Assignment 2 Submissions

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Assignments

Assignment 1 Details and Reporting | Submissions
Due February 8

Assignment 2 | Submissions
Due February 22

Assignment 3 | Submissions
Due March 8

Assignment 4 Details and Links | Submissions
Due April 5

Final Project | Submissions
Due May 10

This assignment is due on February 22. Grading for this assignment is on a 5-point scale; late assignments will be docked 1 point for each day they are late (assignments submitted 4 days late or later will have a maximum grade of 1 point).

The upload file link is to the left, under toolbox. Once you've uploaded your file, please link to it following the format below:

  • Name:
  • Prospectus title:
  • Link to prospectus: (the file you uploaded)

If you have trouble finding the file you uploaded, check the list of uploaded files.

Comments

Everyone will receive an additional participation grade for this assignment. You should read through everyone's proposals after they are uploaded and add constructive comments below the proposal on which you're commenting. Comments should be submitted by March 6 so you have time to incorporate them, if applicable, into your project outline. (Remember to sign your comments!)

Submissions







Greetings Brian! I found your research idea very creative and the methodology you are planning to utilize seems realistically achievable, although some instruments used by government and private marketing agencies are very difficult to trace and require special software and equipment. I have a topic idea that may coincide with a notion of privacy you are investigating, so I may cite your work in my project. What I found to be inconsistent is that your methods seem to be distant on the instrumental level from your hypothetical statements, that is, it is undetermined how your method will help to prove or reject either of your hypotheses. In fact, even doctorate dissertations attempting to either reject or accept only one hypothesis. It is in quantitative sciences we test several hypothesis in order to corroborate the validity of the expression or formula, etc., but not in the research as far as academic papers suggest. In terms of your definition of location, it is unclear whether your are talking about the IP address based location or mobile device based location, if it is about mobile device only (most hosts like schools and bosses may hunt for both mobile and the laptop IP to trace their employee or a student) then you need to state so in your research and in the proposal as well. I know one thing for sure that with arrival of the wireless technology it became much more harder for Federal agents to trace hackers: it is technologically more convenient to retain privacy through the public wireless router. I think you will benefit from setting up a singular and more definite hypothetic statement that will encapsulate the entire topic. In addition, you would make the research more productive and to the point if you will add the limitations to your research so that your process will have its bottom line. Check out this research, it could be helpful or at least you can retrieve some more sources from in-context citations: http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/~adillon/Journals/Expertise-JASIS.htm Good Luck! --VladimirK 20:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)






Vladimir, thank you for your resources. I have been reading your prospectus and found your approach as interesting as ambitious. To investigate wether the U.S. Government maintains Constitutional transparency and accountability for the tax money expenditures using e-government resources, that is a very well focused research and I can tell you are passionate about the topic, which makes the reading even more interesting. However, when you talk about conspiracy relating it with the internet resources, I have to disagree. I think power and conspiracy are long-time friends, governments have faced every kind of suspicions since they exist, but the importance of digital resources when it comes to spreading these suspicions cannot be denied, and that is why I think your research will face very interesting issues to deal with, as investigating the origin of "conspiracies" from a social point of view. Do you think the Internet is a cause or a consequence? I think about WikiLeaks, for example. The Internet had nothing to do with the origin of the cables, but made them become a "popular" topic, blurring the "secret" component of International Politics. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? We are talking about serious crimes becoming nearly gossip (we could talk further about a Spanish journalist murdered in Iraq and how Spanish and American Governments made a deal to make it look like an accident: that's on WikiLeaks). But now it looks like nothing happened. Amazon was selling the cables for Kindle, Julian Assange is to be extradited to Sweden in a week and I highly doubt any of the "accused" by, or thanks to, WikiLeaks, is to face trial. When you say that I am adressing a brave category of people ready to risk their lives for the "right cause", that is exactly the interesting thing about this. Why would someone get into trouble for nothing? However, it calls my attention that you take for granted that their cause is the right one. I see in your statement that you look pretty convinced about conspiracies when it comes to very sensitive and historic topics. You assume the defense of one group, don't you doubt that the cause may not always be the right one? I find your statement so determined that it becomes intriguing to me (it is really hard to me to be sure about something), I will be following your work with interest to get a better understanding of your point of view. In the meantime, I hope to receive more suggestions or resources you may find interesting to check out about this topic. Lorena Abuín. --lorenabuin 21:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)








  • Name:Vladimir Trojak--VladimirTrojak 20:01, 20 February 2011 (UTC)
  • Prospectus title: Are different language groups consistent in what topics are permitted and what is removed?
  • Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2.pdf
  • Comments: Hello Vladimir, Your proposal is intriguing and I am looking forward to see how it evolves. I did have a question about why do you think that all the Wikipedia policies should be the same in all the language communities? Thanks. --SCL 03:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)











I noticed that there is a lot of crossover between our topics. We are both addressing hacker communities, but from differing angles. I have acquired quite a bit of information about Anonymous and have listed the resources on my tentative reference page located just below here. Feel free to look and use anything from that list that may help you in your project. Also, the Anonymous page found in Wikipedia is quite good in understanding what the Anonymous phenomenon is. They are free agents often acting independently of each other and unaffiliated with one another under the umbrella name Anonymous. In other words, Anonymous is a concept more than an identifiable specific group. I also noticed you have listed pastebin as a resource. It is my suggestion to be careful with that, and try to find where that document was published. It could simply be the rantings of teenager enamored with the publicity of their antics and activity. The questionable authenticity of that write pad entry to me is found in the signature at the bottom. It should read: We are Anonymous/We are legion/We do not forgive/We do not forget/Expect us-always. Lastly, keep in mind that not all Anonymous hacktivity is criminal, that is just the part that gets sensationalized. There are many other cyber-activism efforts that take place under the name of Anonymous that are not criminal. Good luck, and I look forward to watching your project develope! -----=:) Deinous 23:28, 23 February 2011 (UTC) for the #datalove

I found that some of your research objectives coincide with mine. I can assure you that people do use what is called "hacktivism" to oppose the lies and conspiracies of the U.S. Government. If you take a http://www.nogw.com/ alone you would be surprised how some of the secret documents happen to be available on line. For instance, the loan by the Wall Street Banks to finance Adolf Hitler's Army is not a secret nowadays because of the "hacktivism", although the fact and the document has been kept in secret from the Government of Soviet Union for decades. The role of the Jews in the mass murder of millions is proven with facts on the Holocaust denial web sites. I guess the major drive that motivates people to use their skill in the "wrong way" is to oppose the lie that is bigger in size and thus controls the legacy tools such as Media and Congress. Even children in New York City know that the twin towers were demolished by the "uniformed criminals" employed as the federal agents. Check out the list of literature on my prospectus and http://twilightpines.com//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=46 is just one out of dozens web sites. The U.S Government had no reason to deploy troops anywhere at the cost of the taxpayers' dollars. Do you think other citizens do not realize this? They do, but they join others in this giant lie and say that it is a war on terror, and they say this at Law Schools, through the public media, and post it online. These people are indifferent and coward because they lie to themselves and the so called prosecuted activities is the only way to reveal the truth. In your research you are therefore addressing a brave category of people who are ready to risk their lives for the simple yet amazingly right cause - to reveal the corrupted syndicate of greedy liars who oppresses people with their tyrannic power and ability to prosecute. If you are not afraid to cooperate on this project in front of the university staff, then take a look at my proposal and let me know what do you think. I may give you a couple of additional sources and suggestions, but if you do not want to be involved in this type of a project, I will totally understand. Best! --VladimirK 10:29, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Hai. Thanks for your response. I just thought that I would add that it is very important make the distinction between hackers and crackers. Unfortunately the media has not made this distinction clear and has tainted the meaning of the term hacker. In a nutshell, hackers create things and crackers break things. Most hackers look down upon crackers and dismiss them as technological bugs. Most hackers I know are not pleased with the criminal antics done in the name of Anonymous. It is true that collaborative write pads are in common use because of the ease to collaborate live together at once. Pastebin happens to not be one used for documents all that much though. It is mainly used to send larger pieces of text into chat protocols such as IRC without flooding the channel. Write pads such as typewith.me and piratepad.net are more common to use for group documents since the url is not made public and searchable, and is kept private among the group working on it. Also, an interesting comment about hacktivism made to me by a French hacker with whom I am in contact with simply and broadly described hacktivism as using technology to impact society. I think we must be careful, myself included, when we talk about cracker v. hackers. A classic document among hackers written and maintained by Eric Raymond, "How to Become a Hacker" describes the difference quite well.


Margaret, thanks a lot for your offering. I could really use some inside information about this topic. About your suggestion, I chose pastebin as a reference looking for a way to begin my research. You are right when you say that accuracy is not guaranteed when it comes to this source, but my main objective is to test the general perception of internet community about "hacktivism", I want to read about it in forums, press articles comments... See what normal people think about this. Of course, not every "hacktivist" action is a ciber-crime, but I am particularly interested in motivations that lead people to engage in certain projects that could be prosecuted depending on the country, as uploading copyrighted contents. I am sure we could find a lot of profit-driven actions, but I want to get deeper in personal motivations, since there are many so-called "cyber-crimes" that have nothing to do with obtaining a profit, at least a tangible one. When reading your prospectus, I came up with something very interesting: "Happy to help others who are not as advanced?". I think solidarity plays a huge role of hacktivism communities, empowered by the feeling of being passionate about some topic. I guess the desire to share sprouts from passion, but I think that the need of feeling part of a community is also very important, especially when it comes to very well defined criminals such as sex offenders and very sensitive content uploaders, communities widely persecuted but, however, still huge. While my prospectus adopts a more anthropological point of view, I see yours as an inside work with very valuable information about hacktivism running. I look forward to see how your research evolves and to learn more about these communities from a privileged point of view. Please don't hesitate to make any suggestion you may consider, I am sure it will be very helpful for my research. Lorena Abuín. --lorenabuin 21:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)












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