Computer systems of the McCain and Obama camps as well as the White House were hacked during the campaign by Chinese computer hackers. The hacker got into the private e-mail accounts of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Later Newsweek reported that both Obama and McCain campaigns were also hacked into.
The incidents were later reported to the Cyber Defense agency, a private company that advises government hacking. They have determined that attacks originated in China. The government and American industry are spending billions of dollars to develop new products for the computers being hacked.
The Chinese when confronted were supposedly trying to start cyber war with the U.S., which coincides with cyber bullying. Both are ways someone uses the computer as a way to attack or bully someone else. Both cyber war and cyber bullying can be dangerous because once someone has access to your information it is hard to stop the person from using it against you.
This is also an example of negative CMC. People are able to access other people’s information and it can become dangerous. With the growing rate of technology, the more people have to be aware of their privacy. Social networks like Facebook and MySpace have become primary examples of various privacy cases where people find out that their privacy is being invaded. Technology is rapidly expanding in the world but many of us need to be aware of what comes with it. For instance, with social networks there is so much information that many of us provide for others to see and are not aware of everyone who views our page and information.
Often times, it is hard to believe how much our world revolves around technology. Technology itself is another world which we see through programs like Second Life. CMC allows us to keep up with current events around the world, keep close relationships with people far away, and find out information about almost anything in the world. Although there are many positives, there are negatives. Social networks like Facebook keep students from doing work as it is often used for procrastination, with the amount of information that can be given from the web comes the issue of (ethics) plagiarism, and privacy invasion is a continuing issue that occurs often for people who are apart of social networks and share their information. With the good and the bad, we are the web. The video The Machine is Us/ing Us, is a good example of this idea. We use the web/technology for everything and over 100 billion are said to use the web each day. If we are always on it and use it for everything, we are the web.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Sunday, November 2, 2008
U.S. Voters Use The Internet....
Barack Obama and John McCain have relied heavily on the Internet for their US presidential campaigns but it's not just the candidates who have tapped into the power of the web this election.
The voters have too whether it's finding how much money a neighbor or a celebrity has donated, watching a video on YouTube, reading a political blog or news site or consulting an online "Truth-O-Meter" for politicians. There are a lot of non-partisan sites that have information, like techpresident.com, a blog which covers politics and the web.
Voters can even see how much someone donated this election cycle and to whom by going to to opensecrets.org and typing a name in the search box along with a home state and/or zip code.
There's also votesmart.org, which gives information about local and state-level candidates.
Opencongress.org is great for looking into the record of congressional incumbents -- what bills they've been sponsoring, how they've voted.
There's also Thomas, thomas.loc.gov, which is run by the US Library of Congress and tracks all legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives.
And if voters think a candidate maybe stretching the truth, they can try politifact.com, a site run by Congressional Quarterly magazine and a Florida newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, which checks the accuracy of statements made on the campaign trail with its "Truth-O-Meter."
There's also factcheck.org, a non-partisan site with the mission statement "Holding Politicians Accountable."
If voters want to check on the polls, there are dozens of polling sites like realclearpolitics.com
If they want to report a problem on Election Day, YouTube has encouraged voters to take a camera phone or a video camera into the polling booth.
Footage from the "Video Your Vote" project is being posted at youtube.com/videoyourvote and can be tagged, if appropriate: "voter intimidation," "polling place problems" or "registration problems."
Twitter partnered with techpresident.com and others to launch "Twitter Vote Report," where voters can send the short messages known as "tweets" about their voting experience and report any problems.
Google and Yahoo have come up with their own tools for tracking the election online like mapthecandidates.com, which uses a Google map and every time a candidate made a road stop they collected as much information as they could like newspaper articles, the text of the speeches, video clips of the speeches, analysis of what was said.
According to a Pew poll 59 percent of registered voters have sought election content online or had some type of online communication about the campaign.
The use of online video in particular has exploded with the rise of YouTube as a political force.
Thirty-nine percent of voters told Pew in October that they have watched some type of campaign-related video online, up from 24 percent in December, and eight percent of voters have visited a social network for campaign information.
Overall, the Internet has become the top source for finding information, especially for this year's election which is said to be one of the biggest elections of all time. The Internet is becoming larger than other technologies like t.v.where people would rather look up the news, as opposed to watching it. I know that I prefer the Internet over the t.v. because it is convenient. I can look up information on the Internet anytime, as opposed to the t.v. where I have to look and see what programs are scheduled for what time etc. Another large factor in my use of the Internet rather than t.v. is that the information is broad. T.V. is limited in the amount of information it can give users because news shows have scheduled times and can only provide a certain amount of information within that time. The Internet can provide whatever information you want with no time constraints. In the years to come, the Internet will continue to be the number one source for information because of its convenience and consistency.
The voters have too whether it's finding how much money a neighbor or a celebrity has donated, watching a video on YouTube, reading a political blog or news site or consulting an online "Truth-O-Meter" for politicians. There are a lot of non-partisan sites that have information, like techpresident.com, a blog which covers politics and the web.
Voters can even see how much someone donated this election cycle and to whom by going to to opensecrets.org and typing a name in the search box along with a home state and/or zip code.
There's also votesmart.org, which gives information about local and state-level candidates.
Opencongress.org is great for looking into the record of congressional incumbents -- what bills they've been sponsoring, how they've voted.
There's also Thomas, thomas.loc.gov, which is run by the US Library of Congress and tracks all legislation in the Senate and House of Representatives.
And if voters think a candidate maybe stretching the truth, they can try politifact.com, a site run by Congressional Quarterly magazine and a Florida newspaper, the St. Petersburg Times, which checks the accuracy of statements made on the campaign trail with its "Truth-O-Meter."
There's also factcheck.org, a non-partisan site with the mission statement "Holding Politicians Accountable."
If voters want to check on the polls, there are dozens of polling sites like realclearpolitics.com
If they want to report a problem on Election Day, YouTube has encouraged voters to take a camera phone or a video camera into the polling booth.
Footage from the "Video Your Vote" project is being posted at youtube.com/videoyourvote and can be tagged, if appropriate: "voter intimidation," "polling place problems" or "registration problems."
Twitter partnered with techpresident.com and others to launch "Twitter Vote Report," where voters can send the short messages known as "tweets" about their voting experience and report any problems.
Google and Yahoo have come up with their own tools for tracking the election online like mapthecandidates.com, which uses a Google map and every time a candidate made a road stop they collected as much information as they could like newspaper articles, the text of the speeches, video clips of the speeches, analysis of what was said.
According to a Pew poll 59 percent of registered voters have sought election content online or had some type of online communication about the campaign.
The use of online video in particular has exploded with the rise of YouTube as a political force.
Thirty-nine percent of voters told Pew in October that they have watched some type of campaign-related video online, up from 24 percent in December, and eight percent of voters have visited a social network for campaign information.
Overall, the Internet has become the top source for finding information, especially for this year's election which is said to be one of the biggest elections of all time. The Internet is becoming larger than other technologies like t.v.where people would rather look up the news, as opposed to watching it. I know that I prefer the Internet over the t.v. because it is convenient. I can look up information on the Internet anytime, as opposed to the t.v. where I have to look and see what programs are scheduled for what time etc. Another large factor in my use of the Internet rather than t.v. is that the information is broad. T.V. is limited in the amount of information it can give users because news shows have scheduled times and can only provide a certain amount of information within that time. The Internet can provide whatever information you want with no time constraints. In the years to come, the Internet will continue to be the number one source for information because of its convenience and consistency.
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