WikiLeaks 9/11

I am pretty sure many people have read or heard about this today.
Just want to share to people who have not realize this.

A brief summary of this is about 250000 highly confidential US diplomatic documents have been leaked out. I think this is related to our security topic.

http://wikileaks.org/

Another side of technology and society

I thought I'd share this article on biotechnology and society. It touches on a lot of issues that can be relevant to technology and society in general, and indeed there is a brief discussion of AI and computing towards the end of the article: http://www.matnat.uio.no/forskning/utdanning/forskerkurs/MNSES/host2009/midgley.pdf

Can you go to jail because of your tweets?

Few days ago, South and North Korea had a military confrontation. Amidst the flood of news articles on that subject, one article caught my eyes. It was saying that the South Korean police is arresting anyone who are spreading false rumors.

A few people were arrested because they either send cell phone text messages to random people or wrote on their social network services (such as Facebook wall or Twitter) false information such as Kim Jong-il is dead or North Korean army officially invaded the South.

There have been some people saying because of the wide reach of technology and especially wide reach of the social networking services it has become so easy for rumors to spread out. There was a study saying that most people spread the rumor over Facebook or Twitter without even checking whether the rumor is true or not.

So, here's my question. If I get arrested based on what I post on my Facebook wall, is that a violation of my freedom of speech? Also, am I responsible to check everything I post is true? Are my posts weigh as important as official news articles from professional journalists (like those work for CBC or CNN)?

PS Here's a Washington Post's article on a similar topic: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/23/AR2010112302121.html?wpisrc=nl_tech

PS Here's a Telegraph's article on a similar topic as well: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8143878/Chinese-woman-sentenced-to-hard-labour-after-satirical-Twitter-comment.html

Judge Bars ‘Fair Use’ Defense in Xbox Modding Trial

Just came across this earlier... found it very interesting as we specifically discussed what is and isn't fair use in class, and I was under the assumption that this WOULD be fair use. However, the judge apparently doesn't think so. Maybe the definition needs to be revamped in this new era?

Thoughts?

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/crippen/

E-mail Privacy

Interesting story for those who follow hockey. Colin Campbell, the current senior vice president and director of hockey operations is being questioned for several emails he sent discussing calls made by referees. The biggest controversy centering around Campbell is his unhappiness about a high-sticking penalty assessed to his son.

http://www.mc79hockey.com/

Campbell has the power to suspend players so there are obvious "conflict of interest" concerns if his son is a player in the league. Tyler Dellow writes the blog and works as a lawyer in Toronto. He says "the morals of this little tale? There are many. Never put anything into an email that you wouldn’t be fine with seeing in print on the front page of a national newspaper."

Should e-mails be considered private conversations? Do we have to watch what we write in our emails? Apparently a lawyer thinks we should be careful!

Pin-less debit card

http://news.sympatico.ca/oped/coffee-talk/pin-less_debit_cards_coming_to_banks/5b7eb7aa

so starting from next summer, we maybe able to see this in Canada.
The basic idea of this card is to flash it above a detecting device and your items would be paid.

Personally, I think this idea is similar to those smart card idea. For example, in HK, we have the Octopus Card ( for more information go here: http://www.octopus.com.hk/home/en/index.html ) for many years already. Hence, I think Canada is a bit slow in using these technology.

Also, I kind of agree with the man in the news video that why they don't integrate this service into mobile devices? I am not 100% sure but I heard from my friends from Japan that they can do these similar transactions using their mobile devices. Maybe Joseph could show us some of these technology from Japan?

What do you guys think about this "new" pin-less debit card? Do you think it would be useful or effective at all?

Old news but not everyone knows about it

So back in October, the government passed a proposal by Bell to allow, on-top of monthly charges, charge by usage after the given bandwidth is met. So it practically works like our cellular phone services, you're charged overages.
Bell is one of the major ISPs over at the east coast and some people say that the government is trying to not let outside companies to try and compete (and improve) our internet infrastructure, bringing down competition.

http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/2010/2010-802.htm

long read, tldr; for me.

But because of this, somewhere closer to us, Shaw has implemented a trial system of overage usage charges over at Edmonton.

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Shaw-Confirms-Plans-To-Charge-Per-Gig-Overages-11113

They are potentially bringing it to all the provinces they service.

What does that means to a lot of us? We're for sure gonna hit the cap and they're gonna milk money off consumers. They are overcharging at around $2 a gig, now by my experience of renting servers at data centers, I can buy like an extra block of 1TB of premium bandwidth for probably less than 20 bucks a month, I pay for a shared 100mbit unmetered hub at 35bucks with a server per month thats in Germany. The theoretical cap is about 4000GB/4TB which works out to be around 115Gigs per buck at a data center. Although its different because shaw has to send the service to you and do the infrastructure, the difference is HUGE.

With new streaming services to Canada like Netflix, we are also going to have a higher usage because of streaming HD content. So the upfront cost of Netflix is 8bucks or so, but by using it, we're also using up our bandwidth, which besides from the monthly cost, now has the overage usage cost, so we'll need to factor in the cost per movie we're streaming in the total cost of Netflix. I would probably be better off renting at Rogers than wasting my bandwidth streaming. It is also not a fair trade if you think about it. You are streaming thus you are not recording (well you can but lets say you cant). The amount of bandwidth used is not equal to the amount of data you get to store on your hard drive. In a sense it becomes a waste of bandwidth because you cant use that same portion of bandwidth again from playback because it is streamed.

Digital distribution platforms, getting more and more popular these days. Now I buy a lot of games off Steam and always delete/reinstall because of limited hard drive space. With the change, I will think twice as each game can cost me around 6 gigs of bandwidth (Black ops was 6 gigs). So besides the fact of the delete/reinstall cycle, the initial download will cost bandwidth, I will probably not bother buying anymore games online because It'll cost me another 10 bucks or so to download it. I personally do not see the future of digital distribution and DLC with implementation of these charges. Hell I'll stop my PS3 from auto-updating stuff as well. This may discourage mp3 buying sites like itunes, I'm not paying 99cents anymore, I'm paying a dollar and some cents plus tax. iTunes rental? nope not doing it 2.99 + atleast another 4 bucks for HD.

So all this may somehow tie into Net Neutrality in some ways. A question to ask is if I am getting charged per Gigabyte, is there a reason to prioritize say emails, because I am paying to use that bandwidth. Should ISPs still packet shape your transfers even though you are paying per gigabyte to use it?

so the tl:dr of all this is that the government is pretty backwards I guess.

International IT Security Issues: Operation Aurora and Stuxnet

Operation Aurora is the name given to a series of security compromises which affected GMail and other online services. It was widely portrayed in the popular press as an incident of international cyber-espionage, with Chinese government operatives against (mostly American) global IT firms.

Stuxnet is the name of a Windows worm. Again, the popular press portrayed it as likely to be the product of Israeli efforts to sabotage Iran's nuclear industry.

With your knowledge of computer systems and security of networked systems, do you believe these stories? Are the claims justified? Is this a kind of modern-day warfare? Have your say in the comments.

a very good animation by banksy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1iplQQJTo

Body Scanners Revealed

 As mentioned in class and in the textbook, body scanners are being used more and more in international airports.  In order to increase privacy, the body scanners were supposed to be made "non-recordable" - the scanned images were not supposed to be recorded on the scanner.  However, it looks like that didn't quite work out...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40218074/?gt1=43001

Video on new Facebook Messaging

http://blogs.forbes.com/oliverchiang/2010/11/16/whats-facebook-messages-facebook-made-a-video-to-explain/

All users to get an @facebook.com email.

One feature that stuck out: FB promises to converge all SMS, emails and such in threaded conversations. They claim that privacy is not compromised.

Robots with ethics

Computers "learning" ethical theories? Meet Nao!

Interesting article describing the combination of artificial intelligence and ethical theories.

http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/7/20101110201011100201534441d7f3e64/Robots-with-ethics.html

Actors unhappy with Canada's Bill C-32

There is a lot of debate over Canada's Bill C-32 which deals with copy right issues.

Actors believe the bill provides too much leeway for consumers. They are pushing for a levy to be added to hard drives and mp3 players in Canada. They are also against providing teachers with greater exemption with copy righted material used for education.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/101116/entertainment/actra_content

A really interesting article from the New Yorker

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/01/101101fa_fact_hersh

Obama administration to target Internet privacy

After all this time, a certain degree of government regulated privacy may be in order...

Obama’s administration, in a break from previous governments that relied on the Internet industry’s self-regulation, will take a more hands-on approach to online privacy, an issue that has embroiled Internet giants Google and Facebook in recent months.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Obama+administration+target+Internet+privacy+report/3818787/story.html#ixzz15DjvKNXe

It's not "hypertext" as we know it...

Related to several topics from the censorship / online speech / internet addiction unit...

Sex, drugs more common in hyper-texting teens

By MIKE STOBBE, AP Medical Writer – Tue Nov 9, 4:09 am ET

ATLANTA – Teens who text 120 times a day or more — and there seems to be a lot of them — are more likely to have had sex or used alcohol and drugs than kids who don't send as many messages, according to provocative new research.

The study's authors aren't suggesting that "hyper-texting" leads to sex, drinking or drugs, but say it's startling to see an apparent link between excessive messaging and that kind of risky behavior.

...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101109/ap_on_he_me/us_med_teens_texting

-----------------

I get the feeling a lot of people aren't going to notice the difference between correlation and causation...

Wednesday, November 24, 2010 is NATIONAL OPT-OUT DAY!

An activist opposed to the new airport body scanners is encouraging passengers to opt-out when security asks them to go through one of the machines on November 24 (America's Thanksgiving Day).

News source: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/national-opt-out/

"...the government has done little to ensure that images taken by the devices are not saved. The TSA has asserted that the machines cannot store pictures, but security personnel at a courthouse in Florida were found to not only have saved images but shared them among colleagues in order to humiliate one of their co-workers."

More information National Opt-Out Day: http://www.optoutday.com/ As stated on the site, the goal of National Opt Out Day is to "send a message to our lawmakers that we demand change.  We have a right to privacy and buying a plane ticket should not mean that we're guilty until proven innocent.  This day is needed because many people do not understand what they consent to when choosing to fly."

Facebook for the "privacy paranoid"

Facebook has created another option for users who want to maintain more privacy: the super-logoff. It works the same way as deactivating your account, so no one can post on your wall, tag you in photos, or see your profile while you are super-loggedoff. The article itself is pretty interesting.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/12/facebook.superlogoff/index.html?eref=mrss_igoogle_cnn

Sask. man fights for Internet privacy after child porn conviction

This article kind of relates back to the privacy unit. Basically this guy was caught sharing child pornography on Limewire and claims that this activity should have been private and he therefore shouldn't have been convicted, even though he was openly sharing the files with other users. This case could also set a legal precedent for government associated ISPs to be able to give out people's contact information to law-enforcement agencies, a precedent that could potentially have implications far beyond child pornography convictions; for example, people illegally sharing files through Limewire and other similar programs might be affected.

Sask. man fights for Internet privacy after child porn conviction

Supreme Court Denies to Hear PATRIOT Act Challenge

Brandon Mayfield, wrongly accused as part of the Madrid bombings through matching of a partial fingerprint, has, "...lost his bid to have part of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act declared unconstitutional." See the full story here:

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/1101/Supreme-Court-declines-to-hear-wrongly-accused-man-s-Patriot-Act-challenge

Students' free speech rights on the move in the US

Normally, I try to keep blog posts very closely related to the theme of computers and society, but here's an article that underscores our discussion of the changing rules and norms of rules about free speech.

Texas cheerleader suing - didn't root for attacker

San Francisco Chronicle, November 5, 2010

Coles Notes (that's Cliff's Notes for us Americans): a court in the U.S. has declared groundless a high school student's objection to being forced to cheer for a player who assaulted her. The article includes an informative discussion and links about the steady shift in the U.S. judiciary's interpretation of free speech rights -- from favouring students' rights, to favouring institutions such as schools.

I was on the newspaper crew in high school (and thus one of the first non-university/military users of the Internet...) My teachers told me to take seriously the lessons on free speech, libel and attribution -- because the speech of students was constitutionally protected, and we had the power to enact real social change through our speech. I wonder if students today feel the same sense of empowerment and responsibility.

Anyway, in CPSC 430 we studied examples of how restrictions on electronic communications get determined by a host of factors: ethical arguments, social contract theory, Mill's Principle of Harm, and, perhaps more than we realize, cultural relativism. We saw that China's restrictions on speech on the Internet are motivated by factors that aren't so different from those that shape the laws in the U.S. and Canada -- CIPA, the Patriot Act, and PIPEDA are as much a product of the public concern of the moment, and nationalistic interests, as they are descended from universal moral laws of the kind Kant envisioned.

As UBC grads, you will be leaders and people will look to you for insight on technology. When it's your turn to decide what society should make of an emerging technology that we never imagined a few years prior, I hope you will remember CPSC 430 and take a broad view of the issues that determine society's complex relationship with information technology.

Meizu dead? Fake IPhone gone? No~no~

Here is the newest Hiphone 4GS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJL1Az16DEo

Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Features:
• GSM Compatibility: Frequencies 850MHZ, 900MHZ, 1800MHZ, 1900MHZ
• Language: English, Spanish, French, Polish, Portuguese, Italian, German, Bahasa Melayu, Bahasa Indonesia, Czech, Dutch, Vietnamese, Russian, Bulgarian, Thai, Greek.
• Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Screen: 3.3 inch, QVGA high vivid touch screen, 240*320 pixels
• Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS SIM Card Slots: 2 Card Slots
• Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS SIM Card Modes: Dual SIM open, Only SIM1 open, Only SIM2 open, Flight Mode
• Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Security Settings: Phone lock, Auto Keypad lock, Change password
• Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Camera: Dual camera. 2.0M pixel on the rear and self-capture camera on the front panel. Supports video-shoot, the duration depends on storage.
• Audio Player: Built-in
• Ring tone: supports MP3 audio record as ring tone
• User Profiles: General, Meeting, Outdoor, Indoor, Headset, Bluetooth
• Memory: Internal 89MB memory. TF Card Support （Up to 4GB in size）
• Vibration: Support
• Hiphone 4 GPRS Support: Browse WAP Website
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, Chat
• Games: Built-in Funny Games
• E-Book Reader: TXT
• JAVA Support: JAVA 2.0
• Bluetooth Support: Bluetooth 2.0
• Power Source: Standard Li-ion Battery
• Analog TV: YES
• Virtual keypad: Support
• Audio Output: Mini USB Port
• Shape: Bar Phone
• Hiphone 4 Dimensions:113 mm*59mm*13mm

Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Specification:
• Multimedia:
- Camera, Image Viewer, Video Player, FM Radio, Sound recorder.
- Audio Player, Video recorder, E-book Reader, Analog TV
• File formats:
- Music: MP3, AMR, MID, WAV
- Image: BMP, GIF, JPG, BNG
- Video: 3GP, MP4
- E-Book: TXT
• TV Function:
- Type: Analog
- Options: Channel List, Manual input, My Channel, Channel Search, Search Area
- TV Record Format: 3GP
• Digital Still Camera:
- Image Quality: High, Normal, Low
- Camera Settings: Shuttle Sound, Delay Timer, Continuous Shot
- Other Options: White Balance, Scene Mode, Effect Settings, Set Frame
- EV: 4 steps (+2 to -2)
- Banding: 50Hz / 60Hz
• Video recorder:
- Video Record Format: 3GP
- Video Quality: Normal, Low, High
- Video Settings: Effects, White Balance, LED Highlight
- EV: 4 steps (+2 to -2)
- Banding: 50Hz / 60Hz
• Sound recorder setting:
- Storage: Phone, Memory Card
- File Format: AMR, WAV, AWB
- Sound quality: Low, High
• Audio Player:
- Formats: MP3, AMR, MID, WAV
- Options: Refresh list, Settings.
- Settings: Player Settings, Sound effects, Bluetooth Settings.
• FM Radio:
- Radio FM Tuner Frequency: 87.5MHz to 108MHz
- Background Play: ON, OFF
- Loudspeakers: ON, OFF
- Record Function: Yes
• Bluetooth:
- Type: MTK BT DEVICE
- Supported Service Profiles: Handsfree, Headset, SPP, DUN, OPP, FTP, A2DP, AVRCP, HID, BIP, SyncML service.
- Options: Power, Inquiry Audio Device, Remote Control, My Device, Active Devices, Settings
• Battery Life:
- Talk Time: Up to 3 hours
- Music Play: Up to 7 hours
- Stand By: Up to 120 hours
• Personal Organizer:
- Calendar, Tasks, World Clock, Synchronization, Phone sync.

Hiphone 4 Hiphone 4GS Package Content:
• 1 x F080 Mobile Phone
• 2 x Standard Li-ion Battery
• 1 x Travel Charger
• 1 x USB Cable
• 1 x User’s Manual (English)
• 1 x wired earphones with MIC and clip

Facebook Firing

Two Pitt Meadows car-detailing workers were fired for posting nasty comments and threats against their bosses on face book. According to the article this is the first clear case of a firing related to facebook postings.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/03112010/73/bc-first-clear-facebook-firing-canada-occurs-pitt-meadows.html

Recommended Reading for Tuesday: "The Image Microsoft Doesn't Want You To See"

From The Daily Mail (UK):

The image Microsoft doesn't want you to see: Too tired to stay awake, the Chinese workers earning just 34p an hour

By LIZ HULL and LEE SORRELL

Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.

Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks.

For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1266643/Microsofts-Chinese-workforce-tired-stay-awake.html#ixzz14OF3fIbg

Who's suing who? [Visualized]

For all the legal battles and patent infringements we hear about in class that keep popping up between Apple and Nokia, Nokia and Apple, HTC and Apple, etc. It can get overwhelming trying to keep up with everything.

Here's an easier way:

http://infobeautiful2.s3.amazonaws.com/whos_suing_whom.png

Google for a Big Brother award in 2003

I find this article very interesting/entertaining about Google. Somehow it reminds me of the book 1984 by Orwell.

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html

closing Digital Divide

While reading on topics about digital divide, I can't help but start searching statistics on Internet access again (the book uses world region in its discussion on global divide, where the statistic comes from International Communication Union. However, my understanding about the region *Asia* is that there are huge gaps within Asia itself, so there must be a lot of outliers in Asia...).

In terms of closing digital divide, I think South Korea can provide the most successful story. First of all, S. Korea has the fastest Internet connections with more than 94% of people having high-speed connections. There is an article talks about "Why Internet connections are fastest in South Korea." The article explains why S. Korea has the fastest Internet connections, and mentions several factors: the broadband industry is competitive in S. Korea, its culture places high value on education, it uses open networks and infrustractures to lower the entry barriers for small companies, it has more dense population, and most importantly, a strong government policy to promote the Internet.

Korean government not only created a special agency (Agency for Digital pportunity & Promotion) to promote the Internet usages, but also put a lot of efforts into education. There is another article that discusses how it deals with digital divide: Korea Bridges Digital Divide

I guess S. Korea has proven that as long as the government has a well-planned policy to battle the problem, the first 2 critiques Mark Warschauer made would no longer be issues?

Gaming can make a better world

Quite an interesting talking on how gaming will make our world a better place because it aspires people to collaborate and do good.

Check it out here:
http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html

Facebook knows when you'll break up...

More than meets the eye... visual analytics allows more to be pulled from the reams of data than ever before:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/social.media/11/02/facebook.breakups/index.html?hpt=T2

This raises some interesting questions regarding privacy: At what point do we draw the line as to what is public access? Is using special tools to derive more information from one's behaviours on a social networking site (for example) still respecting one's privacy?

Another interesting question: how far does your assumption of privacy extend? Consider the following: I think we're all in agreement that if you submit something to a web site, be it a submitted data field, or toggling a setting in one's user settings, for example, it constitutes a revelation of sorts and the assumption follows that at least someone may see what we've done. But what about general navigation? If you, say, hover over a button, but don't click it (think "onMouseOver")... do you expect anyone to be tracking your mouse movements? Would it bother you if they were? What if they took the general pattern of how you use your mouse on a web site to suggestion "helpful" modifications to the layout of Facebook for you? What if the software tracking your status updates on Facebook was used as part of a larger app that users could install to warn them of impending breakups from their beloveds?

Collecting vast quantities of data and using programs, such as those being created by the visual analytics folks, mean that it is possible to extract more information about you (that perhaps you didn't even know about yourself) than ever before. Who owns that information? Better yet, who has the right to extract it? In this web-centric world it's entirely too naive to simply say, "Oh, well it's Facebook's site, therefore Facebook.". Clearly we need some sort of code of conduct, or at least to have thought about it.

Just a quick brain dump....

(If you didn't get a chance to see this TED talk on visual analytics, it's available online.)

CPSC 490: CS Education (next term)

Hi all,

As I mentioned in class last time, next term I'm running a student directed seminar next term on CS education -- if you're finding an interest in what the public can and should know about CS, this is one of many issues we'll be talking about in the course! http://www.ugrad.cs.ubc.ca/~cs490/

Cheers,
Elizabeth
CPSC 490 coordinator

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/11/pl_print_harris/

check out this article...An interview with an atheist (maybe more appropriately a scientist) who discusses scientifically determining whether something is good or bad.

Humans Could Solve Digital Divide by Becoming the Network

Currently, research is being conducted at Queen's University of Belfast (QUB) to improve mobile internet by using humans as network nodes. The body to body network would boost coverage by sending information between themselves before reaching a base station. This would also mean that at large events, where coverage is currently decimated due to so many devices trying to connect to the network, it would actually be augmented. I found this approach to be pretty fascinating for our next generation of smart phones.

The following is an example of a body to body network:


The image states that data is streamed via "smart devices" using body to body networking

Friends at the bar are able to watch impromptu performance in real-time without depending on mobile phone network.




More on the article...

http://thefrontline.v3.co.uk/2010/11/humans-could-so.html

"Firesheep allows easy hacking over open WiFi"

I was reading the Metro Vancouver newspaper this morning when I saw this article headline:
"Firesheep allows easy hacking over open WiFi."
Basically, a software developer has created a program called firesheep which uses unsecured wireless networks to hack into other users' Facebook and Twitter accounts. He also put the program on the internet for public download. The developer says he created the program in order to educate people about the dangers of using unsecured wireless networks. I'm not sure how ethical this was of him though. It seems dangerous to make a program like this available for public download.

Here is the link to the online article:
http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver/life/article/675035--firesheep-allows-easy-hacking-over-open-wifi