Internet Position

Online Gaming

The growth of the internet has undoubtedly led many people to focus more of their time on computers. One of these internet time consumers is online games. In fact, according to this article, "Tens of millions of players are active worldwide, with new players joining every month." For a church that operates on the voluntary contributions of time and resources from its members, this can be bad news. The article sites three examples of people who have allowed the gaming world to become more important than the 'real' world. However, taking a step back, its hard for me to agree that this is in general a bad thing. As the article does point out, "They [online games] fill social needs that may be unmet in the real world. For instance, a teenage boy may not feel popular or successful at high school, but in the online world, he gets a fresh start and a new set of friends. His problem-solving skills and intelligence make him socially important in his virtual community." Is this so bad? For the record, I have never played in an online game world. My belief, however, is that we should pursue what makes us happy, and the person that knows best of what makes them happy is him/herself. So, if you enjoy online gaming, I say go for it.

Revolution OS

What stood out to me in the Revolution OS video was the significance of open source software. Open source software is software that anyone can contribute to. It is free to use. In order to use open source software, you must agree to not sell it. In some ways, it is mind-boggling that people have the motivation to contribute to projects that will provide monetary benefit. It just goes to show that engineers take a personal interest in their projects. Through the internet, open source software is possible. Programmers have the ability to collaborate on projects, giving of their own time and talents freely. This seems like it would be a sure case of chaos without much productivity. However, open source software projects have proven to be very successful. Revolution OS talks about the GNU project and Linux which are results of open source projects.

What role should gender play?

Anyone with a remote sense of the world around them knows that gender equality is a hot topic. In politics, republicans are often ridiculed for not showing equality towards women. The mormon church is often in the news as a result of women requesting to get the priesthood. The majority of society has long held that men and women should do certain things and be a certain way as a result of their gender. In short, gender equality affects almost every aspect of society. So what role should gender play? My personal view is that gender should not play any role in who we are or what we decide to do. While I tend to fit in more of a masculine mold of men, I have complete respect for men that choose to be or do otherwise and same for women and their perceived roles. It is nice to see that Cecil O. Samuelson shared these views (at least to some extent) when he said that the idea of women studying math and science does not conflict with church doctrine.

Patent Trolls

Growing up I have always wondered what the purpose of patents was. I heard at least a couple horror stories where someone basically stole the credit for an invention because they had the patent first but in reality someone else had come up with the idea first. After reading an article by Daniel McCurdy titled Patient Trolls Erode the Foundation of the US patent System, I have a better understanding of the purpose of patents. They help protect ideas so that those who come up with them are encouraged to pursue them. As people come up with new ideas, the economy is stimulated and grows. However, patent trolls are a real problem. Patent trolls buy peoples patents and make money enforcing those patents. They don't produce anything. This hurts innovation because it does the opposite of what patents are designed for. The problem is worsening as the article points out that the number of patent lawsuits is on the rise. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. My guess is that new laws will be put place or current laws will be reworded to fight off this practice.

A double-edged sword for the church

Without a doubt, the advancement of technology, especially the internet, has been a double-edged sword for the church. On one side, technology has been a significant aid to the church. The internet has made it possible for many people to learn about the church as a member or non-member. Software programs have greatly simplified the task of managing wards and stakes. In addition, software cuts down on the amount of paper-work. This increases data organization and security as well as cuts costs. However, the internet has also been harmful for the church. While many things on the internet are not credible, there are many aspects of the church's history that are true and disturbing to most members. This information has been made more available through the internet. In this way the internet forces transparency, and it is my opinion that the internet has done more harm than good to the church, for better or worse.

The Cuckoo's Egg

One thing that has definitely changed over the last 20-30 years is the importance of computer security. At a very low level, computers are just machines executing instructions. They do whatever they are told. Computers don't care where the instructions come from and they do not ask questions. They just execute. So, it is our job as humans to make sure that instructions that computers are given are from secure sources. This is not an easy task. Hackers continue to invent and find new ways to infiltrate systems and gain access to resources they are not meant to have access to. There is a constant battle between hackers and computer security experts. As the importance of protecting data increases, so does the intensity of the battle.

In the cuckoo's Egg, we learn of a hacker name Markus Hess. Hess was a hacker stationed in Germany who was after U.S. military secrets and would sell what he found to the Soviets. He was eventually found through the efforts of Clifford Stoll. Stoll was originally asked in 1986 to a resolve an accounting error and this led him to realize that their system had been exploited. It is interesting to see how much smaller of an issue this exploitation was back then compared to what it would be now. The FBI did little to help. Eventually, through keeping logs and setting up a hoax system, Stoll was led to Hess.

Today, computers security has become a very real issue. Just think about what all we use computers to do for us! We use them to manage our money, make purchases, find places we want to go, talk to people, etc. With so much information being given to computers the need for security becomes invaluable. And yet, it is still something we tend to look over. Just a few months ago a hacker was able to steal millions of people's data including credit card numbers from Target. With so much information at stake, why do we often look over security. Perhaps it is because of a lack of knowledge in how to be secure or a lack of sufficient money, or we just hope for the best. However, if there is one thing we can learn from the Cuckoo's Egg it is that we can never be too cautious when it comes to computer security.

Technology Everywhere!

Its just fascinating to think of all the ways technology influences our lives. In fact, its difficult to think of a part of our life that its not affected by technology. By affected, I mean controlled by a computer. When we have a question, we can ask the question to our phone which converts the sound into text and then converts the text into a request to Google. Google then responds with the data almost immediately. Our cars have computer systems. Our washing machines have computers and so does almost everything else. At what point, if ever, will technology control too much of our lives? Will humans ever become obsolete? It is an interesting question. Certainly, we can agree that technology is not going away anytime soon. In fact, I think we can agree that technology is going to increasingly affect more aspects of our lives. This recent news article shows how our watches may soon tap into our cars. This sounds cool, dangerous, and exciting all at once and shows that people continue to find more ways to add technology to our lives!

Is Facebook Safe?

I was once asked if Facebook is safe. In some ways Facebook is safe. For example, connections to Facebook are done over a secure connection so that data sent and received is encrypted and meaningless to outsiders who try to listen in. Also, Facebook gives us control over who can see what we post. So, with a little knowledge of how to change the Facebook privacy settings, we can control the privacy of what we post. However, there are many ways that Facebook is not safe. For example, what does Facebook do with the data we send it once it gets it? We hear all the time of government requests for data, such as in this recent news article. What if we knew the government had access to everything we posted to Facebook? While this is definitely an extreme and most likely not the reality, we should be aware that anything we post to the internet can potentially be accessed by anyone. This is something to keep in mind as we use the internet!

What is possible?

What is possible with the internet? The internet has given people an unprecedented opportunity to communicate and collaborate ideas. In most cases, the internet is no respecter of location as people from all over the world can meet in a virtual setting to discuss an idea, share information, etc. This has allowed for ancestry work to vastly increase. FamilyTree, a FamilySearch feature, is a somewhat new feature in this area. A spokesman for FamilySearch said the following:

The Family Tree feature hopes to create a collaborative, conclusion-based, online family tree system that allows anyone to make changes, explain why, and provide evidence for their conclusion.

Only the internet could allow for so many people to simultaneously find and gather information about their ancestors. It is a amazing what can be done with the internet!

Can we trust anything with technology?

Most of us that have some awareness of the news are aware that the government has used a lot of questionable practices to collect data about people. Today, I came across news article that points to another way the government is collecting data. Apparently, the NSA and British intelligence have teamed by sharing ways to collect data from phone apps. These apps include ones commonly used such as angry birds and various social media apps. Recently, a bunch of user information was taken from the Snapchat app. Though I do not believe that any data on the internet is completely safe, one thing that I think will increase the safety of our personal information is to use different passwords for apps on our phones, because phone apps seem to be more vulnerable.

The Great Equalizer

Imagine having a very important message that you want the entire world to know about as soon as possible. Imagine that you are responsible for bringing this piece of information to the world. Now imagine you must do it without technology. That tasks seems daunting and nearly insurmountable without technology. This is why I love technology. A specific aspect of technology that I would like to express an opinion about is the internet. To me, the internet is wonderful. Everyone, regardless of age, skin color, wealth, etc, has the vast information available one the internet available to them as well as the ability to speak their mind so that anyone is able to hear their voice. In this sense, the internet is a great equalizer, in that it gives all people a voice. In Neil Postman's talk he discusses five ideas about technological change. One idea that he presented is that the mass printing of the bible undermined the authority of the church hierarchy, I believe that technology today also gives more power to the people to voice their opinions and have a voice in society.

This is a blog I created for CS 404 class!