The internet - never leave your house...EVER!

As the internet is constantly evolving, more and more things are able to be done over the internet. You can shop, listen to music, download movies, or watch TV shows. As of recent, you can also take online courses, work via telecommuting, and even buy your groceries online (and have them delivered.) I’m convinced that you can do any daily activity via the internet that would typically require most people to leave the house.

What are some things that we all do daily that require us to go out in the real world? UB offers online courses where the lectures (and sometimes even the exams) are all online. While the popularity of this hasn’t yet gone through the roof, it is definitely possible that in the near future you could get your entire degree through online classes. You can also do banking online. Paying your bills and transferring funds between accounts can all be done at home in your pajamas. People can now telecommute or work from home. Instead of sitting in a cubicle in an office, you can sit on your couch and do your work while watching cartoons then upload your data to the office. You can buy just about anything online, including groceries in some areas. Clothing, furniture, electronics, household supplies, and almost anything else imaginable can be purchased online and shipped to your door. Safeway and some other grocery stores offer online shopping and delivery. Socializing can be done online as well via Myspace and Facebook. You can look for your potential husband or wife on match.com or eHarmony. Instant messaging and email are also other ways to communicate with your friends online. Netflix mails you movies and now they also let you stream movies on your computer so you never have to drive to Blockbuster or Hollywood video. There was also the video shown in class about the elderly man getting a consultation from a doctor over the internet.

While some of these things aren’t as popular as others, it is possible to live most of your life from behind a computer over the internet. As these online options continue to grow and develop, I’m sure that there are even more things that will be available online. And while there are things that we may never be able to do on a computer, it is entirely possible that we can eliminate the need to leave the house if we choose.

Groceries online

Online shopping

Telecommuting

Net Neutrality: not a neutral issue

The issue of Network Neutrality is heating up more and more each day. There is an ongoing battle between internet service providers (ISP’s) and websites like Google and Yahoo! as to whether or not Net Neutrality laws should be passed. What is it? ‘’Net Neutrality prevents the companies that control the wires bringing you the Internet from discriminating against content based on its ownership or source.’’ What does this mean? It means that without Net Neutrality, your ISP could speed up or slow down your internet connection, or even block you from using some internet services or features. They could also charge you more money based on your internet usage.

So what is the debate exactly? ISP’s want to charge or tax big websites like Google in order to deliver content quickly to us. ISP’s want to speed up their own content (think Time Warner/AOL’s homepage) and they want to slow down their competitors. Some say they that ISP’s would even go as far as to block out websites that are on the opposite ends of their political agendas. Google, eBay, Amazon.com and many others feel that this is absurd, and everyone should have equal access to websites and features on the internet.

So what is at stake and who will this affect? In addition to affecting websites like Google and Yahoo! to name a few, it would also affect us, the consumer. Imagine you are trying to access the website for an anti-abortion campaign, but the webpage mysteriously fails to load. What if you’re trying to watch streaming videos on Youtube, but they take forever to load. What if it took you 5 days to download a movie from BitTorrent, if you were even allowed to download it at all. You may no longer be able to get your news from MSN.com because its political affiliations aren’t the same as your ISP. All of these are possible outcomes if Net Neutrality is overlooked. Additionally, if we can’t view the content above, or use the services like BitTorrent, these companies and many more could be put out of business.

If you haven’t figured it out already, I am for Net Neutrality. After reading the assigned material and a few other sources, it is fairly easy to see that ISP’s are simply trying to make more money as well as advance their own interests. Time Warner has its own internet phone service, why would they want us to use Vonage? Comcast has its own internet homepage, why would they want us to look at Yahoo! or MSN.com? ISP’s are well aware that many people use websites like eBay and Amazon.com so it makes sense that they would try to coax these websites into paying the ISP’s to deliver their content more quickly than others. I don’t like the idea that someone else could potentially pick and choose which information can be delivered to me. It takes away the principle that the internet was founded on and everyone should have equal and complete access to it.

Net Neutrality is a very serious issue and is already starting to affect consumers just like us. Comcast has already started to block file sharing by cancelling uploads of complete files. If the person who is sending you a music file is suddenly cut off, you can’t download it, can you? An ISP in North Carolina has already been fined for blocking its users from using Vonage because it is a competitor. These are just a few examples of what’s already beginning to take place and it will only continue to get worse unless Net Neutrality laws are put into place.

Net Neutrality Debate Remains Contentious

Network Neutrality on Wiki

A Battle for Control of the Web

Save the Internet

Second Life can be your second life

Once upon a time, actually last winter or so, I had a Second Life account. Aside from the tutorial, I probably had well over 100 hours invested in this virtual world. In this amount of time I was able to experience most of what the game had to offer, and I was able to see that Second Life really can be a second life.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Second Life, an in depth description would take pages. Basically it is an online game where you make a character to represent yourself (or whoever you’d like to be) and you essentially make a second life for yourself. You can build a house, buy a car, or get a job. You can meet people, make friends, and interact with them in similar ways that you interact with your own friends. Other ‘’players’’ in the game can create shops where they sell clothes, they can make casinos with slot machines and blackjack tables, they can build shopping malls, and they can host parties and raves. You can interact with all these things in the game. You can shop at the mall and purchase clothing items, you can use your money to gamble in the casinos, and you can actually make your character dance at a rave (the music is generally provided by DJ’s which are real people DJ’ing music through their computer live.)

Just like in the real world, you need money in Second Life if you want to better the life of your character. There are only 2 ways to earn money in the game. You can either pay a fee (in real money of course) which will get you a plot of land in the game to build things on, and it will also give you in game money to use on whatever you’d like. At any time you can also purchase additional game currency using real money. The second way is to get a job, just like in real life. You can work at someone’s shop, you could DJ a party, and you can do any number of real life jobs. Most jobs will pay you by the half hour or full hour that you work, and just like in real life, you typically have set hours to work on certain days of the week.

Houses, buildings, shops, cars, etc. are built mostly using code. Like creating a video game or computer software, players in the game write the code for a slot machine or they write the code for an airplane. The creator of the item can then set the code to be open source so people can edit it, or lock it to sort of copyright it and protect it. The creator can sell his or her items to other players in stores, or just through player to player interaction. Someone I had met in the game was good at creating clothing items, so she (or it could have been a he, I’ll never know) would make shirts and pants for my character to wear and would give them to me free of charge.

While it may not sound fun to play a video game and have to get a job in it, it’s actually really fun. It isn’t really working if you think about it, and you are constantly interacting and talking to new people. There is no way to beat the game, there aren’t any objectives. All you really need to do is live a second life, any way you wish.

Assignment 7: Community

Within the virtual world, there are many groups that interact with each other on a daily basis. These groups are called online communities. Taken from Wikipedia, “A virtual community is a social network with a common interest, idea, task or goal that interact in a virtual society across time, geographical and organizational boundaries and is able to develop personal relationships.’’ That being said, there are many examples of virtual communities such as message boards, email lists, chat rooms, blogs, and online games. An online community I am familiar with is an internet game called Hobowars.
Hobowars is a text based internet game (text based meaning there aren’t many graphics and most of the game is just written text, think of Sudoku as an example.) Without spending too much time describing what the game is, it’s pretty self explanatory based on the name. You have a character, which is a hobo, and you fight other hobos who are real people elsewhere in the world. In this game there are many gangs or clans. Individuals in a gang can fight other individuals, and gangs can fight other gangs.
To communicate to people in the game, there are message boards for everyone in the game to use, and there are ones that are specific to each gang. For a gang to succeed, the characters frequently need to work together, so communicating via the message board, or through private messages is necessary. It is through this that players form relationships and bonds with each other.
Because the method of communicating is more direct than a listserv for example, it is much easier to form relationships with people. I’ve been playing this game for over a year now and because a majority of the players in my gang have been there as long as I have, you really get a chance to get to know people.
In contrast to offline communities, such as hanging out with my friends, the relationships I have with other game players are polar opposites. In the game I only communicate on the message boards and private messages, and I only communicate with other players while I’m playing in the game. There is no face to face or personal contact. Offline, you obviously get to see your friends and talk to them face to face, or even on the phone. You can go out and grab a bite to eat, go drinking, or go to the mall. Because of these differences, the bonds you form in a vitual community could never be as strong as the bonds you have with people in real life. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t make friends in a virtual community, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you can’t form connections or create bonds with people on the other side of the world. I realize I will never actually meet them and I don’t plan to because I’m not sure we would have much to talk about outside of the game. I also realize that maybe they’ve even made up a fake identity for the game and I don’t really know them at all. But the game is fun, and that is partly because of the people who are in it regardless of who they are. I’m ok with that.

Hobowars description by GameOgre.com

Virtual community

MMORPG

com125: assignment 6 - online identity

In order to do just about anything on the internet, you’re required to have some sort of online identity. Varying from email, web forums, online games and many other types of online communities, your online identity lets other people know who you are. Generally we accept most people in online communities for who they say they are, there are certainly times when people can and do create false identities for varying reasons.
An online identity which I own is my online ‘’name,’’ soopa7fly. I use this name for most things I am active with on the internet. I use it in online multiplayer games, web forums, and instant messaging screen names. Of those three, the place where I most frequently use this identity is web forums.
There are two web forums that I frequent the most. www.offtopic.com and also www.nyspeed.com/forums/ I have described offtopic.com in a previous blog, but it is essentially a worldwide web forum of varying topics. Nyspeed.com is a local Western NY web forum devoted to cars and trucks which includes modifying them, as well as racing or off-roading. In addition, there is a part of the forum for general conversation, and an area to set up meetings with members just to hang out.
Establishing a reputation with my identity was different for each forum. With the local forum it was very easy because you have many opportunities to meet the other members in person, so their impressions of you in real life carry over to your online identity. That way, when you make a thread or a post in someone else’s thread, you are recognized by people you know, thus showing you have credibility. With the other forum it is much more difficult. Because there are so many total members, and so few that could be in your particular physical area, you will not likely ever have the ability to earn online credentials through meeting people in person. Even if there were some members locally, the forum is so large that you may never even see any of their posts. You have to earn credibility solely through your posts and how other members view them.
On offtopic, I feel as though I have a reputation for being funny yet also serious. Meaning, if a member is looking for serious advice, I am more than happy to reply with a serious answer even if other members do not (which is fairly frequent.) Often times the forum has many threads with jokes or non-serious topics. Because I know I typically have a lot of funny one-liners I try to reply in those topics as well. Because of this sort of balance, I feel like people accept and listen to what I have to say when I’m being serious, and they enjoy my humor when I’m joking around.
As far as identity theft, I’m not a major player on either of these forums so I don’t know why anyone would want to try and be me. However, it could always be a possibility. I don’t think it would work on a local forum only because most of us are familiar with each other and the way we interact and post. On offtopic it would probably be as easy as creating a similar screen name, maybe even only adding a space to the name or an insignificant character. Also, as previously mentioned, it would likely be very easy to impersonate someone because of the sheer number of members. Because most of the members have probably never even heard of me, or seen my posts, it would be very easy to assume my identity.
Having a reputable online identity is very rewarding. While it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things what most people think of you (especially those you’ll never meet,) it is nice to know that people respect what you say and take you seriously.

com125 assignment 4: online economies - offtopic.com

A gift economy is when help and information are offered to others without any expectation of any help in return. Not only do these exist in real life, but also on the internet. Richard Brooks states, ‘’Most internet users collaborate with each other without the direct mediation of money or politics. Unconcerned about copyright, they give and receive information without thought of payment.’’ There are hundreds if not thousands of gift economies all over the internet. One of the most well known gift economies is Linux. One that may not be as well known is the web forum Off Topic, or OT. I participate in this online economy on a daily basis.
OT is a large, worldwide web forum which has over a dozen different message boards relating to different topics. There is an off topic forum (obviously) as well as a car forum, truck forum, for sale forum, relationship help forum, a forum to help people with various addictions, and also a religion forum, to name a few. While registration is only open for 4 months out of the year, it is free to anyone who is interested in joining. Currently, there are over 170,000 active members, and last week there were almost 85 million new posts!! That ranks OT as 6th in the world for most posts in a week, where it is consistently ranked.
So what makes OT an online gift community? Taken from Peter Kollock’s article ‘’The Economies of Online Cooperation: Gifts and Public Goods in Cyberspace,’’ Rheingold (1993) has described interaction in one online community (the WELL) as consisting of a gift economy, in which help and information is offered without the expectation of any direct, immediate quid-pro-quo. Even in more anonymous settings, such as Usenet discussion groups, there is a surprising amount of free help and information given out, often to complete strangers whom one may never meet again.
Using that as a basis for analysis, OT is a gift economy because of the constant threads made asking for help with various topics. Some examples taken from current topics on the forum are, ‘’what should I mix Grey Goose with?’’ and ‘’just caught my g/f cheating on me, need advice.’’ While a majority of threads can contain rude, offensive and unhelpful answers, there are also an equal number of helpful answers. The people that can post these helpful answers are often complete strangers, people you will not likely ever meet in your lifetime. These people also never expect direct compensation for their help. They aren’t charging a fee, or expect a particular user to help them with a problem in the future. A professional PC consultant could charge you hundreds of dollars to fix your computer, yet if you make a thread on OT about what is wrong, you will likely get several people attempting to help you, free of charge.
An example of a thread which I helped in was when a member was considering moving to Buffalo for a job. He was looking for information about the city, what people thought about it, and what types of things there were to do around town. Being that there are several members from Buffalo, we were able to provide all the information he was looking for. I don’t know who the guy is, nor will I ever. I also don’t know the other members from Buffalo yet we all offered our opinions. Another time I made a thread asking for advice on building a computer. Within less than a day there was all of the advice and information I needed to buy the right parts and get my computer built. I have no idea who any of the other members were that helped, and I’m sure they don’t know me either.
As mentioned previously, not all of the information people provide is helpful. However, more often than not someone can get enough information or advice to guide them through their situation, free of charge or without a direct expectation to reciprocate. This is why OT is a great example of an online gift economy.

Sources:
The Hi-Tech Gift Economy by Richard Barbrook

The Economies of Online Cooperation by Peter Kollock

Forum rankings

Offtopic.com statistics

Interview with OT's founder and owner, Fazle

Com125 Assignment 3: What you don't know about copyright infringement

People know about copyright infringement when it comes to illegally downloading music. It’s been all over TV, radio, and obviously the internet. What most people don’t know about is copyright infringement related to websites and their content. What are the processes related to removing and restoring the content and what gives people or companies the authority to do it? Also, who is favored in these processes?
In 1998, a federal law was passed that grants online and internet service providers the authority to remove internet content if it allegedly infringes a copyright. This law also gives these providers safety from being prosecuted by the person who has the copyright, and the person infringing upon it. The law is the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act or OCILLA, which is a part of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act or DMCA.
The two parts of the law that are most commonly encountered are the take down and put back provisions. How do they work? Check out the example provided by this site:

Takedown example

Here's an example of how the takedown procedures would work:
1. Alice puts a copy of Bob's song on her AOL-hosted website.
2. Bob, searching the Internet, finds Alice's copy.
3. Charlie, Bob's lawyer, sends a letter to AOL's designated agent (registered with the Copyright Office) including:
1. contact information
2. the name of the song that was copied
3.the address of the copied song
4. a statement that he has a good faith belief that the material is not legal
5. a statement that, under penalty of perjury, Charlie is authorized to act for the copyright holder
6. his signature
4. AOL takes the song down.
5. AOL tells Alice that they have taken the song down.
6. Alice now has the option of sending a counter-notice to AOL, if she feels the song was taken down unfairly. The notice includes
1. contact information
2. identification of the removed song
3. a statement under penalty of perjury that Alice has a good faith belief the material was mistakenly taken down
4. a statement consenting to the jurisdiction of Alice's local US Federal District Court, or, if outside the US, to a US Federal District Court in any jurisdiction in which AOL is found.
5. her signature
7. AOL then waits 10-14 business days for a lawsuit to be filed by Bob.
8. If Bob does not file a lawsuit, then AOL puts the material back up.

So who does it appear is favored by this example? Bob clearly has the advantage because all he needs to do in order to have the song removed is state that he has a good faith belief that the material is a copyright infringement. In order to have it put back up, Alice needs to state (under penalty of perjury) that it is not infringing. What this means is that Bob can make any claim he desires whether it be true or false, without suffering any legal action if he is false. Alice has to make a legally binding statement that the material was mistakenly taken down.
Another advantage for Bob would be the delay between receiving Alice’s counter-notice, and the ISP putting her content back up. This generally takes between 10 and 14 days. An example, once again used by this site, would be that Alice has a website advertising a protest against Bob’s company. A week before the protest, Bob claims that the site has infringed the copyright of his company name. Alice’s site will be taken down right away. Even if Alice appeals immediately, having to wait 10-14 days means that the protest will be over before the site is put back up, thus being useless.
As is the case with music, the creator of the material seems to have the upper hand here as well. It is important that they are able to receive due credit for their work, but in the cases above, it seems as though they are given too much freedom and ability to make false claims that directly benefit themselves.

Complying with the DMCA

More info on the DMCA

OCILLA