Selective News

article: http://www.engadget.com/2014/10/29/verizon-sugarstring-daily-dot/ Verizon is launching its very own news site, and by "very-own" I mean news that only promotes verizon and does nothing to hurt the image of the company. This sounds a little biased as to what is "important information." However, the more I thought about this, the more I realized that all media is like this. Most news organizations have someone in control of the content created by the company. I think that this means, that the companies should probably be called "News according to so-and-so." How can we be sure that this person is not promoting their agenda. Sometimes "news stories" are exaggerated to be more shocking. Sometimes the wording is phrased in such a way as to make the reader or listener believe a certain way. Ethically, this may be as bad as filtering stories that may hurt your company, but then again, where are the ethics police in the media? This made me think about the media that we consume, and the media that we believe to be true. I am not saying that no news station can be trusted, but am I following current events, or someone's agenda?

Cuckoo's Egg

While reading the Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stoll, I was very impressed by his persistence. I think that I would have given up after all the times missing the hacker. I probably would have stopped my pursuit after my managers told me to stop. I admire him for continuing to follow the hacker even though his work did not seem to be amounting to much. One of the things I was most impressed with was his diligent record keeping. Later in the book he was told that there had been other situations with hackers, but that his was different because of how well he documented the hacker's actions. His careful notes and printouts were the key in getting governmental authorities to even have interest. This has caused me to be more diligent in keeping my own logbook. It was also very interesting to read his story because it happened so long ago and the technologies he references are so old. He also was working at a time when internet security was not really important to the government. I kept thinking of how differently the three-letter agencies would act today. I don't think the hacker would have made it into nearly as many databases as he did before being caught. I don't even think that it would have taken Cliff to find the hacker before the government knew he was there. It is also interesting to think that the agencies handle hackers the way they do today partly because of Cliff Stoll. This was a very interesting read and I would recommend it to anyone.

Shameless Stealing

Steve Jobs once quoted Picasso by saying that great artists steal. He then added that apple has always been shameless about stealing. Almost every major tech company in the past 20 years has fought off lawsuits regarding software theft. Most of the stories deal with close friends or coworkers ripping each other off. However, technology is a little different than it was back then. Recently a new vulnerability was discovered called the “Bash Bug,” a bug that can give a skilled hacker control of your computer. The days of stealing software from friends have become a day where hackers steal code through computer vulnerabilities from complete strangers. Although no reported cases have surfaced about people stealing software by the use of bash bug, it is very possible that in the 20 years this bug has existed someone used it. We may see a not-so-distant day where the people who are shameless about stealing and exploiting software are obtaining code through hacking. Article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/09/29/cisco_splats_bash_bug_in_busy_swatting_season/

Innovator vs. Exploiter

We often think of the term "exploiter" as a bad thing. A person who exploits children in sweatshops is definitely a bad person. A person who exploits their workers at work is a bad manager. However, an exploiter of ideas is not always seen the same way. Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were exploiters of an idea and look at how we view them now. They are praised and heralded as great business men who changed the world with what they have done. Neither of them invented the idea that makes them so much money, they exploited it. Xerox and other companies initially thought of the mouse and the visual operating system, but Apple and Windows are the ones credited for them. This creates some interesting ethical questions. When is it ethical to exploit an idea and assume the credit for the idea? How much should the inventor be credited for the idea? When is it considered unethical for an exploiter to benefit from the use of another persons idea? On the other hand, would we even have the idea if it were not for the exploiters?

Social Media Hijaking

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/24/isis-twitter-youtube-message-social-media-jihadi It is no question that social media is a powerful force in our world today. Hashtags, posts, online videos, forums, blogs, and status updates are often used to brighten our day or make us think our voice might be heard. What happens however, when terrorist groups like ISIS gets caught piggybacking everyone's favorite cat videos to promote their extremist views? This presents a significant dilemma for the social media companies. Filtering content will cause users to use other, un-filtered social media services, but not filtering the content will allow terrorist organizations to spread their messages. So, how does a company like Twitter determine what content should be allowed and what content should not? Luckily in the case of the ISIS content, the authorities and social media giants, are searching out the criminals posting these videos and hashtags. Ethically, twitter and youtube should be searching to remove this content, but where do they draw the line at what to remove and what to keep? What or who determines if what I write is good or bad? The government? Public opinion? In a world where right and wrong are a point of view, this becomes a really hard question to answer.

Current Event 1

This week, Apple sold over 10 million copies of the newest iPhone. These sales are projected to push them into a record breaking quarter. It is interesting to think that a couple of tech nerds found a way to turn a simple hobby into a company that sells 10 million units in one weekend. After our class discussion on "studying the fish", it is clear that Apple knows their fish. They have spent many years studying the markets and understanding what customers want. They have demonstrated that they can generate enough hype to have people camp outside their stores just to get their new products first. What makes this an even greater feat is that the most prominent features are not new to smart phones. Other screens are bigger and better, other speakers are louder and clearer, battery life on the iPhone6 is similar to other phones, even features like NFC, barometer, accelerometer, and gyroscope have existed in phones for years. So, what is it that makes them so good. They know their fish. They know what people want, or rather they know how to tell a person what he wants and when he wants it. Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/23/technology/apple-sells-10-million-new-iphones-in-first-weekend.html?_r=0

Information to Wisdom

The technology of today is astounding. Millions of archives are available for research at the click of a mouse and thousands of opinions are heard every minute at the update of a status. So what do we do with this power, we see how many people agree that it should be sunny or we watch fruit with superimposed mouths say really annoying things. Elder Dallin H. Oaks in his talk entitled "Focus and Priorities" teaches us that "[O]ur biggest need is a clearer focus on how we should value and use what we already have." Vast amounts of information exists, and programs have been written to help process it all, but it is time for us to do something astounding with all that information. To do this we must reverse T.S. Elliot's famous saying and turn our information into knowledge, and our knowledge into wisdom. For only with wisdom, can correct decisions be made.