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In January, Ellen Coulter of ABC news in Australia covered CSIRO’s (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) latest micro-technology in her online article: “CSIRO, University of Tasmania scientists fit tiny sensors onto honey bees to study behavior.” Ellen underlines the whole procedure, and explains that 5000 bees are put to sleep, are then shaved, and a tiny sensor is placed on their head. These sensors record the movements and the behavior of the bees and are going to help the scientists understand optimal reproducing conditions, and to understand the effect of pesticides on bees. Article also explains that the future goal is to decrease the size of the sensor and fit it on flies and mosquitoes. The research covered in this article can be looked at the social construction (constructivism) of micro-sensors. Originally, the sensors were bigger and only a few bees were used; however, now 5000 are being used, and plans are being made to minimize the size of the sensors and to use them on flies and mosquitoes. The article leaves the reader with questions like what are the benefits of sensors on the flies and mosquitoes? The reader has a different technological frame, and based on his or her metaphors, may propose that the sensors could be used to not only gather agricultural data, but can be utilized in a wide variety of applications; for example, monitoring weather, surveillance, monitoring traffic, floods, etc. However, this artifact is socially constructed based on the needs of the scientific community working on the project. Although not explained, it is clear that planning to make the sensors smaller is going to serve important purposes far beyond the welfare of flies and mosquitoes. This type of development of an artifact by different actors in different technological frames, using their respective interpretative flexibility, into a technology that could be used in their specific fields is an example of constructivism. How these sensors are developed over time and are stabilized into a beneficial artifact by different social groups corresponds to the definition of constructivism: society constructs how science shapes our lives.

Bijker, Wiebe. 2012 [1987]. “The Social Construction of Bakelite: Towards a theory of invention.” In The Social Construction of technological systems, Anniversary Edition. Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes, and Trevor Pinch, eds. PP 155—182. Cambridge: MIT Press.

ABC News (2014). “CSIRO, University of Tasmania scientists fit tiny sensors onto honey bees to study behavior.” Online Article, < http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-15/scientists-fit-tiny-sensors-to-bees-to-study-population-decline/5199862, > accessed 15 March 2014.

Just last night, the New York Times posted a very timely article about President Obama announcing a proposal to end mass data collection by the NSA, particularly as it applies to section 215 of the PATRIOT Act with mass collection of metadata received from phone companies.

Later, the article goes on to say, “The Obama administration proposal…would retain a judicial role in determining whether the standard of suspicion was met for a particular phone number before the N.S.A. could obtain associated records.” This seems to suggests that instead of the routine data collection currently performed by the NSA, under the new proposal, there would be a targeted data collection system. The NSA would have to provide evidence to some judicial body that there is a “standard of suspicion” before they would be able to obtain any phone call data on the suspicious party. This would probably make a lot of public feel relieved and maybe even less paranoid since you would, under this proposal, need to be a suspicious target to have your phone usage data obtained by the NSA. They would no longer be able to routinely collect all phone usage data.

The article also says, “The government has been unable to point to any thwarted terrorist attacks that would have been carried out if the program had not existed, but has argued that it is a useful tool,” which was one of the points made in class against the NSA’s collection of metadata being morally right. This seems to give some credibility to the claim that the NSA’s actions have been unnecessary and that time and money could have been better spent elsewhere.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings accused internet service providers of demanding fees to ensure quick delivery of Netflix content.  He accused the ISPs of slowing users’ internet connection in order to extract funds from Netflix.  They did announce an agreement with Comcast, in which it would indeed pay for high speed connections for their users, and they are working on an agreement with Verizon as well.

Hastings accuses ISPs of abusing their market share to pretty much extort funds from Netflix.  ISPs, on the other hand, claim that Netflix users consume a large amount of bandwidth, and high-speed internet is expensive to deploy.  According to the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, about one percent of broadband customers consume 40% of bandwidth going into homes.  ISPs point out that nearly one third on online traffic during peak hours is Netflix users streaming videos.

It only seems fair that Netflix pays a fee to internet service providers since their customers consume so much bandwidth.  The cost of providing high-speed internet is high, so they should be compensated accordingly.  Also, increased revenue should result in better internet service in the future.  Some other companies, such as Microsoft, Google, and Facebook already have deals with the major ISPs.

Some U.S. police departments are experimenting with body-mounted cameras for police officers that will record their interactions with civilians. Supporters of this new technology say that it will aid in evidence gathering at a crime scene, and it also creates a record of officers’ behavior, which would cut down on the amount of unnecessary force and abuse of power.
The obvious concern about this new law enforcement technology is privacy. Without the proper laws, recordings taken by these cameras can leave open the possibility of abuse. A law pending in Pennsylvania has its opposition. The ACLU says that it “places too much power in the hands of officers and not enough in the hands of the public.” One issue that has already arisen is that some officers turned off their cameras during a confrontation with protesters.
Having police officers wearing cameras does have some benefits, but it can also lead to some unwanted consequences. It would definitely help with prosecuting criminals if actions were caught on video. But what if civilians start wearing cameras in response to law enforcement wearing them. If they can record us, why wouldn’t we be able to do the same. I suppose that we are already doing that, in a way. Most cell phones have cameras these days. And how many videos have been taken in public and posted to this website or that one. It seems that people are having less and less privacy as technology continues advancing.

I caught a glimpse of a 60 minutes segment that dealt with data brokers, which are people that track our internet history and other personal information in extreme detail to sell to others curious about us.60 Minutes explains that this data has been known to be collected for advertising, which brings to mind those “magical” Facebook ads that seem to know exactly what you have been looking and thinking about. This article makes it seem that this goes a little farther and this information to going to potential employers and the data being collecting isn’t something I expected. They mention products you buy, which I think we all know is tracked, but they somehow track other information such as, medical history, depression, cancer, genetic history, and even sexual orientation. Also, I didn’t realize that companies track your visits and clicks on other websites, Their example is Facebook tracking the newyorktimes.com and 60minutes.com. There are many others companies are in a crowd following your internet visits and every move you make on their websites. They also mention mobile devices and apps, Angry Birds and “Brightest Flashlight App” can access your GPS and track your movements, see where you are and your schedule.
Most of us know and understand that our internet traffic and other information can be tracked, but for information to be sold and especially when the information is commonly viewed as “private” like medical history, that seems a little unethical. I don’t quite understand why a company needs to track where you are and which places you commonly go to, it just seems like information that shouldn’t be known without explicitly asking me for that information. Companies, apps, and others need to be more open about what is being shared when you visit their website or use their programs.

NPR interview with Julia Angwin, Dragnet Nation author. 

Excerpt 

Personal information is our ticket to ride in the “digital” era. Governments  survey for protection, companies survey for profit.  The public demands free apps on smart phones, free accounts on websites, location services for travel, etc.   All of these should operate cohesively, while not invading privacy.

Julia Angwin discusses information collection in her new book Dragnet Nation.  In her study, she concludes “there’s a price you pay for living in the modern world. And some of that has to do with — you have to share your data.”

Is this a fair trade?  What expressions of personal information are exhibited in our daily lives?  If you wear a Beatles t-shirt to a record shop and browse the hip-hop section, is it infringing on your privacy if the owner suggests you purchase Danger Mouse’s Grey Album, a Jay-Z Black Album/Beatles White Album mashup? How are YouTube’s ad suggestions different?

How conscious are you of current data collection?

“Retailers such as Whole Foods have used digital signs that are actually facial recognition scanners. Some car dealerships are using a service from Dataium that lets them know which cars you have browsed online, if you have given them your e-mail address, before you arrive on the dealership lot.”

“Your name, address, and other identifying details—even the location of your cell phone at any given time—are all stored in various databases that you cannot view or control.”

Data services perpetually track you, and presently, if you want to participate in the modern world, that’s the price you pay.

How do you feel about your present life and its relationship with technology?  Do you feel uneasy about using online resources?  I don’t regularly feel like my privacy is being invaded, but perhaps that’s because I don’t know the extent of my information’s collection.  If cooperation and happiness are optimal, can they both be attained while favoring corporate/governmental interests?  To some extent, it can be argued that is our established reality.

Read her findings and check out the comments section too where I found interesting thoughts and useful links: 

Blender – Anonymizes your Firefox browser

TrackMeNot – searches random phrases in Google for you, adding noise to your history

Mike Brazier

Hacking Team, a company based in Milan has been making headlines lately due to its product: RCS (Remote Control System). RCS is a piece of software which is capable of logging passwords, recording internet communication (e-mail, VOIP, and instant messaging), using a PC’s webcam to take pictures, and transmitting locally stored files. RCS is, by even the most conservative definitions, spyware. What makes RCS particularly interesting is that it is sold in the open, rather than on the black market like most malware. Additionally, it is marketed specifically to governments around the world – specifically governments known for suppressing free speech.  There isn’t a whole lot of information available on what RCS users are specifically using the software for, but The Citizen Lab recently linked RCS to an incident where it was being used to spy on Ethiopian journalists.

This raises some obvious ethical questions about Hacking Team’s business model. Is it ethical to sell intrusive software like this? Hacking Team defends itself by claiming that the tool is made to be used for crime-fighting and anti-terrorism. The company also notes that it only sells directly to clients, and that all clients are reviewed by a board of engineers and lawyers who can veto a sale if it appears it will be used in human rights abuses.

Over the last couple months when Verizon (VZ fortune 500) users have been using Netflix the streaming of their movie or TV show that they are watching has been slowed down.  Verizon wants Netflix to pay them for using their FIOS network.  Netflix traffic can take up to a third of FIOS’s network in the United States at peak times.  This is out of the norm because broadband service usually doesn’t make each other pay for using their networks because they both benefit from the traffic.  Netflix states that Verizon is not improving their network (VZ fortune 500), and they are using their monopoly to put in a “toil road” for Netflix using Verizon’s network.  While Verizon said that they wanted to do whatever will benefit both services.

This whole dispute relates to net-neutrally.  The question is does Verizon have the right to make Netflix pay for using the network VZ fortune 500.  The simple answer is that they don’t have the right because Netflix cannot help if some of their customers use VZ fortune 500 to stream movies and TV shows.  If we look at the act utilitarianism; if Verizon would improve their network it would coast them in the short run but, in the long run it would strengthen their relationship with Netflix.  Also giving VZ fortune 500 users a better network and faster streaming speeds which would increase their happiness.  Plus Netflix would be happy that they won’t have to pay for the people streaming on Verizon’s network.  If Verizon makes Netflix pay for the broadband service, Netflix may not stream on XZ fortune 500 networks.

Aereo is a New York based company that provides an online service streaming over-the air broadcasts on live and time-shifted streams. Retransmitting over-the-air broadcasts usually requires licensing fees to be paid to the original broadcasting agency. Aereo is attempting to create a legal loophole by requiring each subscriber to rent a unique antenna and unique DVR storage space, users are also required to be within the range of the broadcast that they are streaming or the service will be cut until the user reenters broadcast range . Regardless, a coalition of broadcasters including CBS, Comcast, Disney, 21st Century Fox, and others filed suit against Aereo. The legal ramifications of this are pretty far reaching. On one hand, there is legislation that requires Cable and satellite providers to pay licensing fees in order to retransmit over-the-air broadcasts. On the other there is a legal precedent, from the same district court that would have jurisdiction over Aereo, which says if a unique recording is used for a private performance the location of the recording device does not change its legality. In July 2012 a federal judge sided with Aereo and the decision was upheld at an appeals court in April 2013. The coalition of broadcasters filed a petition with the Supreme Court in October 2013 and as of January 2014 the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. This case exemplifies several of the issues were have discussed regarding copyright. It is very hard to argue that retransmitting or DVR services steal from the original broadcaster; by opening the broadcasts to a wider user-base, advertisements would reach more people and recover allow the original distributer to recover any lost profits by charging more for advertisements. If Aereo is able to survive this lawsuit, it could be step in the right direction for broadcast media.

I decided to do a little research on how covering songs and copyright works. As stated in class, copyright attempts to protect distribution, performing, reproduction, displayed, and adapted. So when someone records or performs a cover song there must be some sort of rules that go along with putting it in front of the public. I found an article written by a guy who went through the process of making it legal to distribute covers on a CD. It turns out there are 2 types of licensing, mechanical and digital, which are self explanatory. Also, there are 3 main ways to do this, paying a legal firm specializing in musical licensing, going straight to the publisher to get legal right, or go to the library of Congress. All of which cost some amount of money, 8.50 cents for songs 5 minutes and then there is usually a filing fee. From Dan’s experience is mostly just seems like a lot of paperwork but not difficult (unless you get denied which there is nothing you can do about).

I was also interested in performing covers at concerts. And apparently it is completely legal to do so as long as the venue has the proper license. There is a fee  that venues pay to PRO, performing rights organization, and that makes it okay for bands to perform covers at there venue.

Also they covered Youtube covers, which is kind of complicated. But sometimes publishers and put ads and monetize cover videos, or the videos might be taken down.

Basically, it seems that as long as the publisher gets their royalties for the song, they will be happy.

To many aspiring programmers, creating a game whose popularity spreads like wildfire would seem to be a great stroke of luck.  However, as the simple-yet-infuriatingly hard game known as “Flappy Bird” rose to the top of the Apple App Store and Google Play, its creator, Dong Nguyen, demonstrated increasing amounts of stress and disappointment over his twitter account.  Eventually, he made the decision to pull the game off the App Store and Google Play, despite speculation that he was generating as much as $50,000 per day in ad revenue.  In his first interview since taking down the game, Dong acknowledges that the game is wildly profitable, yet still elaborates on why he felt it was right to take it down.  In short, Dong stated that Flappy Bird “was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed”, but that it turned into “an addictive product”.

While analyzing the moral implications of a game creator taking down his own free game may seem trivial, there are still some interesting questions to be raised.  Was what Dong did the right thing to do?  From an act utilitarian standpoint, it would seem that the small amount of relief Dong can now experience is much less important than the millions of people who enjoy the game, making Dong’s choice wrong.  Or perhaps these players are subconsciously unhappy, but are too addicted to the game to realize its toll.  Furthermore, the moral rights theory approach would likely say that Dong has complete control to do what he wants with the game, seeing as it is a product of his own skill and creativity.  Does anyone else think removing Flappy Bird was or was not justified?

Recently, Debian GNU/Linux (“the universal operating system”) has come under fire for it’s politics, centered around which init system to use by default.

So, what’s an init system? Well, in Unix and Unix-like operating systems (I’ll refer to them as *nix, or just nix) init is the first thing that starts when your computer turns on. It starts everything else (usually things called daemons) that makes your system work. In the past, System V init has been used, that is, there is a program that executes a set of shell scripts in 5 different levels, each of which are started in alphabetical order. Historically stable and portable (working on all *nix systems) it is slow, but powerful.

Recently, there have been calls to replace the default init system in Debian, a historically stable and slow-to-change distribution of GNU/Linux (where distribution means Linux+GNU in a nice package). With this, comes a great debate on what to choose.

On the one hand, there is Systemd. Systemd is fast, and can use dependencies for init scripts (ie, wait for one to finish before starting another). It also makes logging easier, works much faster (for faster boots), and most of all, writing system services is exponentially easier. However, with these benefits come negatives. For one, it is not POSIX compliant, that is, it is specific only to Linux and doesn’t work on any of the other unixes (or unicies, unixen). Additionally, userland applications like logind and udev are now included or explicitly dependent on systemd. Is it ethical for software to be written in such a manner that it only benefits a subset of the community? Is it ethical to ignore alternatives in which all could benefit?

Another option is Upstart. Developed by Canonical (the company behind the popular distribution Ubuntu), it is event-based instead of dependency based. This means that, when events happen on the system, Upstart can react. Originally designed to make Ubuntu boot faster, it offers numerous advantages over a System V init system. However, in order for people to contribute, Canonical reserves the right to relicense their work later under a closed source license. Although Upstart could work on multiple platforms, it hasn’t been done in the past so it would require work. Is it ethical for a software project to require that contributions be allowed to be re-licensed under whatever they please?

A final option is openRC. POSIX compliant, and fast, it offers most of the advantages of a System V system while also staying minimal. However, it is experimental and as such has been largely ignored by the debate.

As of this writing, the Debian project chose Systemd. Do you think that was the right option? I look forward to comments

-chris