A Loss of Identity

In this article I am focusing on the "Anonymity Can Wreak Havoc in a Community" section.  The misuse of online identity is a serious issue that is seemingly impossible to prevent.  People love the thought of leaving who they are as they log on with a user-name.  For some people this opens the repercussion free doorway of acting and treating others anyway they want to.  Certain individuals gain this sense of power and even invincibility since people can be as horrible and cruel as they want without the slightest chance of getting in trouble.  Another issue with online identities is that people can turn their online identity into who they really are.  People who may not be happy with their life and want to lose themselves in an online world.  This is an extreme case of how people can become with online identity but it happens relatively often.  Does anybody feel like I'm being over harsh in analyzing this, or my feelings accurate with yours.  I personally love the internet and love the identities I make on it but I've never been one to misuse or become over-enveloped with any online profile of mine.

Is the Government Taking Control?

This blog describes Microsoft's views on a new online privacy bill proposed by John McCain and John Kerry.  Microsoft feels that this bill would be beneficial for United States and argues the positive aspects of the bill.  I, however feel that the more control government has, the worse of our nation is.  America has thrived for generations but as the United States has begun to sink in prosperity, the government has taken more control of the economy.  As government programs fail, their next step is to issue another program, that is in turn doomed to failure.  With the passing of this bill, online businesses will no longer be able to track consumers which allows them to accurately change their business.  Through online tracking, retailers adapt to changes in consumers.  The doing away of tracking will hurt our economy even further.  Of course the government retains all of its abilities to monitor individuals using their websites and extract their personal information to the fullest extent.  It makes me sick that the government solutions to everything is to in someway take more control, to make everything better.  Does anybody else feel this way or is it just me being paranoid?  I would love to hear how others feel about this issue.  I just wish that the government would let us handle ourselves.

Too much Government?

A recent article discusses the new measures Obama plans to take to, "create a trusted-identity system to boost consumer security in cyberspace".  Based on the feedback from this news, departments have said that this could potentially be very beneficial for the American private sector.  These measures would make it much more difficult for individuals to have their identities stolen.  The only drawback mentioned was that if the system becomes compromised, people could lose much more than their driver's license or credit card.  Rotenberg stated that it would be like, "losing your whole wallet".  I consider myself to be pretty neutral towards the input in which the government has in our online privacy.  With more information on this idea I think I would support a measure that could reduce the amount of identity theft.  How does anybody else feel about a measure such as this?  I feel like this will receive very mixed reactions throughout the private sector.  I personally would back the government obtaining our personal information in this way because I feel that they will have access to our personal information one way or another.  I would rather them obtain our personal data in a way that would be beneficial towards us.

How much Privacy do we have?

In this picture, the illustrator portrays that your emails are not safe from the government.  Uncle Sam is used to represent how the government has access to your personal computer files.  The illustrator uses ethos to appeal to the viewer in this picture.  He wants the viewer to feel that it is morally wrong for the government to have access to your private data.  I feel that the illustrator does a good job at representing his views in this picture.  The picture personally makes me feel that the government should not be allowed to do such a thing and that privacy is important enough to stand up for.  Does anybody else feel that it is wrong that the government can search though our private information or do people feel like it is justified?  Overall I feel that the illustrator gave a good example to express his views on this current topic in the world today.  This cartoon was draw in 1998, I wonder how the illustrator would feel about this topic in the current world which includes a higher risk of a terror attack.  The government/personal privacy relationship is a topic that can be viewed from completely different sides of the argument.  I wonder how this relationship will be in 13 more years.

Turmoil over Facebook Privacy

My senior year of high school I was a belle guard, which was an escort for the drill team.  I was always hanging out with the drill team girls which means I heard all of the latest gossip.  In Spring of my senior year, some of my friends got themselves into some deep trouble because their lack of Facebook privacy.  One of juniors on the drill team sent pictures of six senior members drinking alcohol to the principal.  The drill team has a strict no drinking policy and when the principal told the drill team director about the picture, trouble ensued.  The girls were called into the principals office five of the girls admitted that there was alcohol in their cup while the sixth denied it.  So surprisingly the five girls who owned up to their mistake were suspended from the drill team for six weeks, missing multiple performances and contests.  The sixth girl who denied drinking alcohol got away without any punishment.  The whole point of the story is that these girls did not have their Facebook page set to private.  Because of their lack of common sense, their perfect senior year went horribly wrong.  It blows my mind that such a simple error on their part ended up hurting them so much.  Internet privacy is a very serious matter and if people aren't careful they can mess up their lives.  I feel that it was unfair to the girls that owned up to their mistakes got the full punishment while the liar got away.  Does anybody else feel this way or have a different opinion about the situation?  This incident is what really opened my eyes to internet privacy.

The "Kill Switch"

The two blogs I examined are about the new government internet "Kill Switch" bill.  The blogs were written by Tony Bradley and MalwareCity.  The "Kill Switch" bill would allow the federal government to shut off all internet access to everyone in the county at a single time, which is claimed to be to raise our nation's cyber security.  Both blogs had the same topic but had much different views on it.  They were different in that Bradley got very political with his blog.  He tells of how it would be beneficial to have this bill and that President Obama has the right intentions with this.  He uses logos when he quotes USA Today about how this bill would be a major step in the right direction for national security.  His use of logos was quite effective for me personally.  His whole blog turns south for me when he decides to start making rants about conservative activists and the Bush administration.  I don't understand why he even brings the Bush administration up.  He loses his merit with me when he virtually tells of how the Bush administration has done more damage to the world than any other leader of any nation in the past few decades.  MalwareCity takes a fairly unbiased take on the bill.  He feels that the kill switch is not for infrastructure but for political control.  He doesn't give too much detail about his opinion but he does state that the basis for his political control theory is that Egypt has used similar tactics to control their uprising.  This really is a valid point, he makes good use of logos and the bill does coincide nicely with this event.  Between the two of them, they both make good points, but in very different ways.

Keep Private Matters to Yourself

Employers are increasingly using Facebook to do background checks on employees.  Using Facebook to express your views or party pictures can make someone end up not getting a job or getting fired.  As the article tells, that girl decided to post about how terrible her boss was, when she had added him on Facebook.  That not only shows immaturity but also shows a huge amount of ignorance.  What was the girl thinking?  How could that post have benefited her in any way?  This is a serious issue for college students that are soon to be trying to find jobs in a sinking economy.  If two applicants had the same criteria but one had numerous pictures on Facebook of them getting drunk, who do you think the employer would hire?  I myself have seen numerous times when people have posted completely stupid things online that only made things worse on those people.  People are becoming far too comfortable with the personal views and information on the internet.  Every day that passes, privacy on the internet is becoming more and more of a problem.  I personally don't see the need to post rants against individuals on Facebook, but hey I'm not everybody else.  I really wish I could go talk to that girl and just ask her, "What were you thinking?"