Online Privacy

 Our privacy is under threat more than ever in this age of innovation. In an age of technology where we are all connected, I was beyond shocked to learn from Dr. Smith’s lecture and his videos just how vulnerable we truly are. Our information is always being tracked and monitored by mega-corporates such as Facebook and Google. My fears were even more exasperated after Dr. Smith taught us about the Adhesion contract, an agreement usually made where one party gains a large amount of power over a weaker party. An adhesion contract is typically the terms and agreement contract we all sign without looking through when we update things such as our Apple ID. These contracts allow these mega corporations to track our online activity and to even instill certain features on our phones based on that activity. A prime example of this would be personalized advertisements created through Google’s algorithm. I think I was always vaguely aware of this but I never knew it was as secretive as it was. It is important that we are not naive to how our information is spread online and how it can be used against us without us even knowing.

Source for picture:

https://www.expressvpn.com/blog/5-ways-to-improve-your-online-privacy-and-security-right-now/

Innovation Diffusion- Cell Phones

 

    The cellphone is an invention that I believe can be viewed through the lens of innovation diffusion. First created in 1973 by Martin Cooper, a Motorola employee. Its convenience of having no wires and portable meant that it could reach people across widespread areas of land. This convenience, along with its ability to reach out for emergency help wherever you are, created a broad base of early adopters. 

    However, despite the cell phone’s popularity, many have simply refused to adapt to it. This is due to it being too tricky to use in many of its more technical features such as internet connection and texting and it being expensive. Today, many phones cost more than $1,000. That does not even include service or ADDITIONAL FEES. There are also other options for such detractors to consider such as the availability of landlines and public phones. For them, they may not simply need a cell phone. 

    Overall, cell phones are a ver y positive innovation which has allowed our world to become ever more connected, no matter where we are. Also, modern cell phones allow us the opportunity to access a camera, news, social media, and even email with absolute ease. However, this connectivity can also present downsides as it can easily become very overwhelming. Some can even become addicted to it. Still, cell phones and their convenience outweigh all the negatives. Like it or not, cell phones have changed the way the world works. 

Source:

https://www.knowyourmobile.com/phones/the-history-of-mobile-phones-from-1973-to-2008-the-handsets-that-made-it-all-happen-d58/

What I learned- Presentations

I learned that Sergey Brin, a PhD computer science student at Stanford struck up partnership with Larry Page, a prospective student, after showing him around the university's campus. In 1996, the pair launched the search engine "backrub." Then in 1998, "Google Beta" launched and hired their first employees. Two years later, in 2000, Google added new languages to their search engine. In 2004, gmail was added as a new feature for Google. In 2008, the Google then launched the chrome browser, competing directly against internet explorer. Google continued to progress past their original search engine brand and in 2016 created the first ever Google phone (Google Pixel). The current CEO of Google is Sundar Pichai. 

Google has changed the way nearly everyone has used the internet in a very positive way. For example, it is free to use, can be used as a research tool, can be used an advertising tool, and gives you access to a variety of different websites and information at your fingertips. Google also has many different helpful products and apps such as gmail, google scholar, google calendar, google earth, google photos, etc. However, Google also has negatives. For example, not every article you find on Google is true. Also, it is very expensive to advertise on Google and ads are put at the top to make it look as if that is the most popular website under your search. 

Blog #4

   

     Before this assignment, I had never visited anti-war sites such as Antiwar.com and The American Conservative. Each site gives their unique opinions on modern affairs concerning foreign relations, the president, crime, etc. Their opinions on these matters, often very critical of the government's actions, make it clear why they are not promoted in a way that would allow them to ever become well known. World governments have long trend of suppressing dissenting voices as shown by the issue involving Julian Assange. These two sites speak extensively about America's military operations in foreign countries and criticize the presence of troops int those countries.  The US government would of course not want to promote these sites in the attempt to preserve its idealized image of freedom and justice. I personally found these sights very interesting as it allowed me to explore opinions on modern topics that you do not usually hear of. It is very important to consider that these opinions contain a great deal of truth and information that can be very insightful to the actions of our government. We as Americans have a fundamental right to look into such significant issues in American politics and to ensure the government abuses its power. 

Telegraph

       The transfer of communication across large pieces of land before the introduction of the telegraph was largely limited due to weather and the lack of efficient receptor points. Messages largely had to be hand-delivered or signaled through ancient means such as drum beats or smoke signals. Semaphores, a long series of stations atop mountains that had used large wings to signal messages was also widely used. However, this still proved inefficient in the face of unforgiving weather and anything that could prohibit how well the stations could be seen. There needed to be an efficient and trustworthy source of communication across large pieces of land. 

Inventors from all over the globe competed to find a remedy for this problem. In 1794, the non-electric telegraph was created by Claude Chappe, using a semaphore system that consisted of a flag-based alphabet to communicate across long distances. This is most commonly referred to as the optical telegraph. Later, in 1809, Samuel Soemmering created an early type of the telegraph that relied on the process of electrolysis to communicate a message 2,000 feet away through the production of gas that was produced by gold electrodes and thirty-five wires in water. Despite these inventions and their progress, they each quickly proved to be inconsistent and limited in their range. However, in 1825, William Sturgeon, a British inventor created the electromagnet, an invention that would soon prove to be revolutionary in the world of communication. 

       Samuel Morse demonstrating the telegraph

Inspired by the power of Sturgeon’s new invention, American inventors Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale, and Alfred Vail sought to create an electric telegraph that was both practical and commercial. After designing a magnetized magnet inspired by Sturgeon’s electromagnet, they created a single-circuit telegraph that sent out electric signals along a wire by simply pressing down on an operator key.  The invention was simple in its needs: a line of poles, wire, a battery, and a key. This made it very practical and relatively simple for widespread use. 

                                                    William Sturgeon and his electromagnet

By the 1830s, Samuel Morse and Vail created Morse Code, a coded system that they used to communicate letters and numbers across telegraph wires through a set of short marks and long marks. The idea originally occurred to Morse while he was teaching art and design at New York University. In the class, he made a marker write codes on a paper by sending out electric pulses to activate an electromagnet. In Morse Code, the length of the marks were determined by how often certain letters were typically used. For example, the frequently used letter “A” received a short mark while the more infrequently used letter “Z” received a much longer mark. 

               Morse Code

Later, Morse and Vail improved the electric telegraph to mark papers with a variation of dashes and dots. This was later shown in 1838 at a public demonstration that furthered the public’s support for its widespread use. This support grew and grew until Congress finally agreed to build a forty mile telegraph line connecting Washington to Baltimore. Upon the line’s creation six years later, Congress experienced the first official telegraph message (“What hath God wrought?”) be sent from the US Supreme Court chamber to an affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland. This officially began the revolution of the telegraph (May 24, 1844).

Map of the Transatlantic Cable

Sources:

 https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

thoughtco.com/the-history-of-the-electric-telegraph-and-telegraphy-1992542

https://www.loc.gov/collections/samuel-morse-papers/articles-and-essays/collection-highlights/impact-of-the-telegraph/

https://sciencing.com/cons-telegraph-8246524.html

https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph/Development-of-the-telegraph-industry

Post 5

    A recent wave of anti-Islam protests and rioting has taken place in European countries such as Sweden and Norway. One example of these demonstrations took place in Malmo, Sweden where a Quran was burned by a group of protesters. This led to increased police presence to try and de-escalate the situation.  However, despite all of the anti-muslim actions, the Prime Minister of Norway defended the protests as it was their right to free speech. This led to a greater discussion about freedom of speech and how and why it allows hurtful/hate speech to continue. This issue falls squarely in place with two of the eight values of free expression: stable change and the promotion of tolerance. Stable change value of the free expression theory claims that if you allow people to “vent” or speak their opinions, without the government trying to suppress it, there will be less violence. Also, some claim that this allows the government to even better track groups such as the anti-muslim movement. Had the government directly stepped in to put down the anti-muslim protests, there would have been violence in which people would have gotten seriously hurt. The anger from the right-wing group would have further exasperated, leading to even more violence. This then works its way into the value of promoting tolerance by the government letting them pursue their speech, no matter how “hurtful” or immoral it may be, so that it will not turn into something bigger or more violent. In this way, the government gets out of the way so that society can then, by its own means, deal with this social issue in a productive way. This value teaches that the protection of unpopular speech serves to help us as a society learn to grow more tolerant of various political and moral views. Through this, we create societal norms and standards for what is socially acceptable and unacceptable behavior or speech. The government needs to get out of the way in order for society to rule itself. This a vital part of the relationship between the federal powers and the public powers that must be kept in order to maintain a relatively stable environment. 

Link:https://www.euronews.com/2020/09/04/anti-islam-protests-in-sweden-and-norway-spark-debate-on-free-speech

Flag Burning in Portland Black Lives Matter Protest

On August 2, members of the Black Lives Matter Protest burned the American flag. Police soon arrived to control the ever-escalating situation. This story and its image of the burning flag quickly made national news and once again asked the question of whether or not the burning of the American flag was or was not protected by the First Amendment. Indeed, the First Amendment does protect such action as flag burning because it is seen as symbolic speech. The First Amendment's freedom of speech clause protects any and all speech as long as the speech does not DIRECTLY call for or incite violence. That means that even offensive speech is protected. Unpopular or possibly offensive speech is protected so that the general public has the personal freedom to determine which speech is or is not socially correct or acceptable. 

Also, there is already a precedent set for an action such as flag burning in the cases of Texas v. Johnson (1989) and United States v. Eichman (1990).  In both cases, the Supreme Court upheld the right to burn flags as they saw it as a version of symbolic speech. 

link: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/black-lives-matter-protests-portland-protesters-burn-us-flags-police-arrive/videoshow/77310753.cms