Issues Regarding Privacy

Out of the four videos we were given to watch for this assignment, the one that stuck out to me the most was easily the one regarding surveillance via text/call. It's almost become common knowledge how "the government is watching," and while I'm normally more forgiving than most about that fact I find it also important to consider the alternative: those who might hack communication servers with nefarious intent. 

Many of these communication technologies were built with surveillance in mind, and there's nothing we can do regarding being recorded on certain programs we may choose to use. This video does a good job of making it very clear that the big tech companies are the ones who control the "democracy" of online communication, and it's ultimately up to them regarding how "private" our private conversations may be kept.

However, I also think the speaker did a good job of providing examples of how we can better protect ourselves from having our words used against us. Encryption codes and VPNs are things not everyone may be comfortable with installing on their hardware for whatever reason, but knowing that built-in messenger apps on phones aren't collecting messages like on social media is definitely a step in the right direction. 

In finality, I admittedly try and tend to stay away from subject matter such as this, but yet at the same time, I feel appreciative of this course and my professor for helping me face the music on a lot of these important issues. I think one of the biggest reasons for this was that I would always take issues like this into consideration of just thinking about myself personally. "If I don't have anything to hide and don't have a considerable spending record or carbon footprint, nor any sort of nefarious intent that may disrupt the general peace, why would the government care to monitor my activity?" However, now I understand how I may be thinking too narrow-mindedly because I 100% agree that no one deserves to have their privacy taken away from them involuntarily. Having your data stolen or used against you is a truly deplorable thing, so it's definitely essential for anyone to be educated in how to better protect their online information.

EOTO Observation: Five Eyes

The new information I learned comes from one of my groupmates, Nyar Freeman. In his presentation, he covered the topic of The Five Eyes: an intelligence network composed of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and The United States. This organization was heightened in response to the September 11th terrorist attack, which is why I was drawn to this topic as September 11th was a major focus of my presentation as well. The main goal of the war on terror was to be able to conduct and exchange surveillance, but this was still all happening under the radar of course. 

After doing some more online research on my own, I discovered just how far back this organization goes. Originally, I was under the impression that this group of nations mainly collaborated starting with the war on terror, keeping close eyes on the public to make sure a devastating attack wouldn't happen again. What I learned, though, was that this group had been working even as far back as the days of the cold war, monitoring for Soviet spies and trying to contain the spread of communism. Many articles do a much better job at explaining the history of the 5 eyes than I can in this short post, but as for myself, I was just impressed learning about how much more history there was to unpack than I had initially realized. Taking a secret international surveillance organization back over half a century makes me somewhat nervous in terms of what that means for our personal freedom, but if I were to highlight a positive it would definitely be that I feel the organization's intentions are certainly in good faith.

False Flags

In our modern world of conspiracy theories and paranoia, I feel that it's more important than ever to understand the definition of a "false flag." In simple terms, a false flag is any kind of hostile action meant to antagonize a certain group while at the same time masking those responsible. Almost always you will see false flags being used in history to try and provoke or even give a reason to justify a country for going to war. Below is a catalogue of various examples through history of when these acts of inception have lead to international conflict:

• 1964 Gulf of Tonkin - A naval battle occurs between US and Vietnam. US claims another battle occurs a few days later to further antagonize Vietnam while there's no evidence of actual Vietnamese naval aggression
• 1931 Second Sino-Japanese War - Japanese officers, unknown to their government, blew up part of a railway with explosives. They claimed it was a foreign attack, which worked to provide the incentive Japan needed to go to war with Manchuria.
• 1939 Gleiwitz Incident - The most famous false flag in history, where Germany made up evidence of being attacked by Poland. This was the spark that rallied the German public opinion of supporting the invasion of Poland on September 1st, which, of course, is also the spark that kickstarted World War 2.

False flags such of these are obviously cataclysmic in their effects if they're executed successfully, but many articles such as this one will tell you how false flags are, in fact, more uncommon than conspirators would have you believe. A government conspiracy theory and a false flag are NOT the same thing, one is a baseless claim trying to be uncovered by the public while the other is an intentionally created fabrication often made by individuals rather than the government itself. A quote from Kathryn Olmstead puts it best, "The revelation of real, proven government lies and conspiracies helps explain the attraction of false flag conspiracy theories.

Growing distrust in government also allows these conspiracies to pass themselves off as true far too easily. As a result, history is flooded with fake false flag stories, with the most popular example in recent history being that surrounding the 9/11 terrorist  attack. The claim is that the entire incident was, in fact, incitement from the US government because they knew the aftermath would allow them to justifiably expand their power greatly. This did, of course, happen, but as history has revealed there is no reasonable way to argue that our government was, in fact, orchestrating this attack.

In short, the key takeaway from this post is that you need to understand real false flag inception is a very rare occurrence, but it's also incredibly difficult to distinguish between real and fake. We should be cautious of any events that could potentially spark conflict, but we also can't act prematurely when trying to place the blame on a side who may just seem to be the most logical culprit.

The Diffusion of Laptop Computers

As I began to think about what kind of technology to use for this assignment I started to draw a blank. The whole "Theory of Diffusion" is such a universal concept that I would often find it bland to try and lay out the timeline of whatever item I was focusing on in an interesting way. However, as I took a step back and thought about how I was doing all my work on my laptop, same as always, I slowly realized just how dependent I, as well as everyone around me, am on my computer for schoolwork. I always prefer taking notes by hand, but in terms of how actual assignments and even tests are completed, they are almost universally done digitally. Just a decade ago this would've seemed such a foreign concept to me. Still, I also remember vividly how my freshman year of high school was the first year my school district started implementing Chromebooks and Google Classroom into everything. Gone were the days of homework on paper and binders full of packets, the age of portable computers for schoolwork had reached its level of saturation.

Things only became more omnipotent once I entered college, and this didn't just apply to me but to my friends from home as well. Of course, with my freshman year being in 2020 Covid was obviously a huge influence on how coursework had to be structured, although I'm very thankful that my classes were still in person and not all online like with some of my aforementioned friends. Nevertheless, I can guarantee that even before Covid classes would all be structured around the student's ability to use a laptop computer, and I'm sure Professor Smith can attest to that. 

To my parents and even my cousins in their 30's, hearing about things like "registering for courses digitally," or "getting sources from the library's online database" are concepts completely new to them, so there's clear evidence that the presence of laptops in school has gone through the diffusion timeline we've talked about in class. Digital technology is, of course, growing at an exponential rate, but it's bizarre to process the fact that within 15 years laptops have been implemented by early adopters of the idea, accepted by the majority, and now become the standard through how all students must complete their curriculum. It's the very reason why making jokes about online learning sites such as Blackboard is so relatable to anyone my age, because it's seemingly everywhere all across the country.

I am, potentially, in the minority when I say that I vastly prefer the days of pen and paper. Thinking about the pros and cons of using laptops in school boils down to some extremely simple observations. On the pro side of things is the fact that having websites online for easy storage and organization of class content is extremely beneficial, as well as the fact that students with their computers can get their schoolwork and notetaking done wherever they may be. The obvious con is the fact that even in these days of saturation a laptop computer can still be a big investment. I've been to places in this country where owning a digital device isn't the status quo, and internet access is in no way instant. People living in places like this simply aren't going to be able to have a good college education unless they drop everything and dedicate all their time and money to investing to go away to a school hundreds of miles away. I just personally think it should be taken into greater consideration by universities to be able to help students with needing to make as little extra investment on top of their tuition as possible, those numbers are already high enough.