Personal Post 8 (reflection) ((Not Fade Away))

This semester has been filled with ups and downs. I have learned a lot about Crisis Informatics, most importantly probably is what it means. Also important is how it affects the day to day life. While at times I felt I was in a philosophy class trying to figure out life's great mysteries with no certain answers I am glad I took this class. I was afforded a look few have had into this crazy mixed up world of Crisis and communications. We have had guest speakers that are like rock stars in the community and it was mind boggling to have them re-work their schedules and take time out of their days to come and want to talk to us. The same people that talk to governments and multimillion and billion dollar corporations wanted to talk to 20 college kids.

I was thinking about this class and I was going to make this post about all I have learned this semester but screw that you know that. This is a photo from the last scene of my favorite tv show Angel, it was a spin off of Buffy and the last episode was called Not Fade Away, the last line is the show as the characters are about to face their impending doom is epic. Angel says when asked what the plan is: "Well personally I kind of want to slay the dragon. Let's go to work." That's it if nothing else this class has helped me be able to pick out and recognize problems and more importantly think critically about them in terms of trying to solver them. It has also taught me to work within the scope of an organization and make a solution that works for them. It might not be the best solution but it is what is best for them. If we can get more organizations to do that that would be great especially if we can get them to incorporate social media.

Also to me the Not Fade Away is a motivator. It is in a couple of songs a few quotes it's absolutely brilliant and it's how I live my life. "Burn Out, Not Fade Away." I go 110 miles an hour all the time. I do everything I can everyday for the people I care about. I do everything to the best of my abilities and that is the best I can do. I work hard to not be a burden to my mom and sister that is important to me. I am always there for my friends which leads to a lot of late nights. If I saw me posting this late I would assume I was drunk but my roommate had a lot on his mind and I tried to help him talk it out for a few hours. I am trying to make sure my blog post are as good as they can be and as different as they can be. I also tried my best in your class. I will do my best in the real world too to help out and fix things. I want to be able to be remembered for doing something great which probably wont happen but most of all I just don't want to be forgotten. I want to have an impact on someone's life and I will if I keep giving it my all all the time.

"I walk with heavy footsteps because I plan on leaving an imprint on this Earth." Go ahead and google that, you wont find it that's an original by me. I know I may not have always done the best work or had the best temperament but I tried my hardest in your class. I tried to understand and at times I feel like I did. I got a lot out of it like I said. Most of all is always thinking critically and looking at a problem from every angle. I will use the skills I acquired in your class everyday hopefully to make complex situations easier and also hopefully I will retain some of the knowledge. Thank you again for this semester and good luck with your research.

We Are the Champions

Personal Post 7 the generation divide

I feel like an overlaying topic that we have not given much thought to over the course of the semester is the generation divide when it comes to technology. If you are my age 22 or a few years older I would say up to maybe 30 you grew up with technology of all kinds are are more likely to embrace it. Unfortunately if you are older than that you are more technology averse and do not catch up as quickly to the ever changing trends. This is a huge problem in any technology that requires communication to thrive.

I understand that we are working on crisis informatics and ever increasingly over the semester we have been working on making social networking reliable and it's ever increasing role in crisis relief. The important thing to remember in my mind is the generation divide. The people that run the UN and most of the big NGO's are older people who have a hierarchy and standards to adhere to and technology turns it all on it's head. Technology doesn't care it wants to be new and trendy and do whatever it wants to do and find a market. These companies already have a market and no matter how good the technology is it will not fit that market. Also the fact that older people are running these corporations makes them even more technologically averse. This leads to them being less able to and less willing to see the benefit of the new technologies and the ability to fit them into their day to day activities.

I know it's a leap of sorts but  I can compare it to my mother and father, both in their mid to late forties. My mother had a facebook and was all about her zoo on their but realized it was taking over her life so she de-activated her account. She was not able to cope with the urge to be on it constantly. She did not find herself comfortable in the immersion of technology like my generation and the younger ones do. I do not mind being on a computer for 14 hours a day, I don't do it every day and know it isn't healthy but occasionally I will because I like being plugged in. About a month ago I had to teach my dad about a little thing called Wikipedia. He was amazed, it was how I think the first cavemen felt about fire. I was laughing in my head but shaking it at the same time because someone like me doesn't understand how you can not know about what my generation considers one of it's greatest resources. You don't know someone google it or look it up on wiki. We turned google into a verb.

It's always important to remember the differences between generations because they can hinder or help progress all the same. Every generation has a different quirk or solution to problems. We are part of the tech generation and I love it but we have to wait for the non-tech's to be done with their time before we can try our crazy bass-ackwards solutions and possibly drive the world to the ground or to places it has never been before.

I leave you with White and Nerdy

Personal Post 6 (Signed Anonymous)

Anonymous is a name nearly everyone who even looks a little on their computer or at the news has heard of by now and it either makes people cheer or cringe. I sort of have a bipolar relationship with the group and they make my head hurt kind of like our class. There are some good things they do I feel but for every good thing they do they have about 3 dumb things. They are a perfect example of the emerging technologies of social media in use and hactivism at times. They are a political group and highly centralized and de-centralized at the same time. They are Legion and they can be huge assholes at times. There is no middle ground for them they are a go big or go home type of group and unfortunately for them they always seem to cross a line.

I cannot even being to wrap my head around the number of messed up reasons for half of their operations. For every maybe three or four redeeming ideas they have only maybe one is executed in a way that doesn’t make them seem like little kids throwing a temper tantrum. They didn’t like the Church of Scientology; fine by me they protested. After that they attacked an Epilepsy Foundation forum posting videos embedded into their messages that would induce seizures. Are you kidding me, how low in moral fiber in human decency can you be to do something like that? They target the No Cussing club while other members try and to help political hotbed Iran in the midst of political upheaval. This is a bipolar and fractured group.

There is also the well known debacle in Australia as well as the Arab Spring activities. More recently they are supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement as well as well as an operation called DarkNet. DarkNet is when they hacked and shut down 40 child pornography websites and posted information of over 150,000 users, all the more impressive because most users were using a Tor system to get to the websites.

I really do not know how to feel about Anonymous. I want to like them and support them I really do. I mean come on who doesn’t want to do as they wish especially when they have the ability to help affect change be it in a hostile manner or not. Sadly for every DarkNet there are five Epilepsy Foundation type stories. Some of them at least have some ideas and some of the right ones in my opinion they just have to find a better way of enacting change. We get it the world is a messed up place and you want to point out everything that is wrong with it. You can’t just show that hey we don’t like this and take it away you have to make people see the reason, we all have free will and yours as Anonymous is no more important than the technologically inept.

Pick a side, pick a stance, pick a leader, pick a hierarchy for your organization and a coherent agenda because this mix and match schizophrenic shit has to go. You want people to take you seriously but we can’t because we can’t understand what you stand for. You stand for everything and nothing at the same time. You stand for upheaval and anarchy and there is already enough of that in the world. Please for the love of all that is holy stand for something halfway decent and see it through for once, and I mean all the way through not just to the point of humiliation I mean to the bitter end. You have the ability to do some of the most impressive stuff I have ever seen. You pick a day; say what you are going to do and do it, which takes some moxie. Unfortunately you just keep doing dumb things. You remind me of one of my friends whom most of the time I wonder why I am friends with them and then they have a DarkNet moment where they do something really cool and I realize I am friends with them because they have the potential to be a great human being. Stop being that friend Anonymous, I want so much for you to be more than you are. You have the ability to try and shape and influence the direction of many things if you would just organize and pick a stance. Stop doing what you wish and start doing what you should do. With great power comes great responsibility no great whimsicality.

It is really frustrating to see a group that has such talent and ability with the internet to waste it in such stupid ways. I wish as I have already mentioned that they would stop being so bi-polar and figure out the right way to do things. Hopefully some day they will. 

Here is their legion website and here is their blog

Personal Post 5... Christopher Soghoian is one of my new Heros

In an article of Wired volume 19.12 I found an article about a man not unlike Robin Hood, fabled feared by the rich with secrets to their wealth about how they misuse and mistreat the poor and unknowing in the technological world. To take advantage for business gains is seen as a capitol offense to Mister Christopher Soghoian the defender of the know nothings. The hero to those who don't even know they are being attacked or being made vulnerable who should be praising this man as a hero and don't even know his name. I was in this category until recently, until this article. He has enacted so much change in so little time. He has a litany of academic credits to his name as well as prestigious fellowships so I am pretty sure he is a prodigy of some sort.

That is the face of an American Hero a man who should go down in lore. He uses social media to bend policy and practices to his and our whim. He find flaws in systems and spreads the word virally  through his blog and other means. He find the holes gives them to the companies poses solutions and then tell them he will go public if they don't fix them. At the same time he leaks the stories to the media to expedite the process and his findings usually enact change.

He has helped/ enacted change on a number of companies and organizations including: The TSA, Firefox and the government in general.  He was trying to board a flight in 2006 when he was stopped by the TSA for having hummus which apparently was not allowed. He retorted with a snarky remark and was held for question and further investigation. Instead of getting mad he got even. In 10 relatively easy steps he showed how to bypass TSA security. This was shown on the news and eventually the FBI came to arrest him. He told them to come back with a warrant which they did. But between that time he wrote on his blog; "FBI are at the door. Off to chat;" what a bad ass line. I mean he is like a super hero, he wasn't sweating bullets he was clam as could be and he showed flaws in a system. Not only did he get arrested and released but eventually offered a job from the Department of Homeland Security. His contract was not renewed because he made them very mad. He also helped the public on Firefox by creating a program called TACO which allowed users to opt-out of targeted ads. There he is looking to protect peoples right to privacy. He also eventually found out and co-wrote a paper that showed governments are able to spy on "secure websites." They use a Packet Forensics tool to go around encrypted software. That should be very scary to you and you might not have know it had it not been for Christopher.

This man really looks out for the general public and what he believes is the greater good. Also he is trying to improve security and privacy on the internet. He is like a sheriff in the old wild west, standing up for what is morally right as well as trying to uphold the law but the morality comes first. For this I thank him for all he does and because of him hopefully there will be good changes made in policy.

I would like to leave you with a link to his blog

Personal Post 4 (Bitcoin)

I want to talk about an article I read in Wired magazine in this post. It was about something I had never heard of before this. A service and form of currency called Bitcoin. It suffered and still suffers from some of the problems we have been having a lot with trying to integrate social media and new technologies into the existing risk management techniques. Bitcoin itself is a completely digital currency. The big problem with digital currency up to this point was how do you prevent double spending and "one man" supposedly solved that problem with his algorithm and Bitcoin was born.

This currency had no real value when it first started out. It was an idealist movement to try and get away from the establishment of government and to try and make a money that was not reliant on a government of any sort. There was regulated growth of Bitcoins the currency and all seemed to be going swimmingly. There was a devoted passionate core group of people who used the service but they started making waves. They wanted wikileaks to begin accepting donations in Bitcoin. Their founder said not to do this that it was a bad idea because it would make the organization grow too fast and taint it. Unfortunately the damage was done. Through hype of many sorts, articles in Forbes and glowing endorsements online the price or a Bitcoin the virtual currency soared to over $27 in real money at one point. Actual placed began accepting Bitcoin transactions for things and people started to try and safeguard their investment.

The code was flawless, the users on the other hand very much flawed. Users started to try and back up their virtual wallets which essentially doubled or tripled the amount of Bitcoin's they had. Also their were third party services "wallets" like banks for Bitcoin but one by one they seemed to go down or loose peoples real investments in this potentially real currency. The bottom fell out and is still falling out on Bitcoin but the point I wanted to make with this is that I understand where the organizations we have had come in to speak us are coming from. I see their fear of new technologies proven and unproven.


Things can always be used for nefarious purposes and things may not always live up to the hype. Bitcoin is a perfect example of both of these. The organizations do not know if these new and trendy technologies will be there tomorrow and there is a sense of fear in trying to find uses for something that never really seems to have a definite shape and keeps evolving and growing. They need a sense of stability cause what they do helps save lives. I think this is a prime example of their skepticism. While it may not apply fully I can think of no better reason for them to double take when it comes to technology and reading this article has made me see that as much as they want to they can't unless it is practical, secure and serves a purpose which can take years to determine. You can't take a leap of faith when lives are at stake which means I and everyone else needs to be patient.

If you would like to learn more about Bitcoin here is a very reliable source, their wiki.

Last Last Last No Really cue the music at the award speech LAST mandatory post

Well it's been a long strange journey my friends. We have weathered a lot this semester and here I thought we were done after last week but no like an award ceremony I have to overstay my welcome as the band grows louder. But these last thank yous are too important to impart before saying adieu. We were given the topic of saying how we are well suited to address the rising integration problems of technologies in crisis response. This may sound like a mouthful but really it's using skills we have acquired throughout our long and strange academic journey to do what we know is necessary. I think we are very much prepared to handle whatever is thrown at us kind of like MacGyver.

We in IST and SRA have been inter-disciplinarly trained in a plethora of fields which allows us to deftly handle any and all situations thrown our way especially when it comes to communication. I can not speak for the IST half or the rest of the Penn State students but I know we are all very well diversified. I in particular have a very unique background that my major has afforded me. I have taken: communication classes, law, SRA (which is a mix of terrorism, technology, thought processes, business, and current issues), some IST classes, as well as Pysch classes and I have some knowledge of Business and Science from the few classes I have taken in those fields. If that background doesn't make me MacGyver like and well able to handle any situation I don't know what does.

So why am I and why are we more capable than most than most at handling communication issues that arise, I believe it is our background. The one thing the speakers and all of the readings had in problem was that communication was a diverse problem with many facets and parts and we are nothing but prepared for many different things based on our education. If someone came to me with a list of reasons they didn't want to share or integrate information I can already tell you at least three things that will be on their list: cost (business), contracts (law), and the benefits (psych/SRA). Also possibly how the integration would go, what would be required on their part and so on and so forth. Guess what? That's part of my major in the Social Factors and Risk Option trying to get everything in order for something like that, trying to take two different types of fields or companies that don't normally connect and making a connection. I would draw out a table of the cost benefit analysis, do a risk assessment and then draw up an implementation plan. Then I would be able to use the psych background and psych classes from my major and use what I have learned there to try and persuade said companies. There is no one better qualified than me and my classmates to do with these rising issues because we take classes on them and stare them in the face. We work on real life solutions to real life problems instead of theory like a lot of other school.

This may have been a bit of a rant towards the end but because of our diverse background and our unique ability to look at a problem from many perspectives we will be the ones who solve this problem or I say to you it is unsolvable. Thanks again for a fun semester guys, sorry I wasn't able to work in more pop culture references in this one but to make up for that I leave you with A Rocky Montage. I will argue with you later weather or not it is the best one but have fun and good luck the rest of the semester.

I May Have Been Wrong (personal Post 3)

They say it takes a big man to admit when he is wrong. I say when it happens as frequently as it does to me it's not that hard anymore. I wrote a post during the semester talking about the lack of things you could communicate with 140 characters, of what I felt was useful information. It turns out 140 characters is enough to communicate a lot both harmful and good. There is a saying from Uncle Ben in Spider-Man lore "With great power comes great responsibility," and I believe people try and seek out information in both positive and negative ways and they can do so with great efficiency through tweets. This was very apparent with the PSU earthquake and also the riot from just after Joe Pa got fired.

The first incident the earthquake was impressive because it spread like wildfire. Not just through Penn State but through the whole east coast.

This shows just how powerful and how quickly twitter allows people to communicate and "activate" if you will. Back in the day you used to have to try and call people or wait for something to be on the news now people can be their own news and try and get every fact feeling or thought under the sun into public light for better or for worse. The Penn State cell network went down because of the amount of traffic and only half the people on campus felt it and it wasn't even that big here. It truly is impressive the need for people to connected and to try and communicate all the time now.

Unfortunately we were in the national spotlight on the night Joe Paterno got fired. With all of the media here they caught us at our worst and I thought for sure I would find a trend of PSU students trying to organize on twitter unfortunately I was unable to find that. Also more unfortunately I was able to find a link to people tweeting during the riot, both from and not from the campus and it doesn't shed us in a very pretty light. The link is here to the Bleacher Report. The students moved like a well oiled machine I suppose because of previous riots. Which is unfortunate.

Twitter for better or for worse is a place for people to speak first and think later. The word vomit runs ram-pit. People use their brains less and less to try and become part of the hive mind that twitter runs. I am not saying twitter isn't useful I am just saying there are only so many ways to express yourself in 140 characters or less and it relies less on deep thought and more on just being as quick as possible. I hope that twitter proves me wrong and becomes one of the most innovative technologies of the 21st century. Though I am sure most would already consider it so thus far.