of a Google search page, how much of a difference is there. Google also has access to a huge wealth of personal and sensitive information, what if that information got into the wrong hands, and what if Google allowed it? Our privacy is threatened enough in this post 9/11 world, but with the advent of social media sites and other forms of expression, quite a bit of personal information is just waiting to be cached on one of Google's millions of web servers.
This brings us to another point, Google saves web pages as a cache, so in a sense a history of every page on Google is created. If a webmaster wanted to remove some less-than-legal material from his site it could still be found and traced back to him via Google. The only way for the Web Site owner to prevent this is for him to include a “noarchive” metatag in the coding of the web site's header. On top of that information is the fact that a key engineer at Google used to be employed by the NSA, Google is associating itself with people whose job it is to spy on us.
Google has a huge influence on the popularity of web pages, and as there are no written standards or rules that webmasters can review, Google can deny search access to any web site. Effectively killing traffic for that particular page, this can easily be used in the reverse fashion by giving one web site an unfair listing on any particular search. Google's process of page ranking is already slanted towards larger more powerful sites anyways. The process is no longer democratic but rather, those with the larger wallets are on top. Google Watch is dedicated to keeping Google under a watchful eye, and is trying to attract attention to what exactly is going on at Google.
I found this article to be fairly persuasive, and by the end of reading it I was pretty fired up. One thing I think it was lacking was providing sources, they make a very good argument, but who is to say if any of the “facts” they provided were actually true. Lack of proper citation aside, the article makes an excellent point, Google is becoming the big brother of the Internet. I can't really blame Google for this current power shift, I think it's due large in part to Google's so-called competition giving in so easily. It's a big greedy mess and it seems like noones going to win in the end. With the Internet being openly misused for data-mining operations a system such as Google's provides these spies with all the valuable information they can handle. More than anything Google has become a main artery of the Internet, and they are in fact a Corporation, theres no positive to this fact. Webmasters have no choice but to suck up to the kings in California who are essentially holding a gun to the head of the Web. In the future I think we might see a great struggle over these issues and with the kind of ammo Google is packing I can't see us, the underdogs, even putting up a fight.
Today, the search engine Google dominates almost every aspect of web search. This is due large in part to Google providing the most results per search, Google is able to do this because they possess the massive amounts of resources needed to dynamically crawl a large percentage of the Internet. Google is easily king in the world of Search engines, providing 75% of the external referrals for most websites. Google has sparse competition with Yahoo, Alta Vista and the newly founded Microsoft Live Search. If these search clients don't pick up the pace, they are going to be crushed by Google, which would mean a internet-wide monopoly on web-search.
Google was founded with good intentions, always repeating the motto “Don't be evil”. Originally the main page was completely free of advertisements or any sponsored results. Now almost have the page is delegated advertisement space. As it seems Google is trying to make as much money as possible, which is really what any business strives for. The trouble is that this business has a deep value to the accessible content on the web, and Google's competition is doing nothing to stop them. Yahoo is much more interested in acquiring large sums of money from pay for placement advertisement, than actually trying to compete with Google.
If Google continues down this path eventually they may corporatize search and in the process destroy the open Internet. Google has always spoken out for net neutrality, yet if people only have to pay to get to the top of a Google search page, how much of a difference is there. Google also has access to a huge wealth of personal and sensitive information, what if that information got into the wrong hands, and what if Google allowed it? Our privacy is threatened enough in this post 9/11 world, but with the advent of social media sites and other forms of expression, quite a bit of personal information is just waiting to be cached on one of Google's millions of web servers.
This brings us to another point, Google saves web pages as a cache, so in a sense a history of every page on Google is created. If a webmaster wanted to remove some less-than-legal material from his site it could still be found and traced back to him via Google. The only way for the Web Site owner to prevent this is for him to include a “noarchive” metatag in the coding of the web site's header. On top of that information is the fact that a key engineer at Google used to be employed by the NSA, Google is associating itself with people whose job it is to spy on us.
Google has a huge influence on the popularity of web pages, and as there are no written standards or rules that webmasters can review, Google can deny search access to any web site. Effectively killing traffic for that particular page, this can easily be used in the reverse fashion by giving one web site an unfair listing on any particular search. Google's process of page ranking is already slanted towards larger more powerful sites anyways. The process is no longer democratic but rather, those with the larger wallets are on top. Google Watch is dedicated to keeping Google under a watchful eye, and is trying to attract attention to what exactly is going on at Google.
I found this article to be fairly persuasive, and by the end of reading it I was pretty fired up. One thing I think it was lacking was providing sources, they make a very good argument, but who is to say if any of the “facts” they provided were actually true. Lack of proper citation aside, the article makes an excellent point, Google is becoming the big brother of the Internet. I can't really blame Google for this current power shift, I think it's due large in part to Google's so-called competition giving in so easily. It's a big greedy mess and it seems like noones going to win in the end. With the Internet being openly misused for data-mining operations a system such as Google's provides these spies with all the valuable information they can handle. More than anything Google has become a main artery of the Internet, and they are in fact a Corporation, theres no positive to this fact. Webmasters have no choice but to suck up to the kings in California who are essentially holding a gun to the head of the Web. In the future I think we might see a great struggle over these issues and with the kind of ammo Google is packing I can't see us, the underdogs, even putting up a fight.
Monday, September 8, 2008
Hello
My name is Richard Gertz, I am currently attending the New England Institute of Art in pursuit of a Bachelors degree in Graphic Design. I'm housing in Pine Manor College in building West-4.
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