News Report 3

                It has been proposed that wire taps on internet sites should be more easily done.  Obama’s reasoning for this is that criminals now use the internet to communicate, rather than the phone, so they need a way to “track” their conversations.  They want to implement this plan for things such as Facebook, Skype, Google, and other popular internet programs.  However, the companies have not responded to this plan yet, for lack of details.  Also, before this plan is implemented, they will have to deal with the issue of people’s rights possibly being violated.

                I personally think this should be done, but there need to be some serious rules set into place before it’s done.  They need to make the program that does this very difficult to hack to avoid the general public’s privacy from being invaded.  Also they need to have probable cause along with evidence before they begin snooping through people’s internet lives.  I think it should also be monitored by a private company paired with the government rather than one of the other, that way the monitoring isn’t abused or doesn’t become out of control.  They would also have to make it known to users before they sign up for a program or website that the site is monitored and that what they do on it has the right to be investigated.  Therefore, I think it’s a good idea because many major terrorists meet and make plans over the internet now a days; however, they should have a way to keep the information secure and make sure that the monitoring isn’t abused.

KOPYTOFF, VERNE G. "Internet Wiretapping Proposal Met With Silence - NYTimes.com." Technology - Bits Blog - NYTimes.com. 28 Sept. 2010. Web. 28 Sept. 2010. <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/28/internet-wiretapping-proposal-met-with-silence/?ref=technology>.

Reading Report 2

The article “Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet”, talks about a fake/ made up website that talk about “lip balm addictions”.  When asked about the credibility of the website, the author referred to his site as misinformative, however, many people believed it and took it seriously by following his twelve step plan.  It goes on to talk about the classification of other false sites, such as false advertising sites are categorized as malicious, and “spoof/parody” websites are considered to be funny and humorous, but misleading.  The Martin Luther King Jr. site was created and passed off as the an official site, however it went on to defame him with the false claims about him “partying with women” and being a member of the communist party.  After talking about counterfeit websites, it talks about suspicious websites, which discusses the website that claimed that the Holocaust didn’t exist and another that says that Europeans were the first ones to settle North America, not the Native Americans.  The article also included information about 9/11 hoaxes on the Internet and false medical information from seemingly credible sights claiming to have cures/remedies.  It also talked about email hoaxes and comic fake websites, like the one sent to the women before 9/11 warning her not to go to the mall or on an airplane during the time of the attacks and website about “clones-r-us”. 

After reading this article, I learned to be more cautious about what I believe on the Internet.  I never would have thought to think, oh maybe this medical website has no idea what it’s talking about because it seemed legitimate.  It also taught me that you can really put whatever you want on the internet, and regardless of it’s accuracy, someone will believe it and take it seriously.  Therefore, I found the article to be very informative and helpful about Internet hoaxes.  

News Report 2

Google just finished working on a new search engine called “Google Instant”, which allows the user to view results while they type in what they are searching for.  By doing this, the process of typing in your search and clicking search is eliminated, which is supposed to save two to five seconds on each search.  Google recently told sources that they have been hinting at the new search engine for the past few days with their headings, and it will soon be released to the public.  Some are even calling the new search engine “psychic”.

It’s weird to me to think that soon when I go to Google that I won’t have to click search anymore.  However, I feel like it could slow down the search process because since it is able to suggest what you might by typing; someone could easily be distracted by other things that could be similar to what you’re searching for.  For example, you could be typing in the word dogmatic to look up it’s definition, but you could easily be distracted by dog websites because they would, without a doubt come up in the search.  Somehow, the thought of Google being any faster than it already is blows my mind.  It only takes like 2.5 seconds to generate about 2 million results.  Who knows how many it will find in those 2.5 seconds with the new search engine.  However, I still think that it is a cool concept and would make searching quicker if you’re not easily distracted, and it would defiantly satisfy the “instant gratification” world/generation that we live in today.

Cheng, Jacqui. "Google Search Becomes Psychic with Dynamic Results, Predictions." Ars Technica. 9 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Sept. 2010. <http://arstechnica.com/web/news/2010/09/google-search-becomes-psychic-with-dynamic-results-predictions.ars>.

Reading Report 1

I thought it was interesting to hear that Wikipedia has a declining number of contributors, but I guess it had to slow down sometime.  I guess some people are running out of things to write about?  I think part of its decline was caused by the fact that they are screening what is posted now to prevent false information from being posted.  It’s a good idea though because now we can feel more confident in the information we get from Wikipedia.  Maybe one day we will even be allowed to use it as a source for research papers, because in the past, my teachers have always told me not to use Wikipedia because its not always factual.  I also found it interesting that he compared the lack of a “rush” when posting something on Wikipedia to a population of bunnies. 

           

I learned that Wikipedia is less than ten years old, yet it has 820,000 million contributors.  Also I learned that they only considered their information to be unreliable after a contributor added himself to the suspect list in the Abraham Lincoln shooting.  You think that they would have looked over their information on things that are of serious importance like that before they let the post up, however they thought of that later, after the incident.  It surprised me that only 13 percent of their contributors were women.  I thought that it would have been a more equal amount of men and women.  Overall, I found the article to be very interesting and informative.