PACS 10 Lecture 4/29

CYBERSPACE AND CYBER SECURITY

General Overview
o Many advocates of social media argue that it is a powerful tool of political activism and
the basis for global civil society
Though this aspect is often over-blown
o Counterarguments: cyberspace as a problematic area of interaction is is at best a flawed
substitute for meaningful interpersonal communication
Staring at a screen =/= actually talking to someone
We become very attached to constant association/connection with technology
Internet!
o Original a military project: post-nuclear strategic communication
Catastrophic nuclear war => needs a way to communicate with phone lines gone
Weapons of mass distruction => distraction
o From military to academia
Useful to exchange scientific information for academics
o Strong disbelief that civilians would ever want to use it
Didnt seem useful to civillians, theyd want to talk to each other
o From academia to commerce
was illegal to sell things on it
then allowed commerce
turns out people really liked buying things on it
o now a very powerful part of social, academic, and almost every aspect of life
Freedom online
o Original archetects had one requirement: would facilitate peer to peer exchange that
could not be impeded by others
the democratic internet
o the free internet: peer-to-peer exchange of goods and services
o the free internet versus free on the internet
EX: putting music online
Some think government should regulate it, but this violate the original purpose
of the internet
Commercialization is swamping the internet in compensation
o First global virus was written in Filipines
Guy was upset that his girlfriend dumped him
Called the I love you virus
The internet gets ugly
o Hate speech
I would never say this online, unless I owned a basketball team
o Anonymity and altered identities altered this
No name, identity, etc
Cant get someones name w/o a sopena
Say things in cyberspace we dont say in person
This is seen in road rage
o Spam, malware, and viruses
Somebody was asking about you, click here to see who it is
Argument for additional government regulation
o Ads/pop ups
o Civil society cant regulate spam and pop-ups
Downloading
o Music and video
CAMPUS PAYS FOR IT, FIND THIS
o Copyright and intellectual property rights
o Is art a public good?
Those who create it have enough money already
o Legal test: would you do it in person
Cyber Law
o From the free internet to the regulated internet
o Jurisdiction issues
Someone from another country hacks your computer, whose laws regulate it
o Cloud computing
Everything in cyberspace has a physical presence
There is a fiberoptic cable connecting asia and the US in a mysterious building in
LA and other in Florida that no one knows were it is with no lights/windows that
is heavily carded with a giant cable that connecst asia to US
Cybersecurity
o Private versus public
Internet is become a more and more public state
o Cyberwarfare
o Cyberterror
Can easily hack into car computers and mess with things that are computer
assisted
o BOTNET: robotic neatwork
Stealth online threat
Get an email, just clicking on it can install it
Slows down computer, sends out more emails
Uses your processor and millions of others to flud another computer (EX: white
house)
o Used to be considered unethical to write viruses for Macs, theyre not immune
Hackers still have a moral code
Social Media
o Facilitating or simplifying social communication
But is this too much information to actually consume?
o Public sharing of private information
o Protecting identities
Theory: more were connected to cyberspace, more lonely and less connected we are to
Video: describing this by Shimi Cohen
Other problems
o The end of privacy
o Sunil Tripathi tragedy (april 2013)
Online speculation on Reddit falsely identified Sunil as one of the Boston
Marathon bombers
Facilitates vigilante justice
o Reputation and gossip
Much harder to regulate
Cant ever take it back
Cyberbullying
o Saying and doing online what would not be said or done in public
o Can do things in real time without thinking about actions
o Cyberspace continuous reality TV loop
o Cyberaction and real-world pressures
o Audrie Pott:
Committed suicide in September 2012 after photos of her being sexually
assaulted while unconscious were posted online
o Lives can be destroyed in a second because it isnt controlled as it is when distributed by
person
Facebook
o Zook thinks its slowly going the way of myspace, soon to be replaced by something else
o Most people think Mark Zuckerberg wants you to have friends
o IPO
Initial public offering
Public company
People who buy stocks want their investments to GROW
Facebook is now centered on this
o Facebook is a public corporation, and needs to make money
o Shareholders invest to make money
o Facebook must find ways to make money
o New Model: advertisers do not come to you, you come to them
Facebook collects data from you
o Facebook wants you to have a lot of friends
o No way to opt out
Facebook saves everything about you
o Fancy algorithms to detect your patterns and preferences are what makes facebook
profitable
Sell you IP address to advertisers
Example
o April 2013: a judge in Brazil orders facebook to delete the Facebook page of Juliana
Ribeiro Campos
o Juliana Ribeiro Campos passed away in May 2012
o Her mother asked Facebook to delete the page
o Facebook refused to do so
o Judge: this goes against human dignity
Edge Rank
o Rank = affinity *weight*decay = how much you use facebook
o Affinity: score between viewing users and the edge creator
o Weight = the weight for this edge type
o Decay = the decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created
Facebook (again)
o Online harvesting: facebook, twitter, LinkedIn
o Linking to other media through social media is trackable (Youtube)
o Facebook is free because you make money for facebook
o like us on facebook
When you do this, facebook will start sending ads to you and your friends for
that company
o Why apps are free
Companies collect data for it
New Trends
o EX: Naming your baby using online polls
o Logging off
Minimize online presence
About how much info you have online, and how much time you spend online,
not physical devices
o Multiple internets: paying for exclusion
o Cyberaddiction
o Cyberpeace