The Wikileaks Documentary -- Full Version

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvmfOaZ34Pk

"blow the whistle on abusive power"

2006 they hoped the general public would review the documents. Media have the only resources to do this.

Chaos Computer Club is the oldest hacker club.

PRQ provides access to the material Wikileaks provides to the public

No geo geographic boundaries; Multinational trading company dumped toxic wast in ivory coast. they then proceeded to 'gag' company secreet order to 'gag' all of the press reporting on this issue.

Sara Palin is bypassing us transparency law and Wikileaks publishes her emails

"Site is a threat of national security" to the United States

Island in the middle of the North Atlantic

October 2008, Iceland's bank collapse was due to carelessness, secretes, etc and they attacked Wikileaks. All of the regulators were lax in their duties, bankers were lying.

The proposal for Iceland to be the haven for journalism. Wilkileaks was the push that made this happen. The proposal was adopted unanimously within parliament. They have a vision to improve society.

Leaked helicopter video:
"c'mon, let us shot"
[A father driving his kids to school catches sight of the injured man and stops to help him]
"engage"
[when the ground troops arrive, they see that there are children in the car]
"it's their fault for bringing their kids into battle"
[the children survived the attack]

NYT, WSJ to review this material [the leaked US documents]

Some criticism arose that Wikileaks picked the biggest leaks to dwell on.

Pentagon Papers' Ellsberg on Wikileaks Whistleblowers
http://fora.tv/2010/09/29/The_Bomb_Daniel_Ellsberg#Whistleblowers_Ellsberg_on_Manning_and_WikiLeaks

What Do the H-Bomb and the Internet Have in Common? Paul Baran, by Cade Metz (aside)

http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/09/what-do-the-h-bomb-and-the-internet-have-in-common-paul-baran/

"Paul Baran set out to build a means of communication that could survive a nuclear war. And he ended up inventing the fundamental networking techniques that underpin the internet."

"Paul Baran’s research marked a fundamental turning point in the way networks were built. And they’re still built that way."

It is very interesting that the internet was originally devised as a war tool and evolved into something that is completely and utterly integrated within our everyday lives. From past readings, it is clear that some form of the internet we have now was being conjured in the minds of people for hundreds of years. Luckily, we have lived to see the day that the internet was able to sustain itself with the technology we have now. Paul Baran's work set the framing that we still use today, which is amazing in and of itself. It is also very interesting to see that this system is still nuke-proof for both the government and everyone who has access to the internet. We can transmit information just as easily as the government, which leads me to ponder the next government invention that may make it into the public's hands. 
The statement, "Baran cooked up a system that could divide communications into tiny pieces and use distributed network “nodes” to pass these pieces around. If one node was knocked out, the others could pick up the slack" made me think that these 'nodes' have been taken place by humans. We individually send a large magnitude of information around, and if one individual were to be cut off from sending information, other people would make up for their slack. This can be seen through revolutions where the initiator is taken out, but many people make up their lack of contribution. Having the internet in the hands of the public, this may have been the intention of the government; having us send information to one another to keep us informed on a day-to-day basis. It makes sense to have people sending people information, rather the government sending information to the people. 

Twitterland: the radical terrain of social media, by Malcolm Harris (aside)

http://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-208/feature-malcolm-harris/

@destructuremal: https://twitter.com/destructuremal

Also, while I was on Twitter searching '@destructuremal', i ran into this: http://mashable.com/2012/10/28/hurricane-sandy-internet/

Question: do you think that re-tweeting may some day be acknowledged as an endorsement? This could cause a lot of legal issues. 

"Figuring out how to walk through a city made of words is about relearning how to talk" There is much truth to this, as I had to twist my information in new ways to adhere to Twitter's platform. 

"As long as people repeat it, the rumor becomes a self-fulfilling story" 



Punishing Twitter users is currently a very arbitrary way of using the legal system. Seen in this case, and cases where governments have used Twitter to trick people, Twitter can be used in tricky ways to skew the truth and change the outcomes of events. as stated in the article, "The law doesn't know how to treat Twitter, at least in part because we don't know all the ways to use it yet". We've only seen some of what people can use Twitter to do, and we will soon see more as people become more familiar with the platform and become more tricky. As seen with Malcom Harris, he used social media to get a large gathering for the Occupy event, which also got him a trial. He them proceeded to use social media to manipulate the situation, which goes to show that using Twitter to incriminate someone is hard to do. 
Another issue brought up by Harris is what will happen as social media becomes more predominant in our lives and the privacy that follows? Will our 'tweets' be used against us in the court of law or be used to incriminate us? The fact that Twitter can hand over your tweets with a subpoena can subject you to many things. However, one can also manipulate the situation as Harris did, which deems you safe. In order for tweets to be substancial use to law enforcement, Twitter would have to change their practices with registration on the platform. I do not see this happening anytime soon as this could anger some people and significantly reduce usage. Twitter can also take the route of a postal-style governance where everyones' tweets would be protected and only a warrant could be used to gain those tweets. However, like the subpoena, it could be very arbitrary means of incrimination if Twitter didn't change its registration.   

Founders of Diaspora, Intended as the Anti-Facebook, Move On, by Jenna Wortham (aside)

Do people actually want to be in control of their social media usage? People love to complain, and Facebook gives them an opportunity to complain about their privacy settings, the changing interfaces, and them selling your personal information. We live in an age, unlike the 60s and 70s, that people want change but do not proceed to seek it out. This is evident through the Occupy Wall Street protests as no one took charge to successfully organize the events, and society didn't care enough to follow through although many people (at first) supported it. Protests are done online these days, but not when it comes to our social media, as our online form of protests use these sites like Facebook. We then have ourselves in a predicament, we can't protest Facebook using Facebook and no one wants to give it up. Google's attempt at a social media site, Google Plus, is not nearly as used as Facebook. In all reality, the founders of Diaspora were not only competing with Facebook, they were also competing with; Google, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Pintrest, Instigram, etc. This may  account for their lack of success, especially because they are competing with some of the biggest entities in this country.
The concept of a crowd-funded online service does not sound appealing because it would inevitably mean money out of my pocket, or as much advertising (if not more) than Facebook. While I do not agree with Facebook's practices, I still use it as it is easier to go with the flow than against it. I use it to keep up with family/friends, enable good communication to large groups of people that I am apart of, advertise for the volunteer organization I am apart of, and post relevant information about all of these things so people are up-to-date with the information I am sending. This entity is integrated within our society so much that going against the grain would put you out on your own, or with few other people, which is where no one wants to be. Protesting this site would mean cutting yourself off from many things you have worked hard for.
I can appreciate that some people decided that they wanted something different, and did something about it. However, contending with Facebook is not a realistic goal. If they perceived this goal as it was, they should (and may be doing now) keep Diaspora only for people that do not want to use Facebook as a means of social networking. If this was a product that people actually wanted, it would catch on in a viral way, and promote itself via word of mouth (they may want to change the name to something more appealing too). Like I said, I can appreciate someone contending Facebook, but in this case Goliath is coming out on top.

Has Viral Gone Viral? by Nick Bilton

"When Michael Jackson died last year, it took only minutes for traffic to spike
worldwide on NYTimes.com"  That is shocking


Marshall McLuhan, the famous media professor and theorist: "These new media have made our world into a single unit. The world is now like a continually sounding tribal drum, where everybody gets the message all the time."

In the passage Bilton states, "Today, it seems that everyone can do it". This can not be true. He is neglecting to account for the nearly 60% (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) without internet. What does this mean for those people that do not internet access yet? will it be to fast for them when they finally do adopt it, if they do?


"Chatroulette's viral growth, aided by social media, suggests that the already speedy clock of Internet time is running faster than ever". With the background knowledge of Chatroulette becoming very popular, and its decline in popularity in the past few years, do you think these 'virals' are going to come and go at an increasing rate? Since my use of the internet, I've seen viral videos take weeks to gain popularity, and most recently, I've seen viral videos gain popularity over night.

We've seen Facebook, Twitter, AOL messenger, and many other social media sites. Do you think that another social media platform will arise in the near future? Personally, I do not see where it fits, but do you see where something may?

ATLAS Speaker Series: The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem

ATLAS Speaker Series: The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem:

http://classcapture.colorado.edu/Mediasite/Play/fb8c8177d42743eeb0b695bc1f6da6441d?playFrom=28000

"They're scared shitless"

"Dancing with what you are afraid of"

Skill 1: don't be afraid, dace
"If you have nothing to loose, you have nothing to gain"

3 components to start a business: Passion, best in the world at, massive market capability.

Be intellectually honest, it'll help you bring in resources that you can't do. Trust people, find a partner, find a mentor.

Problems with communication: you must communicate to your consumers well.

Overall, this lecture made me realize that being an entrepreneur can be less risky than it sounds. One particular point she brought up was that in order to sustain a good idea and a good company, one must practice good communication. We discussed good communication in class, and the problems associated with a lack of, or bad communication. If the interporator cannot interoperate the message of the sender, communication is useless. This can bring down a business very easily as you cannot operate any business without some sort of communication. The speaker also states that you must communicate with your consumer as well. This is very important because just as interpersonal communication within a business, communication about a business can be just as crucial. If a business cannot communicate what their products' benefit is, the essence of a product, or what the business stands for, it will tear down the business itself.
Communication is important when starting an entrepreneurial business, and so is finding a massve market capability. This day and age, finding that market capability is easier than ever. With the internet at our fingertips, you can market to anyone with internet access which sets your boundaries further and further with more and more people gaining access to the internet. The speaker didn't go into depth on how to find that market capability, but I can guess that with the utilization of such technology, finding that market capability shouldn't be a problem.