Technologies of Politics and Control - User contributions [en]

Final Projects

2011-05-11T01:54:40Z

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Final Projects

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Assignment 4 Submissions

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Assignment 4 Submissions

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Assignment 4 Submissions

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Assignment 4 Submissions

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Assignment 4 Submissions

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Assignment 3 Submissions

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Assignment 3 Submissions

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Assignment 2 Submissions

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<big>'''Assignments'''</big>

'''[[Assignment 1 Details and Reporting]]''' | [[Assignment 1 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 8''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_2:_Prospectus| Assignment 2]]''' | [[Assignment 2 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 22''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_3:_Project_Outline| Assignment 3]]''' | [[Assignment 3 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due March 22''

'''[[Assignment 4 Details and Links]]''' | [[Assignment 4 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due April 12''

'''[[Final Project]]''' | [[Final Projects|Submissions]]<br />
''Due May 10''

</div>
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).

Please make sure the name of your file includes your name (example: Name_Assignment2.doc) to avoid overwriting someone else's assignment. ''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 [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Special:ImageList 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===
*Name: Gagan Panjhazari --[[User:Gpanjhazari|Gpanjhazari]] 07:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Role of Censorship Of the Internet in the Egypt and Libya
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/GaganPanjhazari-Assignment2.txt
*Comment: You might want to check the article I posted on the Feb 22 assignment page that appeared in the New York Times. Might be helpful on your first topic. <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

*Comment: Gagan, I find both of your topic choices interesting. I think the second one, regarding the ability to hold website creators responsible for their content, especially when said content could be considered treasonous, would be the best topic of the two. It is such an important question, the answer to the question will frame our national security for the future. With either topic, I look forward to reading your findings. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Frontline, the PBS program, had an episode about the April 6 Movement in Egypt, including how it used the interent and mobile devices for organization and how it was forced to adapt when access was cut. There isn't a whole lot of detail here, but it might be a useful place to start. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 02:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid

*Hai!...I love your idea of covering the censorship and even internet blackouts at times in Egypt and Libya along with the role that social networking and tweeps had in organizing the recent protests, and ousting of Mubarak. This is a fascinating narrative to be sure. Here are a few links about a European internet activist group that has worked to provide low tech communication aid to the protesters. I hope they might be of use to you in your research. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/egypts-internet-blackout-highlights-danger-weak|Egypt's Internet Blackouts Highlights Danger of Weak Links, Usefulness of Quick Links], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Main_Page | werebuild.eu the Egyptian project page], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Libya/Main_Page | werebuild.eu, the Libyan project page], and [http://telecomix.org/ | telecomix.org] [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ | Global Voices]has done an outstanding job of covering these events as well. Best of luck![[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 01:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Gagan, both your topics are interesting. According to the description of the Final Project it should be built around one of the theoretical conceptions that we study during the course.So if you think about the conceptions that may apply to your topics, it will help you to chose one of two topics proposed by you and, perhaps, to generate your questions and hypothesis around the theoretical conception as the Final Project demand. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Saam Batmanghelidj --[[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 10:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Effect of Synthetic World Communities on Real World Societies, Economies, and Copyright law
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Batmanghelidj_Final_Project_Prospectus.doc

*Comment: Hi Saam, I think your topic of synthetic or virtual worlds. I had a suggestion that you take a look at BitCoin (http://www.bitcoin.org/), this is an emerging technology that only started up a short time ago. It's a fascinating technology that deals with a new form of money (yes it can be exchanged for real money and is currently trading 1 for 1 with the US dollar). Some interesting things about it: uses public/private encryption keys, it's completely anonymous, it has great potential to circumvent certain banking regulation systems, it can be used to make real purchases, because of it's anonymity and cannot be tracked creates a security of privacy for the purchaser and seller. This also means could could be exploited by people not wanting transactions to be recorded. This technology really opens a virtual door of monetary exchange across the globe where any currency can be exchanged for BitCoins and then exchanged again into a different currency. This is just a top end look at it. It's already in use and some places accept this currency including some non-profit agencies for donation purposes. It also opens an easy way to laundry dirty money. Regards Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi , Saam. The topic is very interesting, but, I’m not sure that questions you want to answer will help you to develop the topic deeply and systemically: the questions are not in a strong correlation with your topic, I think they will not disclose the topic in full and from the main sides of it. You also use such phrase as “virtual property”, what do you mean by this? Is it the same as intellectual property? If yes, I think, it’s better to use the term “intellectual property”. You also pose such question as “How harmful is it for people to sell virtual items for real world monies, and to what extent is it harmful?” So you’ve already decided that it’s harmful, may be, it’s worth to give some arguments in your work why you decided it’s harmful. If you consider “the Synthetic World Communities” as the theoretical concept you want to use in the Final Project, you can try to determine the main features of this concept, then divide your hypothesis into three sphere ( society, economic and copyright law) and pose the main, in your opinion, questions in each of the spheres, regarding the theoretical basis you chose. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Kimberly Nevas --[[User:KimberlyNevas|KimberlyNevas]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Can the U.S. Prosecute Julian Assange?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Nevas_Kimberly_LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2.pdf
*Comment: It might also be interesting to see if any other sites purporting to disclose sensitive information whether government or corporate have become more aggressive considering all the confusion about what to do with Julian Assange. Does his legal situation make these sites feel more confident regarding avoiding prosecution? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>
*Comment: Your statement, "In this respect, Assange cannot be considered any more liable than the New York Times." is a bold one, which some might strongly disagree with, given Assange's postings and his refusal to censor, along with his use or threatened use of yet unreleased information as leverage to keep himself free. I look foward to reading your arguments regarding Assange, freedom of speech and the case law which supports your position. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Kimberly. The problem you decided to consider in the Prospectus is really important and actual. But I think that the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, that you pose describing the Problem is wider than the Research question. Perhaps, it’s worth to add the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, to your Research question as the main one. And your present research question: Are the distribution methods adopted by Wikileaks for the dissemination of thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents structured so as to arm Julian Assange and his associates with a strong defense to prosecution under U.S. law?” will help you to answer your main question. Your present research question can be also considered as a research frame, so that you can explore the distribution methods of Wikileaks to answer if they really make the obstacles for the Justice Deparment to prosecute Assange and if yes to what extend; are the distribution methods of Wikileaks the main obstacles which do not permit the Justice Department to prosecute Assange or there are the other obstacles (for ex., with respect to the features of free press)? [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March, 2011.

*Name: Jamil Buie
*Prospectus Title: Profiteering via "Public Privacy" The use/misuse of your data
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JBProject_Prospectus.pdf

*Comment: Hi Jamil, For me this is a an extremely important issue, I'm glad to see you're looking at it. I have a few pointers that may help uncover some things that are currently being looked at and something that was done in the UK back in 2008. Do a search for Phorm, BT implemented it in secrecy and it caused a big uproar. Also, it appears that ComCast is looking to implement it here in the US. It deals with deep level packet inspection. Not sure how tech savvy you are, but basically it comes down to an ISP looking at each packet users are sending out over their home connection. It is suppose to be done anonymously, however, it's invasive to the nth degree. Another technology that you might want to look at is the Evercookie. This can be used by websites that a user goes to, this then gathers information about a great number of browsing files that are on a system to ID the system. In the instance that a user cleans up his/her cookies, EverCookie will still be able to quickly identify you and place certain cookies back on your computer being able to keep tabs on the user. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Jamil. In your Prospectus, you write the following: “While most do understand that they are interacting with a third-party be it a site, search engine, or ISP they remain ignorant to how the data they’re providing is being farmed out or utilized in a commercial vein”. I can agree with you only partly: of course, we could not exclude the situations, when the data we provided are an object of unfair use, but it should be also mentioned that “the main players” of the Internet services do not ignore users, thus they stay uninformed about the way their data are used. For ex., Yahoo Privacy Policy http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html or Google Privacy http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ In the question: What are the common guidelines and site best practices? you use such phrase as “site best practices”, that is very subjective category, as also the question: “Are consumers truly aware?”. Perhaps, it’s better to avoid such categories in your science research. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Uduak Patricia Okon
*Prospectus Title: Web Pages/Blog Sites: Rights and Limitations-How free are you?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Uduak_Patricia_Okon_Assign_2.pdf
Comment
Hi Uduak,

Your prospectus is very interesting. I look forward to seeing how your project comes together. But I have some comments that I would like to share, I hope my feedback is helpful.

Re:
- In general, people are entitled to share facts if they don’t breach confidentiality or depict a real situation. This would depend on how citizen bloggers support their argument about their political commentary, whether it’s positive or negative. You need to remember that politicians are public figures, so the first amendment applies differently to them. Therefore the confidential circumstances that apply to the general population do not apply to politicians since they are not entitled to the same level of privacy. And citizen bloggers don’t have to adhere to the same circumstances as journalists to the best of my knowledge (I major in journalism and work in media in NYC) (i.e. it’s considered unethical for journalists to be bias if they’re not commentary writers. Also most journalists are not allowed to put political figure signs on their lawn, bumper sticker on their car, etc they need to push their feelings aside to accurately report the truth). I think the bigger issue is whether or not non-citizen bloggers can face defamatory lawsuits if there is proof they intentionally acted with malice? Or will future non-citizens bloggers have to abide by the same guidelines as employed journalists in the blogosphere working for CNN?
- Corporate law is an entirely different world. Because many corporations lie to promote their brand among many other issues on the internet, which is unethical to their consumers.
- I don’t think you should look into news websites like CNN, NY Times, etc because those are explicitly run by paid journalists (whom must adhere to strict guidelines about what they report) and comments are very restricted so the same type of freedom doesn’t apply to citizen journalists because official journalists also have code of ethics and have much more at stake.
- It's important to note that some citizen bloggers sell advertising on their blogs which might impede with how they portray a public figure on the net because they're getting paid. Formally employed journalists can't bias their stories based on relationships with advertisers because the editorial and advertising departments are seperate at news organizations.
- You, first need to narrow your focus because there is a huge difference between local mayors and congressional candidates, and citizen and non-citizen bloggers. (i.e. I think it would be interesting if you looked at how political figures use blogging as a form of position taking in Congress and compare cases of democratic and republican candidates on an issue like healthcare reform, education, etc. And the implications blogging has on Senators or Representatives relationships with their constituents).

*Name: Yaerin Kim [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: OpenCourseWare(OCW) and its Impact: Case Study of MIT’s OCW
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Kim.doc

*Comment: Hi Yaerin, I think this is a great topic. Being a part of F/OSS environment has pushed forward a number of wonderful software innovations. Scratch is an example of MIT's commitment to OCW. Scratch, though at first glance might appear comical, is actually a great tool to teach people the concepts of early stages of computer programming. I'm sure there are tons of other open source software that would interest you. I would suggest, if you have a spare computer or can run a virtual environment, downloading and running a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Then you can take a look at the rich repository of software that is completely free to install and use. Some of the software is not F/OSS, such as Adobe Reader, but the disclaimers of Left-Copied software is always clear. Anything that came from MIT would also give credit to that source even if it's been morphed. Best regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: William Bauser -- [[User:Wnb|Wnb]] 23:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Modern Web Design and Civic Engagement: Access to Information and Community Development
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Wnb_assignment2.pdf
*Comment: This is an interesting topic -- you have a lot of avenues to explore! Among the sites you list, some are clearly partisan while others seem more altruistic. I would be interested to learn the contrast of methods used by each type. For example, what are the membership requirements? Does the site encourage a particular philosophy? Does a certain amount of selective cocooning take place? On the other side, how can an Internet based civic community be both neutral and vital? If it is only fact based then it won't be interesting. How does is promote community discussions without advocating a position? I'm sure you'll have to narrow the focus of your chosen topic and I thought this might be an interesting distinction you could use. [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Brian Smith [[User:Smithbc|Smithbc]] 23:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Location-Based Services: Implications and Awareness of Effects on Consumer Privacy
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Brian_Smith_-_Assignment_2.pdf

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! --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Yu Ri Jeong --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 22:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: How manifestations of collective intelligence vary in different cultures and societies: Study on Naver Knowledge iN of South Korea in comparison with Wikipedia.
*Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Yu_Ri_Jeong_Internet_and_Society_Assignment_2_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

This is a really interesting topic! I hadn't known that South Korea had so strongly resisted the dominance of Wikipedia. I am curious, even if you do not include these questions in your paper, to hear what you think is unique about South Korea that it managed to create its own version of Wikipedia. Was it simply a question of timing, or is there something about South Korean Internet culture that allowed it to rally around its own creation. I also wonder what this means for Wikipedia. As a result of the lack of participation by South Korean Internet users, does Wikipedia suffer from a gap in information about South Korean culture, politics or society? I think the paper you have laid out in your prospectus is very thorough and complete, but I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions separately as you continue your research! [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Yuri! I think your research would reveal some very interesting points about the difference between the Korean Naver website and Wikipedia. If I may suggest, it would be interesting to analyze the difference in user demographic between the two websites. This would assist your analysis for Question #3. Also, since Naver seems to be a for-profit organization, it would be interesting to analyze how profitable NKin has been and contrast it to the non-profit model of Wikipedia. [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: La Keisha Landrum [[User:llandrum|llandrum]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Building a Sustainable News Org
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LNLAssignment2.doc

*Comment: Hi La Keisha, It's good to see you're approaching this hot topic. I think most Americans are rather clueless about the current demise of the media or at least they are clueless as to why the media has been in a state of disintegration over the past 30 years. The newspaper companies came to late to the Internet forum and due to their lack of response they lost the "first-to-line" efforts in advertising & classified revenues. Aggregators and bloggers have only worsened the situation for major media, not to mention giants like Google and Craigslist drawing away advertising dollars. Still, a more important aspect is that experienced journalists need to continue to be supported in doing investigative reporting. Looking at detail as to how the different models of moving forward and the benefits might be speculative at this point, but we have seen some success stories in new ways to successfully report on current events. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hello La Kiesha! This is a very interesting and important topic for the future well being of journalism. According to your prospectus, it seems that you are interested in the profit aspect of the emergence of new internet-based journalism. If this is the case, it would be helpful if you can offer comparison in income for the aforementioned journalist. In other words, how much did these journalist as an employee of a traditional publisher and how much are they making now with their innovative website? Also, it would be interesting to know who is willing to patron these professional journalists. I think the lecture slides from March 1 would be very helpful as well. Good luck![[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jillian York[[User:Jyork|Jyork]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Understanding "Lesbanon": Lebanon's Online Lesbian Community
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Understanding_Lesbanon.doc
Comment: Hey Jillian, I think this is such a great paper topic. I love how secretive communities can still operate out in the public through using the internet. The value of anonymity in this case seems like it must be very high, especially if there are governmental pressures keeping women from coming out. I had no idea that "Lesbanon" existed but it really does make perfect sense. Maybe if there are other communites out there like this, you could make a broader statement on the nature of coming out on the internet despite oppressive governments and societal norms. Otherwise, I think your question is quite reigned in and manageable in scope. I look forward to reading this paper when you're finished. [[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 18:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Caroline McLoughlin[[User:Camcloughlin|Camcloughlin]] 21:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Privacy and Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment-2.pdf
*Comments: Caroline, I, too, was interested in writing a paper more inclined to policy arguments and Rebekah counseled me against it. I got the impression we are supposed to be more observant of communities and how they interact and work. If this is true, you might lean your paper more towards observing whether privacy policies are adequately disclosed on sites in the US and how they are different on Canadian sites. Is this difference due to the contrasting privacy legal frameworks in the two countries? Do participants react differently?This might also help narrow your topic which seems like alot of material to cover. All this being said, I find your topic very interesting and think it might be great to present it in something like a PowerPoint format. Would be the great beginnings of a law review article if you are a lawyer.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 21:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name:Anthony Crowe [[User:Acrowe|Acrowe]]
*Prospectus title: Tagging and Metadata on the Internet and in New Media
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Crowe_LSTUE120_2.doc
*Comments:

I like that you've identified another means of content organization for study. I feel like tagging is going to be a rich topic, not only because of the ways people use it, but because of how it defines or redefines website architectures. I don't really know much about tags beyond their most obvious uses (and frankly, on in Twitter), so I am curious to see what kind of social rules you discover in your research. The only thing I might suggest is that, given the richness of your topic, that you not worry about studying superusers too deeply. I feel like a thorough study of tagging on the three main sites you've identified, which are pretty major sites, in addition to the other examples you'll be incorporating, will be more than enough data and analysis for a great paper. Unless perhaps I'm not understanding the particular lens through which you'll be approaching the superuser question? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Vladimir Kruglyak --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 21:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: A Transparency of the U.S. Government in the Socio-Cyber Environment
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I see a potential flaw in your methodology, and find it potentially invasive of a web surfer's privacy. Collecting data by sniffing packets is rather dubious for your uses and can be construed as an abuse of networking tools. Trying to parse the IP addresses into geographical locations through a Whois database may be difficult to and inaccurate if users are using proxy based anonymizers such as Tor or i2p. It is for this reason, among others, that many people chose to use anonymizers when they surf. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 04:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all for the creative comments addressed toward my prospectus, although the assignment says to add constructive suggestions which can help an author to improve his project. I think it is little bit unfair to help others reconstruct their idea and receive nothing in return. I guess that is all I can get from the general public. If however, someone in this course really knows about the internet traffic analysis, you are welcome to suggest substantial changes. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Vladimir, I apologize if I said anything to upset or discouraged you in any way. I meant my comment to be constructive in raising an ethical question to your research methodology in regards to the privacy of web surfers. U can certainly observe and aggregate traffic through packet sniffing network tools, but I would not be so trusting in precise geographical locations of the IP addresses for the reasons that I mentioned. However, with a large enough sample you could perhaps get a general feel for regional traffic. Again, I meant no disrespect and look forward to your project evolving.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 21:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name:Corey MacDonald [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 20:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Fringe Forums for the Under-represented
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_Assignment_2_MacDonald.doc
*Comments:

Wow! This is a great prospectus, I feel like these kinds of sites are the perfect places to be asking these questions. So many of the conversations we've had in class have centered around how to best facilitate legal social interactions. I'm excited to read your analysis of how semi-legal and illegal topics are handled by users, administrators and legal bodies on these forums. I'd be curious to see if legal action had ever been taken against the users of these sites, or whether the information posted on them had ever been used in legal action against someone else, like as evidence or tips on possible illegal goings-on? Are there any specific government agencies that track activity on these kinds of sites? Are any extra precautions taken to protect the anonymity of contributors? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 20:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Corey this is a interesting topic, the existence of sites like Erowid and “the chemical underground” highlight how (especially the US) government are losing the battle to control drug information. A “non-event” that may be of interest to you is the DEA making Microgram public in 2003. Microgram was a law enforcement restricted newsletter aimed at forensic chemists and its release made very little impact on the “chemical underground” due to the wealth of information on illicit drugs that was already available.
Here’s a link to an article that might be useful/interesting http://www.michaelerard.com/fulltext/2006/08/open_secrets_how_the_governmen.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Richard (Rick) Kundiger --[[User:Rakundig|Rakundig]] 19:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Role of Bittorrent in the Internet Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Kundiger_Assignment_2_Research_Prospectus.pdf
*Comment: This is a great example of "code is law." You have a very powerful tool (the bittorrent protocol) which can be used for both good an illicit purposes. Your investigation of the different interests for and against its deployment should provide an excellent case study. Does a company or government have more of a right than an individual to control the protocols in use? Are those opposed to the protocol trying to protect the greater good of the Internet or their own financial interests? [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Rick, I also like this topic. One thing you could really expand upon is the use of P2P (point to point) connections has also drivin forward such technologies as Skype. This type of technology was also never intended to be used for illicit purposes, but then again the Internet was never designed to be used in many of the ways it is used today. VoIP actually breaks the TCP/IP model where packets were never intended to be treated in such a timely fashion. Another item is that it was used by WikiLeaks to keep Assange a bit more safe, which could be interpreted both good and bad. It's also amazing that the record industry had enough lobby power to take down some of the most famous P2P services. There's also the aspect that businesses deal with a very real threat of employees using bittorrent technologies. The executive that installs a P2P client and accidentally shares out his entire drive has been a very real issue for companies to combat. Further, then end use that also does something simular can share very personal information such as passport and bank account details with the world. Hope my comments have given you some help in this area of interest. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Mary Van Gils
*Prospectus title: Yelp Case Study - Freedom of Expression
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_-_Yelp_Study_Case.doc
*Comment: Wanted to make you aware as you investigate the external restriciton on freedom of expression regarding the Yelp site that there are also types of businesses which are regulated by state law as to how they may respond to reviews/complaints on sites like Yelp. If you look at my prospectus, you will note insurance companies are one of those types of businesses.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name: Susan Jennings [[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)]]
*Prospectus title: Annuity Companies' Social Media Communities
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Annuity_Companies%27_Social_Media_Communities.doc

----

*Name: Alan Davies-Gavin & Alex Solomon
*Prospectus title: Architecture of Sites eHarmony and Match.com: contributions of membership data and effects on security and privacy.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment2ProjectProspectus.pdf

Alan and Alex, I think your topic is fascinating and I wanted to chip in my 2 cents which might help your research. Considering the different natures of sites that ultimately sell the same product, I would consider looking at how the two compete in response to one another. By this I mean, is Match doing something that eHarmony isn, and therefore, is eHarmony a bit jealous and trying to get into their market? I know that eHarmony lauched their more casual spinoff "Jazzed.com" which is meant to steal people away from Match. Is Jazzed a suggestion that privacy isn't all that important to frustrated singles? I think that there are also rather large differences in target audience between the two competitors, with eHarmony focusing on a bit older, more conservative crowd while Match goes for the "single and ready to mingle."Also, perhaps look at each companies approach to user profile creation over time, have they changed at all and in what ways? This looks like it'll be an exciting project, I'm looking forward to what you find! ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Thanks Tym. I like your observations and I think they may well contribute to our research and final content. It's a good perspective that you bring to light. Alan --[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

----

*Name: Kristina Meshkova
*Prospectus title: A music sharing site - Grooveshark, Soundcloud, MySpace.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignement_2_%28Kristina_Meshkova%29.pdf
*Comment: Hey Kristina, I think we have some similar ambitions in regards to our final project. Let's chat tonight if you have any interest in potentially working together [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 14:31, 1 March 2011.

*Name:Vladimir Trojak--[[User:VladimirTrojak|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. --[[User:SCL|SCL]] 03:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment. I hope it will turn in the way I expect:)I believe that in general they shoudl be the same, such as 'neutral point of view', 'verifiability'. Although there may be differences in other policies because of different laws, such as topics you can speak about. You have any suggestions?Thanks.[[User:VladimirTrojak|VladimirTrojak]] 18:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Faye Ryding [[User:FMRR|FMRR]] 23:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Trolls and vandals on Epinions.com
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Faye_Ryding_Assignment_2.doc

*Name: [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 16:59, 21 February 2011
*Prospectus title: Groooveshark music application
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.pdf
*Comments: Hi, Alex. Sorry that didn't answer you earlier. Will be glad to discuss an opportunity to work together on the Final project. Let's discuss it next week in a chat room or via email. This is my email for the course: kristinam2907@gmail.com [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Robert Cunningham
*Prospectus title: The Archive Team
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Proposed_Paper_TopicCunningham.pdf

*Name: [[Joshuasurillo]]
*Prospectus title: The effect of government transparency websites- Wikileaks
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Harvard_assignment_2.doc
*Comment: Joshua, I am very much looking forward to your final product. Your position (or what I am assuming your postion to be) comes across very loud and clear in your prospectus. I wonder if you will reach an opinion as to where to draw the line on "free speech," or if no line should be drawn? My reading of your position if you were to define it today is that free speech must be protected at all costs and no limits are appropriate, at least that is the feeling I am left with from your prospectus. If wikileaks posted the location or identity of our undercover operatives in Iraq or elsewhere, would you support that? If not, what else would you feel would be "going to far?" I look forward to reading more from you. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Susan Lemont
*Prospectus title: Why do people cultivate large online networks?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Lemont_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

Unfortunately beyond the stated scope of your project (and not practical to include), but it would be interesting to see how your findings compare to similar surveys of Youtube users (who frequently seek comments, ratings, and channel subscriptions) and members of various online forums which award rankings, custom titles, "reputation", and other benefits to prominent posters based on peer imput. Good luck with this topic. (P.S. Also, it might be interesting try and determine what percentages of Facebook 'friends' of these users are A) people they know in real life vs. those relationships which are strictly online-only and B) what proportion of real life contacts were made prior to 'friending' vs. those which were made as a result of meeting virtually via facebook.) [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 04:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Chris Sura [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 03:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Java Community Process: How Does It Really Work?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Chris_Sura_Assignment_2.pdf

* Name: Ed Arboleda [[User:Earboleda|Earboleda]] 04:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Are there collective benefits for copyright owners, copyright infringers, and the general community; if copyright infringement is not enforced under specific circumstances on social media sites?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Ed_Arboleda_Prospectus.pdf

Comments:

Hi Ed, I certainly believe that in specific instances that there can be collective benefits for infringers and owners of copyright. One example is the pirating of the UK run of the TV series Battlestar Gallactica in Australia in October 2004. When the show aired in Australia in January 2005 the ratings exceeded expectations due to “sampling” and word of mouth. Here’s a link to an article with more information http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Elisha Surillo
* Prospectus title: The Tea Party and Internet Freedom
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

I'm confused. This link does not seem to take me to the correct prospectus? Elisha, could you update this to make sure I can access yours?

* Name: Brandon A. Ceranowicz - [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 08:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A Comparative Study of Open Source Licenses
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2_-_Prospectus_BAC.doc
*Comment: Hello Brandon! I think your topic can be very interesting. However I think it would be important for you to have a specific focus since the topic seems so broad. I don’t know how relevant this would be, but I suggest that you take a look at the Open Content License. (http://www.opencontent.org/opl.shtml) Good luck! [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Lorena Abuín
* Prospectus title: Contribution to prosecuted online activities (Anonymous, BitTorrent, WikiLeaks)
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2_-_Lorena_Abu%C3%ADn.pdf

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! -----=:) [[User:Deinous|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! --[[User:VladimirK|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, "[http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html How to Become a Hacker]" describes the difference quite well. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Hi Lorena. I think this is a great topic and I agree that you and Deinous seem to have a strong intersection of ideas. I think the comments I made under Deinous' posting are applicable here as well. It's good to see this topic having such strong discussion. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 04:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Margaret Tolerton [[User: deinous|deinous]]
* Prospectus title: Hackers, hacking groups, and Hacktivism: Anonymous v. Telecomix as a case study
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Anonymous_v_Telecomix_with_References.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL, I don't know how privileged my point of view is. I am more or less just another nerd with a computer on Friday and Saturday nights. In recent weeks I have come to feel as though the people of Telecomix have accepted me as one of their own though, as I have done a little public relations, fact checking, and some translations. Telecomix is very open about their work, and does not engage in illegal actions. Being mostly European, they lobby against, or for, various cyber laws to their respective Parliaments. What I meant though by my comment "happy too help others who are not as advanced" is that it is common for someone to ask a question of a technological nature and usually others jump in and help to solve the problem. For example, my switch over to Linux, I have been having quite a time configuring a few of my drivers, and getting used to working from a command line with unix syntax, and several people who know how to fix the problems will jump in and start coaching with many lulz along the way.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello there. I am delighted and in part surprised to see a topic of this type. By type I mean it is heavily technological mission to retrieve a piece of real information from the community of real hackers. Not all software engineers employed by the government are able to intervene communication among the community of real hackers. You may however, catch a few portals where "I can do this, I can do that" type of conversations take place, but whether they really have done something interesting and indeed reveal their ideology is a big speculation. For this course, I believe, you need to change your frequency, sort of speak, and listen not for the hacking communities themselves, but for the actions they have already done. Actions speak lauder than words, as you may know. You you need to listen to the anti-thesis, that is, the counter part of the hacking group. In this country, among various subsequent agencies that keep control of all networks, the NSA sources will probably be the most beneficial to you, although I am not 100 percent sure about this. It is difficult to find something that is available to the public. Recall the scandal with pornographic downloads by the employees of the Trade Commission; this is just one out of million examples of the internet traffic control by the Feds. It is therefore the Feds who are on the opposite side of the argument with the hackers. By considering both ideology of the hackers and a counter-premise by the Feds you will have a full and comprehensive picture for your project. In short, I am proposing to search not only within the hackers community, which may only seem as community of hackers and give you a bogus information, but also find reports, chronicles, and cases exposed by the Feds. It may ultimately appear that it is the Feds who are vandals and trolls and who violate privacy and steal the tax money of the citizens. At least this is what my prospectus's sources can prove, but take a look at National Security Agency [http://www.nsa.gov/] web site. In the meantime, I will keep checking on your project and will try to give you more clues because your topic coincides with mine in many regards. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 06:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and comments. I will certainly take them into consideration. However, I feel that my views toward hacking are much broader than the criminality of a few, and that there should be more emphasis in part on the difference between hacking and cracking. I am one that still holds the traditional meaning of a hacker as one that is adept with the computer and often generates new creative uses for what is in front of them. As a result I am watching my topic shift a bit and focusing perhaps more on the difficulty that researchers have with the DMCA preventing them from publishing in full their findings, and the law of fair use. Over this past year we have watched the jailbreaking of an iPhone of iPad for the use of external software not approved by Apple go from being an illegal act to being justified as fair use. Although it will nullify any warranty of your gadget. Currently we are watching this same debate occur over the jailbreaking of the Sony PS3 to run Linux and homebrewed games. I am one that supports the fair use argument in that if you are clever enough to make your gadgetry do fun and interesting things beyond the uses that they are intended, then you should be able to do it--especially if you have no intention on using pirated software or make profit of any sort from it. As for an original angle, I am still waffling a bit, and welcome any further comments.====:)[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 17:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Margaret, Given your change in perspective of your project you may wish to explore the discussion of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization Tivoization] (if you have note already considered such). The question of, “Should manufacturers of hardware have the right to limit the use of software on their machines when that software included elements covered under versions of the GNU license?” seems a related and interesting debate. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 16:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Guy, thank you so much for your wonderfully concise thesis question! Sometimes it just takes the right little tweak to bring scattered thoughts together, and pondering the legal parameters of an open source kernel wrapped in a proprietary shell is a question I would very much like to spend some time on. Thanks again.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 19:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Guy Clinch --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 13:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: An Examination of Internet and Society Coursework through the Metaphor of web.alive
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Internet_and_Society_Assingment_2%28gclinch%29.pdf

- It has occurred to me that in order to give me feedback on my proposal you may need to experience the web.alive environment. Please feel free to click on the following link and explore. http://apex.avayalive.com/715/html
I look forward to reading your ideas. Thank you. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 19:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Syed Yasir Shirazi [User: syedshirazi]
* Prospectus title: Online Group Buying - Newly Emerging Business Model or Fad?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Syed_Yasir_Shirazi-Assignment_2.pdf
* Comments:

Syed, this is a really interesting topic, but I am concerned that it may be too broad. I feel like a question like yours would more likely take up a book than a paper to be completed over a single semestre! Perhaps you could look into a specific group-buying site rather than the concept as a whole, like Groupon or LivingSocial. It might even be interesting to compare the two. Or, are there sites in which users decide which company they want to solicit such coupons from, rather than having the site itself decide? Just some ideas to help you get this topic down to something manageable. Does this help at all? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 21:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Jessica Sanfilippo - [[User:Jsanfilippo|Jsanfilippo]] 16:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Transparency and Participation in Crowd Funding
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JSanfilippo_Assignment_2.doc

Hi Jessica,I think crowd funding is a fascinating topic, and there seem to be various types of crowd funding as you point out. Micro Loans and sites such as Kiva.com are also wonderful examples of crowd funding. I am probably over reaching, but I noticed that Syed Yasir A. Shirazi has a prospectus on Group Buying, and wonder if the two can be connected somehow? What if materials needed for a funded project on kickstarter.com for instance, could be purchased through groupon.com or a similar site? Regardless, I am looking forward to your findings around Crowd Funding (especially in the creative space).

*Name: Adriana Faria Torii [drifaria] and Anna Christiana Marinho C. Machado [([[User:Anna|Anna]] 17:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC))]
*Prospectus title: Analysis of E-Government Practices in Brazil
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Faria_Marinho_Prospectus.pdf

Hi Adriana and Anna - E-governance in an emerging country like Brazil is an attention-grabbing subject. As you have mentioned in your prospectus, in terms of audience, Brazil is amongst the top ten countries in the world (I think they have recently moved up to #5 in terms of total internet users). But that said, the overall internet penetration is pretty low (I think it is close to only 40% of the entire Brazilian population).
The G2C part of your project should provide an interesting analysis since concepts like e-voting work the best when the internet usage amongst citizenry is high. Brazil does not have uniformly high internet penetration across the entire county. Maybe you can differentiate the G2C aspect and compare between urban and rural populations because there will be different results (I believe) for effectiveness of such an ‘e-system’ amongst the 2 geographic segments. Also, you can include some analysis on mechanisms for ‘fraud detection’ for e-voting and e-tax filing processes. Thoughts on this link might be of interest to you: http://qssi.psu.edu/files/hidalgo.pdf. Looking forward to reading your final paper. ~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 21:21, 03 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Laura Connell [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 18:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Does providing a legal alternative act as a deterrent to internet piracy?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Laura_Connell_Assignment_2_Prospectus.pdf

Laura, here is a link to a recent study that you may find of use:
[http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf Envisional - Technical report: An Estimate of Infringing Use of the Internet]

Hope you find this helpful --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Laura, glad to see this topic on the list. It's a tough topic as it could be looked at as requiring a world government organization to pass law enacting the crack down on stolen DRM'ed materials. At the same time there seems to be evidence that this type of activity does not hit the bottom line of Hollywood and other world producers of content. Manufacturers of CD and DVD technology has traditionally tried to work with the "Hollywoods" of the world only to be thwarted by the hacker. There seems to be a balance in the mix where the manufactures can create some hurdles for the most common user and at the same time not create a situation where users are not able to access valid content (such as putting in a DVD from Japan in a US DVD player and not being able to play the content). I think we're moving more and more toward online content like Netflix where the content is more controlled and the physical media is going away. Streaming content has some inherent properties that cannot be easily overcome, further, as long as the browser being used to support a new type of encryption technology, companies can make changes to security on the web server side when hackers have found an exploit. It's a very interesting topic, but I think any laws created would be done by people that do not fully understand the technology and also the laws have great potential to be outdated in a short amount of time if not written with enough foresight. Having said that, there has been a great deal of reduction in some types of sharing due to cases against people that have pirated DRM'ed media and also have had big impacts on many sites that traditionally have been an excellent source for finding pirated material. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Alokika Singh [[User:Singh singh|Singh singh]] 19:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[[User:Singhsingh]]
*Prospectus title: Online Political Activism in India
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_II_22_feb..pdf

Hi Alokika: I think your topic is very interesting. You can also draw a comparative line between roles of leading social/political leaders in India versus the role of ordinary internet users when it comes to acting as the leading force behind online social/political debate in India? A lot of times, it has been seen that individuals who don’t follow any hierarchy kick-off such bold campaigns. (Take the example of what happened in Egypt over the last six months. The online movement was sparked by ordinary folks and not any leading social or political figure).
I am curious to know whether the online ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign was initiated by general users or spearheaded by a leading social organization in India. I suspect the former. So it will be interesting to see how the online debate has evolved in India.
Looking forward to reading your final analysis.~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 20:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Don Hussey [[User:Donaldphussey|Donaldphussey]] 19:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Crowd-Sourcing of Starbucks Product Development
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_--Hussey_-_Asmt2.doc
* Comments:

Don, this is a really ambitious project. I think it's a great idea for you to use your professional position to get your foot in the door with some of the people at Starbucks; I hope it works! My only concern with this project is that you are only focusing on the corporate side of this venture. Is there any way you can include information from participants or contributors to this site? Is there any way on this site that users can interact with each other, or is it a one-way interaction between contributors and Starbucks? ~~[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Tym Lewtak [[User:lewtak|lewtak]] 21:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: User Generated Sites: Defining Superusers and Their Monetization
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment_2.pdf

Tymoteusz, I find you topic very interesting.

I am wondering as a product of your research if you will study the proportion of individuals who are super users compared to commercial organizations using these tools. That is, in respect to commercial organizations using the various tools, how important is the individual? Over time, is the place of the individual becoming more or less important? I would suspect that part of this equation depends upon the rate at which people are able to monetize their involvement as much as how commercial organizations are co-opting the modalities. Is there a constant influx of new blood or will the ability of individuals to monetize their involvement decrease over time?

It may be fascinating to see is this is an indication of a generative system over the long run or something that may peak and decline. Good luck! --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Gclinch, Thanks for all of your input! I initially didn't think to so much as include corporations, but taking a second glance at the subject you're right. I would be foolish to not look at motivations for companies and individuals alike to join sites as super-users. If I can find historical data on users from these sites, I'd like to especially take a look at whether it was individuals who joined first and became super-users, or if corporations jumped onto the "ball game" with individuals following. I suspect the latter isn't true, but I will try to distinguish between companies that joined these sites early on versus already popular companies that grew their earlier existent popularity. ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Name: Denise Reed--[[User:Dreed07|-dreed07]] 21:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A comparative study of user behavior on Chinese social networking sites with that of United States social networkers
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/REED_LSTU_E120_Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

Fascinating subject! I think that the differences between Chinese and USA based social networking sites is an area ripe for exploration, and one that could potentially shed a lot of light on the effects of government censorship on online communities. Some thoughts: differences in user behavior may be due to many different factors, including site architecture, demographics, and cultural influences. It would be worthwhile to explore the demographic differeces (such as age, socio-economic status, and geographic location) between different sites offering similar services in and outside of China. Furthermore, I wonder if it would be possible to obtain information on the behavior of Chinsese nationals using facebook prior to that site being banned in the PRC, and to compare it to that of non-Chinese nationals? Also, you might look into the social networking habits of users in Hong Kong, where Facebook and simmilar sites (IIRC) remain unblocked. Are their any social networking sites specifically targeted toward the Hong Kong community, and how do such sites differ from those in the rest of China? Finally, I notice that your links seem to be primarily in English. Direct access to Chinese social networking sites, and their users, in their native language would, I imagine, be extremely valuable to this project. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 03:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Michelle Forelle [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 21:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Video-Making Groups: Community, Copyright, Collaboration and Commercialism
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Vimeo.pdf

*Name: Myra Garza [[User:Myra|Myra]]
*Prospectus title: Preparing and Accommodating Millenials in the Workforce: Use of Social Media in Two Career Coaching Businesses
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Garza.M.Prospectus.doc
* Comments:

Myra, this is a really interesting topic! I feel like this is exactly as narrow a case study as the professors were asking for. I'm jealous that you were able to identify such an relevant topic, lol! I look forward especially to reading the background research for this paper, as it is my understanding that minority youth are disproportionally represented on sites like Twitter; I'm eager to find out whether that rumor is true, and if so, what it means for the way these youth interact with and influence the hiring process. I'm also interested in hearing how these companies help steer the social use of the social media into the practical, career-building use. I'm curious to see if you find that the conclusions you are specific to urban youth or whether such tactics in career counseling are also applicable to suburban and rural kids too. Great prospectus, I really look forward to reading your paper! [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I, too, think this is going to be a very interesting paper. There is such a need in the corporate community for young people who can help older executives use social media both within the organization for employees and outside the organization for the public and consumers. I would be interested in what the career objectives are for the clients of these two organizations. Are they interested in using their social media skills as part of their job requirements or are they looking for careers in various non-related fields? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 01:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

Great topic, as I am sure many of us see on a daily basis the generational differences at work, and the need to involve and "catch" the millenial generation. I wonder if the two organizations will provide you with data on their success, and outreach numbers in the community? I look forward to seeing how this plays out. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jose Uscanga
*Prospectus Title: Cummunity reporting or social activism? The New Age of media reporting in Mexico.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Jose_Uscanga_Assignment_-2.doc

Jose, you have identified a truly compelling topic.

When you ask, “Is free press necessary for democracy?” many of us would say, obviously yes. Reading your prospectus though makes me wonder, “what do we mean today by a free press.” Does phenomenon such as Mexican citizens taking, “on the civic responsibility of alerting other citizens by providing detailed and unfiltered information,” redefine what we mean when we use the term press? I’ll be looking forward to reading your conclusions.

I’d also be interested to learn if you think there is something unique about Mexican culture that compels people to get involved. It seems to me that these citizen journalists are taking huge risks. Even less than the professional journalists, there would seem to be no safety net. After all isn’t it easy for the drug cartels to find out who is issuing the alerts. Is it a demographic trend, is it youth driven or does it span the population? Is it something unique about the way Mexican people relate to one another that makes people get involved? Thanks for taking on such an interesting and challenging topic. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 02:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Assignment 2 Submissions

2011-03-05T22:34:24Z

Quill80: /* Submissions */

<div class="editsection noprint editlink plainlinksneverexpand" align="right" style="float: right; margin: 5px; background:#eeeeff; color:#111111; border: 4px solid #dddddd; padding: 5px; text-align: left;">
<big>'''Assignments'''</big>

'''[[Assignment 1 Details and Reporting]]''' | [[Assignment 1 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 8''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_2:_Prospectus| Assignment 2]]''' | [[Assignment 2 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 22''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_3:_Project_Outline| Assignment 3]]''' | [[Assignment 3 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due March 22''

'''[[Assignment 4 Details and Links]]''' | [[Assignment 4 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due April 12''

'''[[Final Project]]''' | [[Final Projects|Submissions]]<br />
''Due May 10''

</div>
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).

Please make sure the name of your file includes your name (example: Name_Assignment2.doc) to avoid overwriting someone else's assignment. ''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 [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Special:ImageList 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===
*Name: Gagan Panjhazari --[[User:Gpanjhazari|Gpanjhazari]] 07:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Role of Censorship Of the Internet in the Egypt and Libya
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/GaganPanjhazari-Assignment2.txt
*Comment: You might want to check the article I posted on the Feb 22 assignment page that appeared in the New York Times. Might be helpful on your first topic. <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

*Comment: Gagan, I find both of your topic choices interesting. I think the second one, regarding the ability to hold website creators responsible for their content, especially when said content could be considered treasonous, would be the best topic of the two. It is such an important question, the answer to the question will frame our national security for the future. With either topic, I look forward to reading your findings. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Frontline, the PBS program, had an episode about the April 6 Movement in Egypt, including how it used the interent and mobile devices for organization and how it was forced to adapt when access was cut. There isn't a whole lot of detail here, but it might be a useful place to start. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 02:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid

*Hai!...I love your idea of covering the censorship and even internet blackouts at times in Egypt and Libya along with the role that social networking and tweeps had in organizing the recent protests, and ousting of Mubarak. This is a fascinating narrative to be sure. Here are a few links about a European internet activist group that has worked to provide low tech communication aid to the protesters. I hope they might be of use to you in your research. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/egypts-internet-blackout-highlights-danger-weak|Egypt's Internet Blackouts Highlights Danger of Weak Links, Usefulness of Quick Links], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Main_Page | werebuild.eu the Egyptian project page], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Libya/Main_Page | werebuild.eu, the Libyan project page], and [http://telecomix.org/ | telecomix.org] [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ | Global Voices]has done an outstanding job of covering these events as well. Best of luck![[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 01:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Gagan, both your topics are interesting. According to the description of the Final Project it should be built around one of the theoretical conceptions that we study during the course.So if you think about the conceptions that may apply to your topics, it will help you to chose one of two topics proposed by you and, perhaps, to generate your questions and hypothesis around the theoretical conception as the Final Project demand. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Saam Batmanghelidj --[[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 10:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Effect of Synthetic World Communities on Real World Societies, Economies, and Copyright law
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Batmanghelidj_Final_Project_Prospectus.doc

*Comment: Hi Saam, I think your topic of synthetic or virtual worlds. I had a suggestion that you take a look at BitCoin (http://www.bitcoin.org/), this is an emerging technology that only started up a short time ago. It's a fascinating technology that deals with a new form of money (yes it can be exchanged for real money and is currently trading 1 for 1 with the US dollar). Some interesting things about it: uses public/private encryption keys, it's completely anonymous, it has great potential to circumvent certain banking regulation systems, it can be used to make real purchases, because of it's anonymity and cannot be tracked creates a security of privacy for the purchaser and seller. This also means could could be exploited by people not wanting transactions to be recorded. This technology really opens a virtual door of monetary exchange across the globe where any currency can be exchanged for BitCoins and then exchanged again into a different currency. This is just a top end look at it. It's already in use and some places accept this currency including some non-profit agencies for donation purposes. It also opens an easy way to laundry dirty money. Regards Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi , Saam. The topic is very interesting, but, I’m not sure that questions you want to answer will help you to develop the topic deeply and systemically: the questions are not in a strong correlation with your topic, I think they will not disclose the topic in full and from the main sides of it. You also use such phrase as “virtual property”, what do you mean by this? Is it the same as intellectual property? If yes, I think, it’s better to use the term “intellectual property”. You also pose such question as “How harmful is it for people to sell virtual items for real world monies, and to what extent is it harmful?” So you’ve already decided that it’s harmful, may be, it’s worth to give some arguments in your work why you decided it’s harmful. If you consider “the Synthetic World Communities” as the theoretical concept you want to use in the Final Project, you can try to determine the main features of this concept, then divide your hypothesis into three sphere ( society, economic and copyright law) and pose the main, in your opinion, questions in each of the spheres, regarding the theoretical basis you chose. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Kimberly Nevas --[[User:KimberlyNevas|KimberlyNevas]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Can the U.S. Prosecute Julian Assange?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Nevas_Kimberly_LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2.pdf
*Comment: It might also be interesting to see if any other sites purporting to disclose sensitive information whether government or corporate have become more aggressive considering all the confusion about what to do with Julian Assange. Does his legal situation make these sites feel more confident regarding avoiding prosecution? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>
*Comment: Your statement, "In this respect, Assange cannot be considered any more liable than the New York Times." is a bold one, which some might strongly disagree with, given Assange's postings and his refusal to censor, along with his use or threatened use of yet unreleased information as leverage to keep himself free. I look foward to reading your arguments regarding Assange, freedom of speech and the case law which supports your position. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Kimberly. The problem you decided to consider in the Prospectus is really important and actual. But I think that the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, that you pose describing the Problem is wider than the Research question. Perhaps, it’s worth to add the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, to your Research question as the main one. And your present research question: Are the distribution methods adopted by Wikileaks for the dissemination of thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents structured so as to arm Julian Assange and his associates with a strong defense to prosecution under U.S. law?” will help you to answer your main question. Your present research question can be also considered as a research frame, so that you can explore the distribution methods of Wikileaks to answer if they really make the obstacles for the Justice Deparment to prosecute Assange and if yes to what extend; are the distribution methods of Wikileaks the main obstacles which do not permit the Justice Department to prosecute Assange or there are the other obstacles (for ex., with respect to the features of free press)? [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March, 2011.

*Name: Jamil Buie
*Prospectus Title: Profiteering via "Public Privacy" The use/misuse of your data
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JBProject_Prospectus.pdf

*Comment: Hi Jamil, For me this is a an extremely important issue, I'm glad to see you're looking at it. I have a few pointers that may help uncover some things that are currently being looked at and something that was done in the UK back in 2008. Do a search for Phorm, BT implemented it in secrecy and it caused a big uproar. Also, it appears that ComCast is looking to implement it here in the US. It deals with deep level packet inspection. Not sure how tech savvy you are, but basically it comes down to an ISP looking at each packet users are sending out over their home connection. It is suppose to be done anonymously, however, it's invasive to the nth degree. Another technology that you might want to look at is the Evercookie. This can be used by websites that a user goes to, this then gathers information about a great number of browsing files that are on a system to ID the system. In the instance that a user cleans up his/her cookies, EverCookie will still be able to quickly identify you and place certain cookies back on your computer being able to keep tabs on the user. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Jamil. In your Prospectus, you write the following: “While most do understand that they are interacting with a third-party be it a site, search engine, or ISP they remain ignorant to how the data they’re providing is being farmed out or utilized in a commercial vein”. I can agree with you only partly: of course, we could not exclude the situations, when the data we provided are an object of unfair use, but it should be also mentioned that “the main players” of the Internet services do not ignore users, thus they stay uninformed about the way their data are used. For ex., Yahoo Privacy Policy http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html or Google Privacy http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ In the question: What are the common guidelines and site best practices? you use such phrase as “site best practices”, that is very subjective category, as also the question: “Are consumers truly aware?”. Perhaps, it’s better to avoid such categories in your science research. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Uduak Patricia Okon
*Prospectus Title: Web Pages/Blog Sites: Rights and Limitations-How free are you?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Uduak_Patricia_Okon_Assign_2.pdf
Comment
Hi Uduak,

Your prospectus is very interesting. I look forward to seeing how your project comes together. But I have some comments that I would like to share, I hope my feedback is helpful.

Re:
- In general, people are entitled to share facts if they don’t breach confidentiality or depict a real situation. This would depend on how citizen bloggers support their argument about their political commentary, whether it’s positive or negative. You need to remember that politicians are public figures, so the first amendment applies differently to them. Therefore the confidential circumstances that apply to the general population do not apply to politicians since they are not entitled to the same level of privacy. And citizen bloggers don’t have to adhere to the same circumstances as journalists to the best of my knowledge (I major in journalism and work in media in NYC) (i.e. it’s considered unethical for journalists to be bias if they’re not commentary writers. Also most journalists are not allowed to put political figure signs on their lawn, bumper sticker on their car, etc they need to push their feelings aside to accurately report the truth). I think the bigger issue is whether or not non-citizen bloggers can face defamatory lawsuits if there is proof they intentionally acted with malice? Or will future non-citizens bloggers have to abide by the same guidelines as employed journalists in the blogosphere working for CNN?
- Corporate law is an entirely different world. Because many corporations lie to promote their brand among many other issues on the internet, which is unethical to their consumers.
- I don’t think you should look into news websites like CNN, NY Times, etc because those are explicitly run by paid journalists (whom must adhere to strict guidelines about what they report) and comments are very restricted so the same type of freedom doesn’t apply to citizen journalists because official journalists also have code of ethics and have much more at stake.
- It's important to note that some citizen bloggers sell advertising on their blogs which might impede with how they portray a public figure on the net because they're getting paid. Formally employed journalists can't bias their stories based on relationships with advertisers because the editorial and advertising departments are seperate at news organizations.
- You, first need to narrow your focus because there is a huge difference between local mayors and congressional candidates, and citizen and non-citizen bloggers. (i.e. I think it would be interesting if you looked at how political figures use blogging as a form of position taking in Congress and compare cases of democratic and republican candidates on an issue like healthcare reform, education, etc. And the implications blogging has on Senators or Representatives relationships with their constituents).

*Name: Yaerin Kim [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: OpenCourseWare(OCW) and its Impact: Case Study of MIT’s OCW
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Kim.doc

*Comment: Hi Yaerin, I think this is a great topic. Being a part of F/OSS environment has pushed forward a number of wonderful software innovations. Scratch is an example of MIT's commitment to OCW. Scratch, though at first glance might appear comical, is actually a great tool to teach people the concepts of early stages of computer programming. I'm sure there are tons of other open source software that would interest you. I would suggest, if you have a spare computer or can run a virtual environment, downloading and running a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Then you can take a look at the rich repository of software that is completely free to install and use. Some of the software is not F/OSS, such as Adobe Reader, but the disclaimers of Left-Copied software is always clear. Anything that came from MIT would also give credit to that source even if it's been morphed. Best regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: William Bauser -- [[User:Wnb|Wnb]] 23:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Modern Web Design and Civic Engagement: Access to Information and Community Development
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Wnb_assignment2.pdf
*Comment: This is an interesting topic -- you have a lot of avenues to explore! Among the sites you list, some are clearly partisan while others seem more altruistic. I would be interested to learn the contrast of methods used by each type. For example, what are the membership requirements? Does the site encourage a particular philosophy? Does a certain amount of selective cocooning take place? On the other side, how can an Internet based civic community be both neutral and vital? If it is only fact based then it won't be interesting. How does is promote community discussions without advocating a position? I'm sure you'll have to narrow the focus of your chosen topic and I thought this might be an interesting distinction you could use. [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Brian Smith [[User:Smithbc|Smithbc]] 23:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Location-Based Services: Implications and Awareness of Effects on Consumer Privacy
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Brian_Smith_-_Assignment_2.pdf

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! --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Yu Ri Jeong --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 22:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: How manifestations of collective intelligence vary in different cultures and societies: Study on Naver Knowledge iN of South Korea in comparison with Wikipedia.
*Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Yu_Ri_Jeong_Internet_and_Society_Assignment_2_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

This is a really interesting topic! I hadn't known that South Korea had so strongly resisted the dominance of Wikipedia. I am curious, even if you do not include these questions in your paper, to hear what you think is unique about South Korea that it managed to create its own version of Wikipedia. Was it simply a question of timing, or is there something about South Korean Internet culture that allowed it to rally around its own creation. I also wonder what this means for Wikipedia. As a result of the lack of participation by South Korean Internet users, does Wikipedia suffer from a gap in information about South Korean culture, politics or society? I think the paper you have laid out in your prospectus is very thorough and complete, but I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions separately as you continue your research! [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Yuri! I think your research would reveal some very interesting points about the difference between the Korean Naver website and Wikipedia. If I may suggest, it would be interesting to analyze the difference in user demographic between the two websites. This would assist your analysis for Question #3. Also, since Naver seems to be a for-profit organization, it would be interesting to analyze how profitable NKin has been and contrast it to the non-profit model of Wikipedia. [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: La Keisha Landrum [[User:llandrum|llandrum]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Building a Sustainable News Org
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LNLAssignment2.doc

*Comment: Hi La Keisha, It's good to see you're approaching this hot topic. I think most Americans are rather clueless about the current demise of the media or at least they are clueless as to why the media has been in a state of disintegration over the past 30 years. The newspaper companies came to late to the Internet forum and due to their lack of response they lost the "first-to-line" efforts in advertising & classified revenues. Aggregators and bloggers have only worsened the situation for major media, not to mention giants like Google and Craigslist drawing away advertising dollars. Still, a more important aspect is that experienced journalists need to continue to be supported in doing investigative reporting. Looking at detail as to how the different models of moving forward and the benefits might be speculative at this point, but we have seen some success stories in new ways to successfully report on current events. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hello La Kiesha! This is a very interesting and important topic for the future well being of journalism. According to your prospectus, it seems that you are interested in the profit aspect of the emergence of new internet-based journalism. If this is the case, it would be helpful if you can offer comparison in income for the aforementioned journalist. In other words, how much did these journalist as an employee of a traditional publisher and how much are they making now with their innovative website? Also, it would be interesting to know who is willing to patron these professional journalists. I think the lecture slides from March 1 would be very helpful as well. Good luck![[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jillian York[[User:Jyork|Jyork]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Understanding "Lesbanon": Lebanon's Online Lesbian Community
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Understanding_Lesbanon.doc
Comment: Hey Jillian, I think this is such a great paper topic. I love how secretive communities can still operate out in the public through using the internet. The value of anonymity in this case seems like it must be very high, especially if there are governmental pressures keeping women from coming out. I had no idea that "Lesbanon" existed but it really does make perfect sense. Maybe if there are other communites out there like this, you could make a broader statement on the nature of coming out on the internet despite oppressive governments and societal norms. Otherwise, I think your question is quite reigned in and manageable in scope. I look forward to reading this paper when you're finished. [[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 18:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Caroline McLoughlin[[User:Camcloughlin|Camcloughlin]] 21:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Privacy and Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment-2.pdf
*Comments: Caroline, I, too, was interested in writing a paper more inclined to policy arguments and Rebekah counseled me against it. I got the impression we are supposed to be more observant of communities and how they interact and work. If this is true, you might lean your paper more towards observing whether privacy policies are adequately disclosed on sites in the US and how they are different on Canadian sites. Is this difference due to the contrasting privacy legal frameworks in the two countries? Do participants react differently?This might also help narrow your topic which seems like alot of material to cover. All this being said, I find your topic very interesting and think it might be great to present it in something like a PowerPoint format. Would be the great beginnings of a law review article if you are a lawyer.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 21:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name:Anthony Crowe [[User:Acrowe|Acrowe]]
*Prospectus title: Tagging and Metadata on the Internet and in New Media
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Crowe_LSTUE120_2.doc
*Comments:

I like that you've identified another means of content organization for study. I feel like tagging is going to be a rich topic, not only because of the ways people use it, but because of how it defines or redefines website architectures. I don't really know much about tags beyond their most obvious uses (and frankly, on in Twitter), so I am curious to see what kind of social rules you discover in your research. The only thing I might suggest is that, given the richness of your topic, that you not worry about studying superusers too deeply. I feel like a thorough study of tagging on the three main sites you've identified, which are pretty major sites, in addition to the other examples you'll be incorporating, will be more than enough data and analysis for a great paper. Unless perhaps I'm not understanding the particular lens through which you'll be approaching the superuser question? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Vladimir Kruglyak --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 21:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: A Transparency of the U.S. Government in the Socio-Cyber Environment
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I see a potential flaw in your methodology, and find it potentially invasive of a web surfer's privacy. Collecting data by sniffing packets is rather dubious for your uses and can be construed as an abuse of networking tools. Trying to parse the IP addresses into geographical locations through a Whois database may be difficult to and inaccurate if users are using proxy based anonymizers such as Tor or i2p. It is for this reason, among others, that many people chose to use anonymizers when they surf. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 04:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all for the creative comments addressed toward my prospectus, although the assignment says to add constructive suggestions which can help an author to improve his project. I think it is little bit unfair to help others reconstruct their idea and receive nothing in return. I guess that is all I can get from the general public. If however, someone in this course really knows about the internet traffic analysis, you are welcome to suggest substantial changes. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Vladimir, I apologize if I said anything to upset or discouraged you in any way. I meant my comment to be constructive in raising an ethical question to your research methodology in regards to the privacy of web surfers. U can certainly observe and aggregate traffic through packet sniffing network tools, but I would not be so trusting in precise geographical locations of the IP addresses for the reasons that I mentioned. However, with a large enough sample you could perhaps get a general feel for regional traffic. Again, I meant no disrespect and look forward to your project evolving.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 21:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name:Corey MacDonald [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 20:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Fringe Forums for the Under-represented
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_Assignment_2_MacDonald.doc
*Comments:

Wow! This is a great prospectus, I feel like these kinds of sites are the perfect places to be asking these questions. So many of the conversations we've had in class have centered around how to best facilitate legal social interactions. I'm excited to read your analysis of how semi-legal and illegal topics are handled by users, administrators and legal bodies on these forums. I'd be curious to see if legal action had ever been taken against the users of these sites, or whether the information posted on them had ever been used in legal action against someone else, like as evidence or tips on possible illegal goings-on? Are there any specific government agencies that track activity on these kinds of sites? Are any extra precautions taken to protect the anonymity of contributors? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 20:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Corey this is a interesting topic, the existence of sites like Erowid and “the chemical underground” highlight how (especially the US) government are losing the battle to control drug information. A “non-event” that may be of interest to you is the DEA making Microgram public in 2003. Microgram was a law enforcement restricted newsletter aimed at forensic chemists and its release made very little impact on the “chemical underground” due to the wealth of information on illicit drugs that was already available.
Here’s a link to an article that might be useful/interesting http://www.michaelerard.com/fulltext/2006/08/open_secrets_how_the_governmen.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Richard (Rick) Kundiger --[[User:Rakundig|Rakundig]] 19:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Role of Bittorrent in the Internet Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Kundiger_Assignment_2_Research_Prospectus.pdf
*Comment: This is a great example of "code is law." You have a very powerful tool (the bittorrent protocol) which can be used for both good an illicit purposes. Your investigation of the different interests for and against its deployment should provide an excellent case study. Does a company or government have more of a right than an individual to control the protocols in use? Are those opposed to the protocol trying to protect the greater good of the Internet or their own financial interests? [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Rick, I also like this topic. One thing you could really expand upon is the use of P2P (point to point) connections has also drivin forward such technologies as Skype. This type of technology was also never intended to be used for illicit purposes, but then again the Internet was never designed to be used in many of the ways it is used today. VoIP actually breaks the TCP/IP model where packets were never intended to be treated in such a timely fashion. Another item is that it was used by WikiLeaks to keep Assange a bit more safe, which could be interpreted both good and bad. It's also amazing that the record industry had enough lobby power to take down some of the most famous P2P services. There's also the aspect that businesses deal with a very real threat of employees using bittorrent technologies. The executive that installs a P2P client and accidentally shares out his entire drive has been a very real issue for companies to combat. Further, then end use that also does something simular can share very personal information such as passport and bank account details with the world. Hope my comments have given you some help in this area of interest. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Mary Van Gils
*Prospectus title: Yelp Case Study - Freedom of Expression
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_-_Yelp_Study_Case.doc
*Comment: Wanted to make you aware as you investigate the external restriciton on freedom of expression regarding the Yelp site that there are also types of businesses which are regulated by state law as to how they may respond to reviews/complaints on sites like Yelp. If you look at my prospectus, you will note insurance companies are one of those types of businesses.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name: Susan Jennings [[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)]]
*Prospectus title: Annuity Companies' Social Media Communities
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Annuity_Companies%27_Social_Media_Communities.doc

----

*Name: Alan Davies-Gavin & Alex Solomon
*Prospectus title: Architecture of Sites eHarmony and Match.com: contributions of membership data and effects on security and privacy.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment2ProjectProspectus.pdf

Alan and Alex, I think your topic is fascinating and I wanted to chip in my 2 cents which might help your research. Considering the different natures of sites that ultimately sell the same product, I would consider looking at how the two compete in response to one another. By this I mean, is Match doing something that eHarmony isn, and therefore, is eHarmony a bit jealous and trying to get into their market? I know that eHarmony lauched their more casual spinoff "Jazzed.com" which is meant to steal people away from Match. Is Jazzed a suggestion that privacy isn't all that important to frustrated singles? I think that there are also rather large differences in target audience between the two competitors, with eHarmony focusing on a bit older, more conservative crowd while Match goes for the "single and ready to mingle."Also, perhaps look at each companies approach to user profile creation over time, have they changed at all and in what ways? This looks like it'll be an exciting project, I'm looking forward to what you find! ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Thanks Tym. I like your observations and I think they may well contribute to our research and final content. It's a good perspective that you bring to light. Alan --[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

----

*Name: Kristina Meshkova
*Prospectus title: A music sharing site - Grooveshark, Soundcloud, MySpace.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignement_2_%28Kristina_Meshkova%29.pdf
*Comment: Hey Kristina, I think we have some similar ambitions in regards to our final project. Let's chat tonight if you have any interest in potentially working together [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 14:31, 1 March 2011.

*Name:Vladimir Trojak--[[User:VladimirTrojak|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. --[[User:SCL|SCL]] 03:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment. I hope it will turn in the way I expect:)I believe that in general they shoudl be the same, such as 'neutral point of view', 'verifiability'. Although there may be differences in other policies because of different laws, such as topics you can speak about. You have any suggestions?Thanks.[[User:VladimirTrojak|VladimirTrojak]] 18:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Faye Ryding [[User:FMRR|FMRR]] 23:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Trolls and vandals on Epinions.com
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Faye_Ryding_Assignment_2.doc

*Name: [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 16:59, 21 February 2011
*Prospectus title: Groooveshark music application
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.pdf
*Comments: Hi, Alex. Sorry that didn't answer you earlier. Will be glad to discuss an opportunity to work together on the Final project. Let's discuss it next week in a chat room or via email. This is my email for the course: kristinam2907@gmail.com [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Robert Cunningham
*Prospectus title: The Archive Team
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Proposed_Paper_TopicCunningham.pdf

*Name: [[Joshuasurillo]]
*Prospectus title: The effect of government transparency websites- Wikileaks
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Harvard_assignment_2.doc
*Comment: Joshua, I am very much looking forward to your final product. Your position (or what I am assuming your postion to be) comes across very loud and clear in your prospectus. I wonder if you will reach an opinion as to where to draw the line on "free speech," or if no line should be drawn? My reading of your position if you were to define it today is that free speech must be protected at all costs and no limits are appropriate, at least that is the feeling I am left with from your prospectus. If wikileaks posted the location or identity of our undercover operatives in Iraq or elsewhere, would you support that? If not, what else would you feel would be "going to far?" I look forward to reading more from you. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Susan Lemont
*Prospectus title: Why do people cultivate large online networks?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Lemont_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

Unfortunately beyond the stated scope of your project (and not practical to include), but it would be interesting to see how your findings compare to similar surveys of Youtube users (who frequently seek comments, ratings, and channel subscriptions) and members of various online forums which award rankings, custom titles, "reputation", and other benefits to prominent posters based on peer imput. Good luck with this topic. (P.S. Also, it might be interesting try and determine what percentages of Facebook 'friends' of these users are A) people they know in real life vs. those relationships which are strictly online-only and B) what proportion of real life contacts were made prior to 'friending' vs. those which were made as a result of meeting virtually via facebook.) [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 04:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Chris Sura [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 03:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Java Community Process: How Does It Really Work?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Chris_Sura_Assignment_2.pdf

* Name: Ed Arboleda [[User:Earboleda|Earboleda]] 04:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Are there collective benefits for copyright owners, copyright infringers, and the general community; if copyright infringement is not enforced under specific circumstances on social media sites?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Ed_Arboleda_Prospectus.pdf

Comments:

Hi Ed, I certainly believe that in specific instances that there can be collective benefits for infringers and owners of copyright. One example is the pirating of the UK run of the TV series Battlestar Gallactica in Australia in October 2004. When the show aired in Australia in January 2005 the ratings exceeded expectations due to “sampling” and word of mouth. Here’s a link to an article with more information http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Elisha Surillo
* Prospectus title: The Tea Party and Internet Freedom
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

I'm confused. This link does not seem to take me to the correct prospectus? Elisha, could you update this to make sure I can access yours?

* Name: Brandon A. Ceranowicz - [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 08:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A Comparative Study of Open Source Licenses
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2_-_Prospectus_BAC.doc

* Name: Lorena Abuín
* Prospectus title: Contribution to prosecuted online activities (Anonymous, BitTorrent, WikiLeaks)
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2_-_Lorena_Abu%C3%ADn.pdf

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! -----=:) [[User:Deinous|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! --[[User:VladimirK|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, "[http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html How to Become a Hacker]" describes the difference quite well. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Hi Lorena. I think this is a great topic and I agree that you and Deinous seem to have a strong intersection of ideas. I think the comments I made under Deinous' posting are applicable here as well. It's good to see this topic having such strong discussion. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 04:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Margaret Tolerton [[User: deinous|deinous]]
* Prospectus title: Hackers, hacking groups, and Hacktivism: Anonymous v. Telecomix as a case study
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Anonymous_v_Telecomix_with_References.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL, I don't know how privileged my point of view is. I am more or less just another nerd with a computer on Friday and Saturday nights. In recent weeks I have come to feel as though the people of Telecomix have accepted me as one of their own though, as I have done a little public relations, fact checking, and some translations. Telecomix is very open about their work, and does not engage in illegal actions. Being mostly European, they lobby against, or for, various cyber laws to their respective Parliaments. What I meant though by my comment "happy too help others who are not as advanced" is that it is common for someone to ask a question of a technological nature and usually others jump in and help to solve the problem. For example, my switch over to Linux, I have been having quite a time configuring a few of my drivers, and getting used to working from a command line with unix syntax, and several people who know how to fix the problems will jump in and start coaching with many lulz along the way.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello there. I am delighted and in part surprised to see a topic of this type. By type I mean it is heavily technological mission to retrieve a piece of real information from the community of real hackers. Not all software engineers employed by the government are able to intervene communication among the community of real hackers. You may however, catch a few portals where "I can do this, I can do that" type of conversations take place, but whether they really have done something interesting and indeed reveal their ideology is a big speculation. For this course, I believe, you need to change your frequency, sort of speak, and listen not for the hacking communities themselves, but for the actions they have already done. Actions speak lauder than words, as you may know. You you need to listen to the anti-thesis, that is, the counter part of the hacking group. In this country, among various subsequent agencies that keep control of all networks, the NSA sources will probably be the most beneficial to you, although I am not 100 percent sure about this. It is difficult to find something that is available to the public. Recall the scandal with pornographic downloads by the employees of the Trade Commission; this is just one out of million examples of the internet traffic control by the Feds. It is therefore the Feds who are on the opposite side of the argument with the hackers. By considering both ideology of the hackers and a counter-premise by the Feds you will have a full and comprehensive picture for your project. In short, I am proposing to search not only within the hackers community, which may only seem as community of hackers and give you a bogus information, but also find reports, chronicles, and cases exposed by the Feds. It may ultimately appear that it is the Feds who are vandals and trolls and who violate privacy and steal the tax money of the citizens. At least this is what my prospectus's sources can prove, but take a look at National Security Agency [http://www.nsa.gov/] web site. In the meantime, I will keep checking on your project and will try to give you more clues because your topic coincides with mine in many regards. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 06:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and comments. I will certainly take them into consideration. However, I feel that my views toward hacking are much broader than the criminality of a few, and that there should be more emphasis in part on the difference between hacking and cracking. I am one that still holds the traditional meaning of a hacker as one that is adept with the computer and often generates new creative uses for what is in front of them. As a result I am watching my topic shift a bit and focusing perhaps more on the difficulty that researchers have with the DMCA preventing them from publishing in full their findings, and the law of fair use. Over this past year we have watched the jailbreaking of an iPhone of iPad for the use of external software not approved by Apple go from being an illegal act to being justified as fair use. Although it will nullify any warranty of your gadget. Currently we are watching this same debate occur over the jailbreaking of the Sony PS3 to run Linux and homebrewed games. I am one that supports the fair use argument in that if you are clever enough to make your gadgetry do fun and interesting things beyond the uses that they are intended, then you should be able to do it--especially if you have no intention on using pirated software or make profit of any sort from it. As for an original angle, I am still waffling a bit, and welcome any further comments.====:)[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 17:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Margaret, Given your change in perspective of your project you may wish to explore the discussion of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization Tivoization] (if you have note already considered such). The question of, “Should manufacturers of hardware have the right to limit the use of software on their machines when that software included elements covered under versions of the GNU license?” seems a related and interesting debate. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 16:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Guy, thank you so much for your wonderfully concise thesis question! Sometimes it just takes the right little tweak to bring scattered thoughts together, and pondering the legal parameters of an open source kernel wrapped in a proprietary shell is a question I would very much like to spend some time on. Thanks again.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 19:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Guy Clinch --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 13:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: An Examination of Internet and Society Coursework through the Metaphor of web.alive
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Internet_and_Society_Assingment_2%28gclinch%29.pdf

- It has occurred to me that in order to give me feedback on my proposal you may need to experience the web.alive environment. Please feel free to click on the following link and explore. http://apex.avayalive.com/715/html
I look forward to reading your ideas. Thank you. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 19:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Syed Yasir Shirazi [User: syedshirazi]
* Prospectus title: Online Group Buying - Newly Emerging Business Model or Fad?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Syed_Yasir_Shirazi-Assignment_2.pdf
* Comments:

Syed, this is a really interesting topic, but I am concerned that it may be too broad. I feel like a question like yours would more likely take up a book than a paper to be completed over a single semestre! Perhaps you could look into a specific group-buying site rather than the concept as a whole, like Groupon or LivingSocial. It might even be interesting to compare the two. Or, are there sites in which users decide which company they want to solicit such coupons from, rather than having the site itself decide? Just some ideas to help you get this topic down to something manageable. Does this help at all? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 21:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Jessica Sanfilippo - [[User:Jsanfilippo|Jsanfilippo]] 16:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Transparency and Participation in Crowd Funding
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JSanfilippo_Assignment_2.doc

Hi Jessica,I think crowd funding is a fascinating topic, and there seem to be various types of crowd funding as you point out. Micro Loans and sites such as Kiva.com are also wonderful examples of crowd funding. I am probably over reaching, but I noticed that Syed Yasir A. Shirazi has a prospectus on Group Buying, and wonder if the two can be connected somehow? What if materials needed for a funded project on kickstarter.com for instance, could be purchased through groupon.com or a similar site? Regardless, I am looking forward to your findings around Crowd Funding (especially in the creative space).

*Name: Adriana Faria Torii [drifaria] and Anna Christiana Marinho C. Machado [([[User:Anna|Anna]] 17:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC))]
*Prospectus title: Analysis of E-Government Practices in Brazil
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Faria_Marinho_Prospectus.pdf

Hi Adriana and Anna - E-governance in an emerging country like Brazil is an attention-grabbing subject. As you have mentioned in your prospectus, in terms of audience, Brazil is amongst the top ten countries in the world (I think they have recently moved up to #5 in terms of total internet users). But that said, the overall internet penetration is pretty low (I think it is close to only 40% of the entire Brazilian population).
The G2C part of your project should provide an interesting analysis since concepts like e-voting work the best when the internet usage amongst citizenry is high. Brazil does not have uniformly high internet penetration across the entire county. Maybe you can differentiate the G2C aspect and compare between urban and rural populations because there will be different results (I believe) for effectiveness of such an ‘e-system’ amongst the 2 geographic segments. Also, you can include some analysis on mechanisms for ‘fraud detection’ for e-voting and e-tax filing processes. Thoughts on this link might be of interest to you: http://qssi.psu.edu/files/hidalgo.pdf. Looking forward to reading your final paper. ~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 21:21, 03 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Laura Connell [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 18:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Does providing a legal alternative act as a deterrent to internet piracy?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Laura_Connell_Assignment_2_Prospectus.pdf

Laura, here is a link to a recent study that you may find of use:
[http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf Envisional - Technical report: An Estimate of Infringing Use of the Internet]

Hope you find this helpful --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Laura, glad to see this topic on the list. It's a tough topic as it could be looked at as requiring a world government organization to pass law enacting the crack down on stolen DRM'ed materials. At the same time there seems to be evidence that this type of activity does not hit the bottom line of Hollywood and other world producers of content. Manufacturers of CD and DVD technology has traditionally tried to work with the "Hollywoods" of the world only to be thwarted by the hacker. There seems to be a balance in the mix where the manufactures can create some hurdles for the most common user and at the same time not create a situation where users are not able to access valid content (such as putting in a DVD from Japan in a US DVD player and not being able to play the content). I think we're moving more and more toward online content like Netflix where the content is more controlled and the physical media is going away. Streaming content has some inherent properties that cannot be easily overcome, further, as long as the browser being used to support a new type of encryption technology, companies can make changes to security on the web server side when hackers have found an exploit. It's a very interesting topic, but I think any laws created would be done by people that do not fully understand the technology and also the laws have great potential to be outdated in a short amount of time if not written with enough foresight. Having said that, there has been a great deal of reduction in some types of sharing due to cases against people that have pirated DRM'ed media and also have had big impacts on many sites that traditionally have been an excellent source for finding pirated material. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Alokika Singh [[User:Singh singh|Singh singh]] 19:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[[User:Singhsingh]]
*Prospectus title: Online Political Activism in India
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_II_22_feb..pdf

Hi Alokika: I think your topic is very interesting. You can also draw a comparative line between roles of leading social/political leaders in India versus the role of ordinary internet users when it comes to acting as the leading force behind online social/political debate in India? A lot of times, it has been seen that individuals who don’t follow any hierarchy kick-off such bold campaigns. (Take the example of what happened in Egypt over the last six months. The online movement was sparked by ordinary folks and not any leading social or political figure).
I am curious to know whether the online ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign was initiated by general users or spearheaded by a leading social organization in India. I suspect the former. So it will be interesting to see how the online debate has evolved in India.
Looking forward to reading your final analysis.~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 20:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Don Hussey [[User:Donaldphussey|Donaldphussey]] 19:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Crowd-Sourcing of Starbucks Product Development
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_--Hussey_-_Asmt2.doc
* Comments:

Don, this is a really ambitious project. I think it's a great idea for you to use your professional position to get your foot in the door with some of the people at Starbucks; I hope it works! My only concern with this project is that you are only focusing on the corporate side of this venture. Is there any way you can include information from participants or contributors to this site? Is there any way on this site that users can interact with each other, or is it a one-way interaction between contributors and Starbucks? ~~[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Tym Lewtak [[User:lewtak|lewtak]] 21:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: User Generated Sites: Defining Superusers and Their Monetization
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment_2.pdf

Tymoteusz, I find you topic very interesting.

I am wondering as a product of your research if you will study the proportion of individuals who are super users compared to commercial organizations using these tools. That is, in respect to commercial organizations using the various tools, how important is the individual? Over time, is the place of the individual becoming more or less important? I would suspect that part of this equation depends upon the rate at which people are able to monetize their involvement as much as how commercial organizations are co-opting the modalities. Is there a constant influx of new blood or will the ability of individuals to monetize their involvement decrease over time?

It may be fascinating to see is this is an indication of a generative system over the long run or something that may peak and decline. Good luck! --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Gclinch, Thanks for all of your input! I initially didn't think to so much as include corporations, but taking a second glance at the subject you're right. I would be foolish to not look at motivations for companies and individuals alike to join sites as super-users. If I can find historical data on users from these sites, I'd like to especially take a look at whether it was individuals who joined first and became super-users, or if corporations jumped onto the "ball game" with individuals following. I suspect the latter isn't true, but I will try to distinguish between companies that joined these sites early on versus already popular companies that grew their earlier existent popularity. ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Name: Denise Reed--[[User:Dreed07|-dreed07]] 21:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A comparative study of user behavior on Chinese social networking sites with that of United States social networkers
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/REED_LSTU_E120_Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

Fascinating subject! I think that the differences between Chinese and USA based social networking sites is an area ripe for exploration, and one that could potentially shed a lot of light on the effects of government censorship on online communities. Some thoughts: differences in user behavior may be due to many different factors, including site architecture, demographics, and cultural influences. It would be worthwhile to explore the demographic differeces (such as age, socio-economic status, and geographic location) between different sites offering similar services in and outside of China. Furthermore, I wonder if it would be possible to obtain information on the behavior of Chinsese nationals using facebook prior to that site being banned in the PRC, and to compare it to that of non-Chinese nationals? Also, you might look into the social networking habits of users in Hong Kong, where Facebook and simmilar sites (IIRC) remain unblocked. Are their any social networking sites specifically targeted toward the Hong Kong community, and how do such sites differ from those in the rest of China? Finally, I notice that your links seem to be primarily in English. Direct access to Chinese social networking sites, and their users, in their native language would, I imagine, be extremely valuable to this project. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 03:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Michelle Forelle [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 21:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Video-Making Groups: Community, Copyright, Collaboration and Commercialism
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Vimeo.pdf

*Name: Myra Garza [[User:Myra|Myra]]
*Prospectus title: Preparing and Accommodating Millenials in the Workforce: Use of Social Media in Two Career Coaching Businesses
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Garza.M.Prospectus.doc
* Comments:

Myra, this is a really interesting topic! I feel like this is exactly as narrow a case study as the professors were asking for. I'm jealous that you were able to identify such an relevant topic, lol! I look forward especially to reading the background research for this paper, as it is my understanding that minority youth are disproportionally represented on sites like Twitter; I'm eager to find out whether that rumor is true, and if so, what it means for the way these youth interact with and influence the hiring process. I'm also interested in hearing how these companies help steer the social use of the social media into the practical, career-building use. I'm curious to see if you find that the conclusions you are specific to urban youth or whether such tactics in career counseling are also applicable to suburban and rural kids too. Great prospectus, I really look forward to reading your paper! [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I, too, think this is going to be a very interesting paper. There is such a need in the corporate community for young people who can help older executives use social media both within the organization for employees and outside the organization for the public and consumers. I would be interested in what the career objectives are for the clients of these two organizations. Are they interested in using their social media skills as part of their job requirements or are they looking for careers in various non-related fields? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 01:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

Great topic, as I am sure many of us see on a daily basis the generational differences at work, and the need to involve and "catch" the millenial generation. I wonder if the two organizations will provide you with data on their success, and outreach numbers in the community? I look forward to seeing how this plays out. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jose Uscanga
*Prospectus Title: Cummunity reporting or social activism? The New Age of media reporting in Mexico.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Jose_Uscanga_Assignment_-2.doc

Jose, you have identified a truly compelling topic.

When you ask, “Is free press necessary for democracy?” many of us would say, obviously yes. Reading your prospectus though makes me wonder, “what do we mean today by a free press.” Does phenomenon such as Mexican citizens taking, “on the civic responsibility of alerting other citizens by providing detailed and unfiltered information,” redefine what we mean when we use the term press? I’ll be looking forward to reading your conclusions.

I’d also be interested to learn if you think there is something unique about Mexican culture that compels people to get involved. It seems to me that these citizen journalists are taking huge risks. Even less than the professional journalists, there would seem to be no safety net. After all isn’t it easy for the drug cartels to find out who is issuing the alerts. Is it a demographic trend, is it youth driven or does it span the population? Is it something unique about the way Mexican people relate to one another that makes people get involved? Thanks for taking on such an interesting and challenging topic. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 02:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Assignment 2 Submissions

2011-03-05T22:07:00Z

Quill80: /* Submissions */

<div class="editsection noprint editlink plainlinksneverexpand" align="right" style="float: right; margin: 5px; background:#eeeeff; color:#111111; border: 4px solid #dddddd; padding: 5px; text-align: left;">
<big>'''Assignments'''</big>

'''[[Assignment 1 Details and Reporting]]''' | [[Assignment 1 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 8''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_2:_Prospectus| Assignment 2]]''' | [[Assignment 2 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due February 22''

'''[[Assignments#Assignment_3:_Project_Outline| Assignment 3]]''' | [[Assignment 3 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due March 22''

'''[[Assignment 4 Details and Links]]''' | [[Assignment 4 Submissions|Submissions]]<br />
''Due April 12''

'''[[Final Project]]''' | [[Final Projects|Submissions]]<br />
''Due May 10''

</div>
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).

Please make sure the name of your file includes your name (example: Name_Assignment2.doc) to avoid overwriting someone else's assignment. ''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 [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Special:ImageList 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===
*Name: Gagan Panjhazari --[[User:Gpanjhazari|Gpanjhazari]] 07:34, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Role of Censorship Of the Internet in the Egypt and Libya
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/GaganPanjhazari-Assignment2.txt
*Comment: You might want to check the article I posted on the Feb 22 assignment page that appeared in the New York Times. Might be helpful on your first topic. <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:48, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

*Comment: Gagan, I find both of your topic choices interesting. I think the second one, regarding the ability to hold website creators responsible for their content, especially when said content could be considered treasonous, would be the best topic of the two. It is such an important question, the answer to the question will frame our national security for the future. With either topic, I look forward to reading your findings. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:10, 1 March 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Frontline, the PBS program, had an episode about the April 6 Movement in Egypt, including how it used the interent and mobile devices for organization and how it was forced to adapt when access was cut. There isn't a whole lot of detail here, but it might be a useful place to start. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 02:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/revolution-in-cairo/?utm_campaign=viewpage&utm_medium=grid&utm_source=grid

*Hai!...I love your idea of covering the censorship and even internet blackouts at times in Egypt and Libya along with the role that social networking and tweeps had in organizing the recent protests, and ousting of Mubarak. This is a fascinating narrative to be sure. Here are a few links about a European internet activist group that has worked to provide low tech communication aid to the protesters. I hope they might be of use to you in your research. [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/02/egypts-internet-blackout-highlights-danger-weak|Egypt's Internet Blackouts Highlights Danger of Weak Links, Usefulness of Quick Links], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Egypt/Main_Page | werebuild.eu the Egyptian project page], [http://werebuild.eu/wiki/Libya/Main_Page | werebuild.eu, the Libyan project page], and [http://telecomix.org/ | telecomix.org] [http://globalvoicesonline.org/ | Global Voices]has done an outstanding job of covering these events as well. Best of luck![[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 01:53, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Gagan, both your topics are interesting. According to the description of the Final Project it should be built around one of the theoretical conceptions that we study during the course.So if you think about the conceptions that may apply to your topics, it will help you to chose one of two topics proposed by you and, perhaps, to generate your questions and hypothesis around the theoretical conception as the Final Project demand. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Saam Batmanghelidj --[[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 10:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: The Effect of Synthetic World Communities on Real World Societies, Economies, and Copyright law
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Batmanghelidj_Final_Project_Prospectus.doc

*Comment: Hi Saam, I think your topic of synthetic or virtual worlds. I had a suggestion that you take a look at BitCoin (http://www.bitcoin.org/), this is an emerging technology that only started up a short time ago. It's a fascinating technology that deals with a new form of money (yes it can be exchanged for real money and is currently trading 1 for 1 with the US dollar). Some interesting things about it: uses public/private encryption keys, it's completely anonymous, it has great potential to circumvent certain banking regulation systems, it can be used to make real purchases, because of it's anonymity and cannot be tracked creates a security of privacy for the purchaser and seller. This also means could could be exploited by people not wanting transactions to be recorded. This technology really opens a virtual door of monetary exchange across the globe where any currency can be exchanged for BitCoins and then exchanged again into a different currency. This is just a top end look at it. It's already in use and some places accept this currency including some non-profit agencies for donation purposes. It also opens an easy way to laundry dirty money. Regards Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi , Saam. The topic is very interesting, but, I’m not sure that questions you want to answer will help you to develop the topic deeply and systemically: the questions are not in a strong correlation with your topic, I think they will not disclose the topic in full and from the main sides of it. You also use such phrase as “virtual property”, what do you mean by this? Is it the same as intellectual property? If yes, I think, it’s better to use the term “intellectual property”. You also pose such question as “How harmful is it for people to sell virtual items for real world monies, and to what extent is it harmful?” So you’ve already decided that it’s harmful, may be, it’s worth to give some arguments in your work why you decided it’s harmful. If you consider “the Synthetic World Communities” as the theoretical concept you want to use in the Final Project, you can try to determine the main features of this concept, then divide your hypothesis into three sphere ( society, economic and copyright law) and pose the main, in your opinion, questions in each of the spheres, regarding the theoretical basis you chose. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Kimberly Nevas --[[User:KimberlyNevas|KimberlyNevas]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Can the U.S. Prosecute Julian Assange?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Nevas_Kimberly_LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2.pdf
*Comment: It might also be interesting to see if any other sites purporting to disclose sensitive information whether government or corporate have become more aggressive considering all the confusion about what to do with Julian Assange. Does his legal situation make these sites feel more confident regarding avoiding prosecution? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 00:56, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>
*Comment: Your statement, "In this respect, Assange cannot be considered any more liable than the New York Times." is a bold one, which some might strongly disagree with, given Assange's postings and his refusal to censor, along with his use or threatened use of yet unreleased information as leverage to keep himself free. I look foward to reading your arguments regarding Assange, freedom of speech and the case law which supports your position. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:15, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Kimberly. The problem you decided to consider in the Prospectus is really important and actual. But I think that the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, that you pose describing the Problem is wider than the Research question. Perhaps, it’s worth to add the question “whether the Justice Department can prosecute Assange without damaging the U.S. free press as we know it”, to your Research question as the main one. And your present research question: Are the distribution methods adopted by Wikileaks for the dissemination of thousands of pages of classified U.S. documents structured so as to arm Julian Assange and his associates with a strong defense to prosecution under U.S. law?” will help you to answer your main question. Your present research question can be also considered as a research frame, so that you can explore the distribution methods of Wikileaks to answer if they really make the obstacles for the Justice Deparment to prosecute Assange and if yes to what extend; are the distribution methods of Wikileaks the main obstacles which do not permit the Justice Department to prosecute Assange or there are the other obstacles (for ex., with respect to the features of free press)? [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March, 2011.

*Name: Jamil Buie
*Prospectus Title: Profiteering via "Public Privacy" The use/misuse of your data
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JBProject_Prospectus.pdf

*Comment: Hi Jamil, For me this is a an extremely important issue, I'm glad to see you're looking at it. I have a few pointers that may help uncover some things that are currently being looked at and something that was done in the UK back in 2008. Do a search for Phorm, BT implemented it in secrecy and it caused a big uproar. Also, it appears that ComCast is looking to implement it here in the US. It deals with deep level packet inspection. Not sure how tech savvy you are, but basically it comes down to an ISP looking at each packet users are sending out over their home connection. It is suppose to be done anonymously, however, it's invasive to the nth degree. Another technology that you might want to look at is the Evercookie. This can be used by websites that a user goes to, this then gathers information about a great number of browsing files that are on a system to ID the system. In the instance that a user cleans up his/her cookies, EverCookie will still be able to quickly identify you and place certain cookies back on your computer being able to keep tabs on the user. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi, Jamil. In your Prospectus, you write the following: “While most do understand that they are interacting with a third-party be it a site, search engine, or ISP they remain ignorant to how the data they’re providing is being farmed out or utilized in a commercial vein”. I can agree with you only partly: of course, we could not exclude the situations, when the data we provided are an object of unfair use, but it should be also mentioned that “the main players” of the Internet services do not ignore users, thus they stay uninformed about the way their data are used. For ex., Yahoo Privacy Policy http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html or Google Privacy http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ In the question: What are the common guidelines and site best practices? you use such phrase as “site best practices”, that is very subjective category, as also the question: “Are consumers truly aware?”. Perhaps, it’s better to avoid such categories in your science research. [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Uduak Patricia Okon
*Prospectus Title: Web Pages/Blog Sites: Rights and Limitations-How free are you?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Uduak_Patricia_Okon_Assign_2.pdf
Comment
Hi Uduak,

Your prospectus is very interesting. I look forward to seeing how your project comes together. But I have some comments that I would like to share, I hope my feedback is helpful.

Re:
- In general, people are entitled to share facts if they don’t breach confidentiality or depict a real situation. This would depend on how citizen bloggers support their argument about their political commentary, whether it’s positive or negative. You need to remember that politicians are public figures, so the first amendment applies differently to them. Therefore the confidential circumstances that apply to the general population do not apply to politicians since they are not entitled to the same level of privacy. And citizen bloggers don’t have to adhere to the same circumstances as journalists to the best of my knowledge (I major in journalism and work in media in NYC) (i.e. it’s considered unethical for journalists to be bias if they’re not commentary writers. Also most journalists are not allowed to put political figure signs on their lawn, bumper sticker on their car, etc they need to push their feelings aside to accurately report the truth). I think the bigger issue is whether or not non-citizen bloggers can face defamatory lawsuits if there is proof they intentionally acted with malice? Or will future non-citizens bloggers have to abide by the same guidelines as employed journalists in the blogosphere working for CNN?
- Corporate law is an entirely different world. Because many corporations lie to promote their brand among many other issues on the internet, which is unethical to their consumers.
- I don’t think you should look into news websites like CNN, NY Times, etc because those are explicitly run by paid journalists (whom must adhere to strict guidelines about what they report) and comments are very restricted so the same type of freedom doesn’t apply to citizen journalists because official journalists also have code of ethics and have much more at stake.
- It's important to note that some citizen bloggers sell advertising on their blogs which might impede with how they portray a public figure on the net because they're getting paid. Formally employed journalists can't bias their stories based on relationships with advertisers because the editorial and advertising departments are seperate at news organizations.
- You, first need to narrow your focus because there is a huge difference between local mayors and congressional candidates, and citizen and non-citizen bloggers. (i.e. I think it would be interesting if you looked at how political figures use blogging as a form of position taking in Congress and compare cases of democratic and republican candidates on an issue like healthcare reform, education, etc. And the implications blogging has on Senators or Representatives relationships with their constituents).

*Name: Yaerin Kim [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 02:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: OpenCourseWare(OCW) and its Impact: Case Study of MIT’s OCW
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Kim.doc

*Comment: Hi Yaerin, I think this is a great topic. Being a part of F/OSS environment has pushed forward a number of wonderful software innovations. Scratch is an example of MIT's commitment to OCW. Scratch, though at first glance might appear comical, is actually a great tool to teach people the concepts of early stages of computer programming. I'm sure there are tons of other open source software that would interest you. I would suggest, if you have a spare computer or can run a virtual environment, downloading and running a Linux distribution like Ubuntu or Linux Mint. Then you can take a look at the rich repository of software that is completely free to install and use. Some of the software is not F/OSS, such as Adobe Reader, but the disclaimers of Left-Copied software is always clear. Anything that came from MIT would also give credit to that source even if it's been morphed. Best regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: William Bauser -- [[User:Wnb|Wnb]] 23:55, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Modern Web Design and Civic Engagement: Access to Information and Community Development
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Wnb_assignment2.pdf
*Comment: This is an interesting topic -- you have a lot of avenues to explore! Among the sites you list, some are clearly partisan while others seem more altruistic. I would be interested to learn the contrast of methods used by each type. For example, what are the membership requirements? Does the site encourage a particular philosophy? Does a certain amount of selective cocooning take place? On the other side, how can an Internet based civic community be both neutral and vital? If it is only fact based then it won't be interesting. How does is promote community discussions without advocating a position? I'm sure you'll have to narrow the focus of your chosen topic and I thought this might be an interesting distinction you could use. [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Brian Smith [[User:Smithbc|Smithbc]] 23:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Location-Based Services: Implications and Awareness of Effects on Consumer Privacy
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Brian_Smith_-_Assignment_2.pdf

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! --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:03, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Yu Ri Jeong --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 22:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: How manifestations of collective intelligence vary in different cultures and societies: Study on Naver Knowledge iN of South Korea in comparison with Wikipedia.
*Link to Prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Yu_Ri_Jeong_Internet_and_Society_Assignment_2_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

This is a really interesting topic! I hadn't known that South Korea had so strongly resisted the dominance of Wikipedia. I am curious, even if you do not include these questions in your paper, to hear what you think is unique about South Korea that it managed to create its own version of Wikipedia. Was it simply a question of timing, or is there something about South Korean Internet culture that allowed it to rally around its own creation. I also wonder what this means for Wikipedia. As a result of the lack of participation by South Korean Internet users, does Wikipedia suffer from a gap in information about South Korean culture, politics or society? I think the paper you have laid out in your prospectus is very thorough and complete, but I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions separately as you continue your research! [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:39, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Yuri! I think your research would reveal some very interesting points about the difference between the Korean Naver website and Wikipedia. If I may suggest, it would be interesting to analyze the difference in user demographic between the two websites. This would assist your analysis for Question #3. Also, since Naver seems to be a for-profit organization, it would be interesting to analyze how profitable NKin has been and contrast it to the non-profit model of Wikipedia. [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 22:07, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: La Keisha Landrum [[User:llandrum|llandrum]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Building a Sustainable News Org
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LNLAssignment2.doc

*Comment: Hi La Keisha, It's good to see you're approaching this hot topic. I think most Americans are rather clueless about the current demise of the media or at least they are clueless as to why the media has been in a state of disintegration over the past 30 years. The newspaper companies came to late to the Internet forum and due to their lack of response they lost the "first-to-line" efforts in advertising & classified revenues. Aggregators and bloggers have only worsened the situation for major media, not to mention giants like Google and Craigslist drawing away advertising dollars. Still, a more important aspect is that experienced journalists need to continue to be supported in doing investigative reporting. Looking at detail as to how the different models of moving forward and the benefits might be speculative at this point, but we have seen some success stories in new ways to successfully report on current events. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jillian York[[User:Jyork|Jyork]] 21:48, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus Title: Understanding "Lesbanon": Lebanon's Online Lesbian Community
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Understanding_Lesbanon.doc
Comment: Hey Jillian, I think this is such a great paper topic. I love how secretive communities can still operate out in the public through using the internet. The value of anonymity in this case seems like it must be very high, especially if there are governmental pressures keeping women from coming out. I had no idea that "Lesbanon" existed but it really does make perfect sense. Maybe if there are other communites out there like this, you could make a broader statement on the nature of coming out on the internet despite oppressive governments and societal norms. Otherwise, I think your question is quite reigned in and manageable in scope. I look forward to reading this paper when you're finished. [[User:Saambat|Saambat]] 18:42, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Caroline McLoughlin[[User:Camcloughlin|Camcloughlin]] 21:44, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Privacy and Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment-2.pdf
*Comments: Caroline, I, too, was interested in writing a paper more inclined to policy arguments and Rebekah counseled me against it. I got the impression we are supposed to be more observant of communities and how they interact and work. If this is true, you might lean your paper more towards observing whether privacy policies are adequately disclosed on sites in the US and how they are different on Canadian sites. Is this difference due to the contrasting privacy legal frameworks in the two countries? Do participants react differently?This might also help narrow your topic which seems like alot of material to cover. All this being said, I find your topic very interesting and think it might be great to present it in something like a PowerPoint format. Would be the great beginnings of a law review article if you are a lawyer.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 21:18, 27 February 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name:Anthony Crowe [[User:Acrowe|Acrowe]]
*Prospectus title: Tagging and Metadata on the Internet and in New Media
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Crowe_LSTUE120_2.doc
*Comments:

I like that you've identified another means of content organization for study. I feel like tagging is going to be a rich topic, not only because of the ways people use it, but because of how it defines or redefines website architectures. I don't really know much about tags beyond their most obvious uses (and frankly, on in Twitter), so I am curious to see what kind of social rules you discover in your research. The only thing I might suggest is that, given the richness of your topic, that you not worry about studying superusers too deeply. I feel like a thorough study of tagging on the three main sites you've identified, which are pretty major sites, in addition to the other examples you'll be incorporating, will be more than enough data and analysis for a great paper. Unless perhaps I'm not understanding the particular lens through which you'll be approaching the superuser question? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 19:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Vladimir Kruglyak --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 21:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: A Transparency of the U.S. Government in the Socio-Cyber Environment
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:17, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

I see a potential flaw in your methodology, and find it potentially invasive of a web surfer's privacy. Collecting data by sniffing packets is rather dubious for your uses and can be construed as an abuse of networking tools. Trying to parse the IP addresses into geographical locations through a Whois database may be difficult to and inaccurate if users are using proxy based anonymizers such as Tor or i2p. It is for this reason, among others, that many people chose to use anonymizers when they surf. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 04:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all for the creative comments addressed toward my prospectus, although the assignment says to add constructive suggestions which can help an author to improve his project. I think it is little bit unfair to help others reconstruct their idea and receive nothing in return. I guess that is all I can get from the general public. If however, someone in this course really knows about the internet traffic analysis, you are welcome to suggest substantial changes. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Vladimir, I apologize if I said anything to upset or discouraged you in any way. I meant my comment to be constructive in raising an ethical question to your research methodology in regards to the privacy of web surfers. U can certainly observe and aggregate traffic through packet sniffing network tools, but I would not be so trusting in precise geographical locations of the IP addresses for the reasons that I mentioned. However, with a large enough sample you could perhaps get a general feel for regional traffic. Again, I meant no disrespect and look forward to your project evolving.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 21:30, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name:Corey MacDonald [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 20:28, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Fringe Forums for the Under-represented
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_Assignment_2_MacDonald.doc
*Comments:

Wow! This is a great prospectus, I feel like these kinds of sites are the perfect places to be asking these questions. So many of the conversations we've had in class have centered around how to best facilitate legal social interactions. I'm excited to read your analysis of how semi-legal and illegal topics are handled by users, administrators and legal bodies on these forums. I'd be curious to see if legal action had ever been taken against the users of these sites, or whether the information posted on them had ever been used in legal action against someone else, like as evidence or tips on possible illegal goings-on? Are there any specific government agencies that track activity on these kinds of sites? Are any extra precautions taken to protect the anonymity of contributors? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 20:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Corey this is a interesting topic, the existence of sites like Erowid and “the chemical underground” highlight how (especially the US) government are losing the battle to control drug information. A “non-event” that may be of interest to you is the DEA making Microgram public in 2003. Microgram was a law enforcement restricted newsletter aimed at forensic chemists and its release made very little impact on the “chemical underground” due to the wealth of information on illicit drugs that was already available.
Here’s a link to an article that might be useful/interesting http://www.michaelerard.com/fulltext/2006/08/open_secrets_how_the_governmen.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:36, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Richard (Rick) Kundiger --[[User:Rakundig|Rakundig]] 19:38, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Role of Bittorrent in the Internet Society
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Kundiger_Assignment_2_Research_Prospectus.pdf
*Comment: This is a great example of "code is law." You have a very powerful tool (the bittorrent protocol) which can be used for both good an illicit purposes. Your investigation of the different interests for and against its deployment should provide an excellent case study. Does a company or government have more of a right than an individual to control the protocols in use? Are those opposed to the protocol trying to protect the greater good of the Internet or their own financial interests? [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 01:53, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Rick, I also like this topic. One thing you could really expand upon is the use of P2P (point to point) connections has also drivin forward such technologies as Skype. This type of technology was also never intended to be used for illicit purposes, but then again the Internet was never designed to be used in many of the ways it is used today. VoIP actually breaks the TCP/IP model where packets were never intended to be treated in such a timely fashion. Another item is that it was used by WikiLeaks to keep Assange a bit more safe, which could be interpreted both good and bad. It's also amazing that the record industry had enough lobby power to take down some of the most famous P2P services. There's also the aspect that businesses deal with a very real threat of employees using bittorrent technologies. The executive that installs a P2P client and accidentally shares out his entire drive has been a very real issue for companies to combat. Further, then end use that also does something simular can share very personal information such as passport and bank account details with the world. Hope my comments have given you some help in this area of interest. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Mary Van Gils
*Prospectus title: Yelp Case Study - Freedom of Expression
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus_-_Yelp_Study_Case.doc
*Comment: Wanted to make you aware as you investigate the external restriciton on freedom of expression regarding the Yelp site that there are also types of businesses which are regulated by state law as to how they may respond to reviews/complaints on sites like Yelp. If you look at my prospectus, you will note insurance companies are one of those types of businesses.[[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:53, 3 March 2011 (UTC)]]

*Name: Susan Jennings [[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 15:46, 22 February 2011 (UTC)]]
*Prospectus title: Annuity Companies' Social Media Communities
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Annuity_Companies%27_Social_Media_Communities.doc

----

*Name: Alan Davies-Gavin & Alex Solomon
*Prospectus title: Architecture of Sites eHarmony and Match.com: contributions of membership data and effects on security and privacy.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment2ProjectProspectus.pdf

Alan and Alex, I think your topic is fascinating and I wanted to chip in my 2 cents which might help your research. Considering the different natures of sites that ultimately sell the same product, I would consider looking at how the two compete in response to one another. By this I mean, is Match doing something that eHarmony isn, and therefore, is eHarmony a bit jealous and trying to get into their market? I know that eHarmony lauched their more casual spinoff "Jazzed.com" which is meant to steal people away from Match. Is Jazzed a suggestion that privacy isn't all that important to frustrated singles? I think that there are also rather large differences in target audience between the two competitors, with eHarmony focusing on a bit older, more conservative crowd while Match goes for the "single and ready to mingle."Also, perhaps look at each companies approach to user profile creation over time, have they changed at all and in what ways? This looks like it'll be an exciting project, I'm looking forward to what you find! ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:31, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Thanks Tym. I like your observations and I think they may well contribute to our research and final content. It's a good perspective that you bring to light. Alan --[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

----

*Name: Kristina Meshkova
*Prospectus title: A music sharing site - Grooveshark, Soundcloud, MySpace.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignement_2_%28Kristina_Meshkova%29.pdf
*Comment: Hey Kristina, I think we have some similar ambitions in regards to our final project. Let's chat tonight if you have any interest in potentially working together [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 14:31, 1 March 2011.

*Name:Vladimir Trojak--[[User:VladimirTrojak|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. --[[User:SCL|SCL]] 03:06, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your comment. I hope it will turn in the way I expect:)I believe that in general they shoudl be the same, such as 'neutral point of view', 'verifiability'. Although there may be differences in other policies because of different laws, such as topics you can speak about. You have any suggestions?Thanks.[[User:VladimirTrojak|VladimirTrojak]] 18:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Faye Ryding [[User:FMRR|FMRR]] 23:59, 21 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: Trolls and vandals on Epinions.com
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Faye_Ryding_Assignment_2.doc

*Name: [[User:Alex|Alex]] Bryan 16:59, 21 February 2011
*Prospectus title: Groooveshark music application
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Prospectus.pdf
*Comments: Hi, Alex. Sorry that didn't answer you earlier. Will be glad to discuss an opportunity to work together on the Final project. Let's discuss it next week in a chat room or via email. This is my email for the course: kristinam2907@gmail.com [[Kristina Meshkova]], 5 March 2011.

*Name: Robert Cunningham
*Prospectus title: The Archive Team
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Proposed_Paper_TopicCunningham.pdf

*Name: [[Joshuasurillo]]
*Prospectus title: The effect of government transparency websites- Wikileaks
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Harvard_assignment_2.doc
*Comment: Joshua, I am very much looking forward to your final product. Your position (or what I am assuming your postion to be) comes across very loud and clear in your prospectus. I wonder if you will reach an opinion as to where to draw the line on "free speech," or if no line should be drawn? My reading of your position if you were to define it today is that free speech must be protected at all costs and no limits are appropriate, at least that is the feeling I am left with from your prospectus. If wikileaks posted the location or identity of our undercover operatives in Iraq or elsewhere, would you support that? If not, what else would you feel would be "going to far?" I look forward to reading more from you. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:25, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Susan Lemont
*Prospectus title: Why do people cultivate large online networks?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Lemont_Prospectus.doc
*Comments:

Unfortunately beyond the stated scope of your project (and not practical to include), but it would be interesting to see how your findings compare to similar surveys of Youtube users (who frequently seek comments, ratings, and channel subscriptions) and members of various online forums which award rankings, custom titles, "reputation", and other benefits to prominent posters based on peer imput. Good luck with this topic. (P.S. Also, it might be interesting try and determine what percentages of Facebook 'friends' of these users are A) people they know in real life vs. those relationships which are strictly online-only and B) what proportion of real life contacts were made prior to 'friending' vs. those which were made as a result of meeting virtually via facebook.) [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 04:34, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Chris Sura [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 03:13, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
*Prospectus title: The Java Community Process: How Does It Really Work?
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Chris_Sura_Assignment_2.pdf

* Name: Ed Arboleda [[User:Earboleda|Earboleda]] 04:42, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Are there collective benefits for copyright owners, copyright infringers, and the general community; if copyright infringement is not enforced under specific circumstances on social media sites?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Ed_Arboleda_Prospectus.pdf

Comments:

Hi Ed, I certainly believe that in specific instances that there can be collective benefits for infringers and owners of copyright. One example is the pirating of the UK run of the TV series Battlestar Gallactica in Australia in October 2004. When the show aired in Australia in January 2005 the ratings exceeded expectations due to “sampling” and word of mouth. Here’s a link to an article with more information http://www.mindjack.com/feature/piracy051305.html [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 20:49, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Elisha Surillo
* Prospectus title: The Tea Party and Internet Freedom
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

I'm confused. This link does not seem to take me to the correct prospectus? Elisha, could you update this to make sure I can access yours?

* Name: Brandon A. Ceranowicz - [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 08:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A Comparative Study of Open Source Licenses
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_Assignment_2_-_Prospectus_BAC.doc

* Name: Lorena Abuín
* Prospectus title: Contribution to prosecuted online activities (Anonymous, BitTorrent, WikiLeaks)
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_2_-_Lorena_Abu%C3%ADn.pdf

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! -----=:) [[User:Deinous|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! --[[User:VladimirK|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, "[http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html How to Become a Hacker]" describes the difference quite well. [[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:11, 26 February 2011 (UTC)
*Comment: Hi Lorena. I think this is a great topic and I agree that you and Deinous seem to have a strong intersection of ideas. I think the comments I made under Deinous' posting are applicable here as well. It's good to see this topic having such strong discussion. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 04:06, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Margaret Tolerton [[User: deinous|deinous]]
* Prospectus title: Hackers, hacking groups, and Hacktivism: Anonymous v. Telecomix as a case study
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Anonymous_v_Telecomix_with_References.doc

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. --[[User:lorenabuin|lorenabuin]] 21:00, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

LOL, I don't know how privileged my point of view is. I am more or less just another nerd with a computer on Friday and Saturday nights. In recent weeks I have come to feel as though the people of Telecomix have accepted me as one of their own though, as I have done a little public relations, fact checking, and some translations. Telecomix is very open about their work, and does not engage in illegal actions. Being mostly European, they lobby against, or for, various cyber laws to their respective Parliaments. What I meant though by my comment "happy too help others who are not as advanced" is that it is common for someone to ask a question of a technological nature and usually others jump in and help to solve the problem. For example, my switch over to Linux, I have been having quite a time configuring a few of my drivers, and getting used to working from a command line with unix syntax, and several people who know how to fix the problems will jump in and start coaching with many lulz along the way.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 03:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello there. I am delighted and in part surprised to see a topic of this type. By type I mean it is heavily technological mission to retrieve a piece of real information from the community of real hackers. Not all software engineers employed by the government are able to intervene communication among the community of real hackers. You may however, catch a few portals where "I can do this, I can do that" type of conversations take place, but whether they really have done something interesting and indeed reveal their ideology is a big speculation. For this course, I believe, you need to change your frequency, sort of speak, and listen not for the hacking communities themselves, but for the actions they have already done. Actions speak lauder than words, as you may know. You you need to listen to the anti-thesis, that is, the counter part of the hacking group. In this country, among various subsequent agencies that keep control of all networks, the NSA sources will probably be the most beneficial to you, although I am not 100 percent sure about this. It is difficult to find something that is available to the public. Recall the scandal with pornographic downloads by the employees of the Trade Commission; this is just one out of million examples of the internet traffic control by the Feds. It is therefore the Feds who are on the opposite side of the argument with the hackers. By considering both ideology of the hackers and a counter-premise by the Feds you will have a full and comprehensive picture for your project. In short, I am proposing to search not only within the hackers community, which may only seem as community of hackers and give you a bogus information, but also find reports, chronicles, and cases exposed by the Feds. It may ultimately appear that it is the Feds who are vandals and trolls and who violate privacy and steal the tax money of the citizens. At least this is what my prospectus's sources can prove, but take a look at National Security Agency [http://www.nsa.gov/] web site. In the meantime, I will keep checking on your project and will try to give you more clues because your topic coincides with mine in many regards. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 06:14, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your response and comments. I will certainly take them into consideration. However, I feel that my views toward hacking are much broader than the criminality of a few, and that there should be more emphasis in part on the difference between hacking and cracking. I am one that still holds the traditional meaning of a hacker as one that is adept with the computer and often generates new creative uses for what is in front of them. As a result I am watching my topic shift a bit and focusing perhaps more on the difficulty that researchers have with the DMCA preventing them from publishing in full their findings, and the law of fair use. Over this past year we have watched the jailbreaking of an iPhone of iPad for the use of external software not approved by Apple go from being an illegal act to being justified as fair use. Although it will nullify any warranty of your gadget. Currently we are watching this same debate occur over the jailbreaking of the Sony PS3 to run Linux and homebrewed games. I am one that supports the fair use argument in that if you are clever enough to make your gadgetry do fun and interesting things beyond the uses that they are intended, then you should be able to do it--especially if you have no intention on using pirated software or make profit of any sort from it. As for an original angle, I am still waffling a bit, and welcome any further comments.====:)[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 17:36, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi Margaret, Given your change in perspective of your project you may wish to explore the discussion of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tivoization Tivoization] (if you have note already considered such). The question of, “Should manufacturers of hardware have the right to limit the use of software on their machines when that software included elements covered under versions of the GNU license?” seems a related and interesting debate. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 16:54, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

Guy, thank you so much for your wonderfully concise thesis question! Sometimes it just takes the right little tweak to bring scattered thoughts together, and pondering the legal parameters of an open source kernel wrapped in a proprietary shell is a question I would very much like to spend some time on. Thanks again.[[User:Deinous|Deinous]] 19:50, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Guy Clinch --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 13:22, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: An Examination of Internet and Society Coursework through the Metaphor of web.alive
* Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Internet_and_Society_Assingment_2%28gclinch%29.pdf

- It has occurred to me that in order to give me feedback on my proposal you may need to experience the web.alive environment. Please feel free to click on the following link and explore. http://apex.avayalive.com/715/html
I look forward to reading your ideas. Thank you. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 19:24, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Syed Yasir Shirazi [User: syedshirazi]
* Prospectus title: Online Group Buying - Newly Emerging Business Model or Fad?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Syed_Yasir_Shirazi-Assignment_2.pdf
* Comments:

Syed, this is a really interesting topic, but I am concerned that it may be too broad. I feel like a question like yours would more likely take up a book than a paper to be completed over a single semestre! Perhaps you could look into a specific group-buying site rather than the concept as a whole, like Groupon or LivingSocial. It might even be interesting to compare the two. Or, are there sites in which users decide which company they want to solicit such coupons from, rather than having the site itself decide? Just some ideas to help you get this topic down to something manageable. Does this help at all? [[User:Mcforelle|Mcforelle]] 21:05, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Jessica Sanfilippo - [[User:Jsanfilippo|Jsanfilippo]] 16:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Transparency and Participation in Crowd Funding
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:JSanfilippo_Assignment_2.doc

Hi Jessica,I think crowd funding is a fascinating topic, and there seem to be various types of crowd funding as you point out. Micro Loans and sites such as Kiva.com are also wonderful examples of crowd funding. I am probably over reaching, but I noticed that Syed Yasir A. Shirazi has a prospectus on Group Buying, and wonder if the two can be connected somehow? What if materials needed for a funded project on kickstarter.com for instance, could be purchased through groupon.com or a similar site? Regardless, I am looking forward to your findings around Crowd Funding (especially in the creative space).

*Name: Adriana Faria Torii [drifaria] and Anna Christiana Marinho C. Machado [([[User:Anna|Anna]] 17:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC))]
*Prospectus title: Analysis of E-Government Practices in Brazil
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Faria_Marinho_Prospectus.pdf

Hi Adriana and Anna - E-governance in an emerging country like Brazil is an attention-grabbing subject. As you have mentioned in your prospectus, in terms of audience, Brazil is amongst the top ten countries in the world (I think they have recently moved up to #5 in terms of total internet users). But that said, the overall internet penetration is pretty low (I think it is close to only 40% of the entire Brazilian population).
The G2C part of your project should provide an interesting analysis since concepts like e-voting work the best when the internet usage amongst citizenry is high. Brazil does not have uniformly high internet penetration across the entire county. Maybe you can differentiate the G2C aspect and compare between urban and rural populations because there will be different results (I believe) for effectiveness of such an ‘e-system’ amongst the 2 geographic segments. Also, you can include some analysis on mechanisms for ‘fraud detection’ for e-voting and e-tax filing processes. Thoughts on this link might be of interest to you: http://qssi.psu.edu/files/hidalgo.pdf. Looking forward to reading your final paper. ~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 21:21, 03 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Laura Connell [[User:Ltconnell|Ltconnell]] 18:15, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Does providing a legal alternative act as a deterrent to internet piracy?
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Laura_Connell_Assignment_2_Prospectus.pdf

Laura, here is a link to a recent study that you may find of use:
[http://documents.envisional.com/docs/Envisional-Internet_Usage-Jan2011.pdf Envisional - Technical report: An Estimate of Infringing Use of the Internet]

Hope you find this helpful --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:47, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Comment: Hi Laura, glad to see this topic on the list. It's a tough topic as it could be looked at as requiring a world government organization to pass law enacting the crack down on stolen DRM'ed materials. At the same time there seems to be evidence that this type of activity does not hit the bottom line of Hollywood and other world producers of content. Manufacturers of CD and DVD technology has traditionally tried to work with the "Hollywoods" of the world only to be thwarted by the hacker. There seems to be a balance in the mix where the manufactures can create some hurdles for the most common user and at the same time not create a situation where users are not able to access valid content (such as putting in a DVD from Japan in a US DVD player and not being able to play the content). I think we're moving more and more toward online content like Netflix where the content is more controlled and the physical media is going away. Streaming content has some inherent properties that cannot be easily overcome, further, as long as the browser being used to support a new type of encryption technology, companies can make changes to security on the web server side when hackers have found an exploit. It's a very interesting topic, but I think any laws created would be done by people that do not fully understand the technology and also the laws have great potential to be outdated in a short amount of time if not written with enough foresight. Having said that, there has been a great deal of reduction in some types of sharing due to cases against people that have pirated DRM'ed media and also have had big impacts on many sites that traditionally have been an excellent source for finding pirated material. Regards, Alan Davies-Gavin--[[User:Adavies01|Adavies01]] 03:45, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Alokika Singh [[User:Singh singh|Singh singh]] 19:32, 22 February 2011 (UTC)[[User:Singhsingh]]
*Prospectus title: Online Political Activism in India
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment_II_22_feb..pdf

Hi Alokika: I think your topic is very interesting. You can also draw a comparative line between roles of leading social/political leaders in India versus the role of ordinary internet users when it comes to acting as the leading force behind online social/political debate in India? A lot of times, it has been seen that individuals who don’t follow any hierarchy kick-off such bold campaigns. (Take the example of what happened in Egypt over the last six months. The online movement was sparked by ordinary folks and not any leading social or political figure).
I am curious to know whether the online ‘Pink Chaddi’ campaign was initiated by general users or spearheaded by a leading social organization in India. I suspect the former. So it will be interesting to see how the online debate has evolved in India.
Looking forward to reading your final analysis.~~[[User:syedshirazi|syedshirazi]] 20:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Don Hussey [[User:Donaldphussey|Donaldphussey]] 19:47, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Crowd-Sourcing of Starbucks Product Development
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:LSTU_E-120_--Hussey_-_Asmt2.doc
* Comments:

Don, this is a really ambitious project. I think it's a great idea for you to use your professional position to get your foot in the door with some of the people at Starbucks; I hope it works! My only concern with this project is that you are only focusing on the corporate side of this venture. Is there any way you can include information from participants or contributors to this site? Is there any way on this site that users can interact with each other, or is it a one-way interaction between contributors and Starbucks? ~~[[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:39, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Tym Lewtak [[User:lewtak|lewtak]] 21:31, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: User Generated Sites: Defining Superusers and Their Monetization
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/Assignment_2.pdf

Tymoteusz, I find you topic very interesting.

I am wondering as a product of your research if you will study the proportion of individuals who are super users compared to commercial organizations using these tools. That is, in respect to commercial organizations using the various tools, how important is the individual? Over time, is the place of the individual becoming more or less important? I would suspect that part of this equation depends upon the rate at which people are able to monetize their involvement as much as how commercial organizations are co-opting the modalities. Is there a constant influx of new blood or will the ability of individuals to monetize their involvement decrease over time?

It may be fascinating to see is this is an indication of a generative system over the long run or something that may peak and decline. Good luck! --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 03:26, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Gclinch, Thanks for all of your input! I initially didn't think to so much as include corporations, but taking a second glance at the subject you're right. I would be foolish to not look at motivations for companies and individuals alike to join sites as super-users. If I can find historical data on users from these sites, I'd like to especially take a look at whether it was individuals who joined first and became super-users, or if corporations jumped onto the "ball game" with individuals following. I suspect the latter isn't true, but I will try to distinguish between companies that joined these sites early on versus already popular companies that grew their earlier existent popularity. ([[User:Lewtak|Lewtak]] 21:20, 1 March 2011 (UTC))

* Name: Denise Reed--[[User:Dreed07|-dreed07]] 21:40, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: A comparative study of user behavior on Chinese social networking sites with that of United States social networkers
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/REED_LSTU_E120_Assignment_2.doc
* Comments:

Fascinating subject! I think that the differences between Chinese and USA based social networking sites is an area ripe for exploration, and one that could potentially shed a lot of light on the effects of government censorship on online communities. Some thoughts: differences in user behavior may be due to many different factors, including site architecture, demographics, and cultural influences. It would be worthwhile to explore the demographic differeces (such as age, socio-economic status, and geographic location) between different sites offering similar services in and outside of China. Furthermore, I wonder if it would be possible to obtain information on the behavior of Chinsese nationals using facebook prior to that site being banned in the PRC, and to compare it to that of non-Chinese nationals? Also, you might look into the social networking habits of users in Hong Kong, where Facebook and simmilar sites (IIRC) remain unblocked. Are their any social networking sites specifically targeted toward the Hong Kong community, and how do such sites differ from those in the rest of China? Finally, I notice that your links seem to be primarily in English. Direct access to Chinese social networking sites, and their users, in their native language would, I imagine, be extremely valuable to this project. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 03:57, 5 March 2011 (UTC)

* Name: Michelle Forelle [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 21:56, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
* Prospectus title: Online Video-Making Groups: Community, Copyright, Collaboration and Commercialism
* Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Assignment2_Vimeo.pdf

*Name: Myra Garza [[User:Myra|Myra]]
*Prospectus title: Preparing and Accommodating Millenials in the Workforce: Use of Social Media in Two Career Coaching Businesses
*Link to prospectus:http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Garza.M.Prospectus.doc
* Comments:

Myra, this is a really interesting topic! I feel like this is exactly as narrow a case study as the professors were asking for. I'm jealous that you were able to identify such an relevant topic, lol! I look forward especially to reading the background research for this paper, as it is my understanding that minority youth are disproportionally represented on sites like Twitter; I'm eager to find out whether that rumor is true, and if so, what it means for the way these youth interact with and influence the hiring process. I'm also interested in hearing how these companies help steer the social use of the social media into the practical, career-building use. I'm curious to see if you find that the conclusions you are specific to urban youth or whether such tactics in career counseling are also applicable to suburban and rural kids too. Great prospectus, I really look forward to reading your paper! [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 18:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

I, too, think this is going to be a very interesting paper. There is such a need in the corporate community for young people who can help older executives use social media both within the organization for employees and outside the organization for the public and consumers. I would be interested in what the career objectives are for the clients of these two organizations. Are they interested in using their social media skills as part of their job requirements or are they looking for careers in various non-related fields? <<[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 01:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)>>

Great topic, as I am sure many of us see on a daily basis the generational differences at work, and the need to involve and "catch" the millenial generation. I wonder if the two organizations will provide you with data on their success, and outreach numbers in the community? I look forward to seeing how this plays out. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 01:35, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

*Name: Jose Uscanga
*Prospectus Title: Cummunity reporting or social activism? The New Age of media reporting in Mexico.
*Link to prospectus: http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/Image:Jose_Uscanga_Assignment_-2.doc

Jose, you have identified a truly compelling topic.

When you ask, “Is free press necessary for democracy?” many of us would say, obviously yes. Reading your prospectus though makes me wonder, “what do we mean today by a free press.” Does phenomenon such as Mexican citizens taking, “on the civic responsibility of alerting other citizens by providing detailed and unfiltered information,” redefine what we mean when we use the term press? I’ll be looking forward to reading your conclusions.

I’d also be interested to learn if you think there is something unique about Mexican culture that compels people to get involved. It seems to me that these citizen journalists are taking huge risks. Even less than the professional journalists, there would seem to be no safety net. After all isn’t it easy for the drug cartels to find out who is issuing the alerts. Is it a demographic trend, is it youth driven or does it span the population? Is it something unique about the way Mexican people relate to one another that makes people get involved? Thanks for taking on such an interesting and challenging topic. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 02:57, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Assignment 2 Submissions

2011-02-25T00:06:35Z

Quill80: /* Submissions */

Assignment 2 Submissions

2011-02-23T02:22:22Z

Quill80: /* Submissions */

Assignment 2 Submissions

2011-02-23T02:17:36Z

Quill80: /* Submissions */

Peer Production and Collaboration

2011-02-22T20:04:39Z

Quill80: /* Class Discussion */

<div class="editsection noprint editlink plainlinksneverexpand" align="right" style="float: right; margin: 5px; background:#eeeeff; color:#111111; border: 4px solid #dddddd; text-align: center;">
<big>'''Syllabus'''</big>
{| border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4" style="background:#eeeeff; text-align: left;"
|
* [[Politics and Technology of Control: Introduction|Jan 25]]
* [[Paradigms for Studying the Internet|Feb 1]]
* [[New Economic Models|Feb 8]]
* [[Peer Production and Collaboration|Feb 15]]
* [[Collective Action and Decision-making|Feb 22]]
* [[New and Old Media, Participation, and Information|Mar 1]]
* [[Law's Role in Regulating Online Conduct and Speech|Mar 8]]
* Mar 15 - ''No class''
|
* [[Regulating Speech Online|Mar 22]]
* [[Internet Infrastructure and Regulation|Mar 29]]
* [[Copyright in Cyberspace|Apr 5]]
* [[Control and Code: Privacy Online|Apr 12]]
* [[Internet and Democracy|Apr 19]]
* [[Internet and Democracy: The Sequel|Apr 26]]
* [[Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare|May 3]]
* [[Final Project|May 10]] - ''No class''
|}
<br clear="right" />
</div>
'''February 15'''
<div style="background-color:#CCCCCC;">'''Note: To make up for the snow day on February 1, tonight's class will run an extra hour, until 8:30pm.'''</div>
The free software movement is one example of a trend towards distributed volunteer networks of individuals collaborating on collective projects that were formerly the domain of the for-profit private sector. In this session, we explore how far such peer production can go in redefining the economic and social structures of modern society.

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/InternetSocietyFeb15.pdf Slides: New Economic & Business Models]

<onlyinclude>
==Readings==
* Yochai Benkler, [http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/394/ News, Information and the Wealth of Networks] (watch from 8:32 to 26:07)
* Zittrain, [http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13 Chapter 4: The Generative Pattern]
* Joseph Reagle, [http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab-norms.html ”Be Nice”: Wikipedia Norms for Supportive Communication]

== Additional Resources==
Joseph Reagle's book: [http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/ Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia]

The following audio streams from NPR may be interesting:
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4986453 Wikipedia, Open Source and the Future of the Web]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6051103 Wikipedia Wins Users and Critics by Jenny Lawton]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4506421 Wikipedia's Growth Comes with Concerns by Laura Sydell]
</onlyinclude>

== Class Discussion ==
Wikipedia’s norms were the most thought provoking and entertaining subjects of last weeks readings for me. The emergence of the rules of behavior for Wikipedia, many of which seem to be just as valid and useful during the non-plugged in moments of our daily life, strikes me as being as unique and interesting as the overall notion of Wikipedia it self, if not more so. Some of the basics like apology and civility are pretty standard and not overly surprising in their development. Others however, like, “Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass” are excellent, and I would like to post on my companies intranet as a new code of conduct, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drop_the_stick_and_back_slowly_away_from_the_horse_carcass) . Of equal importance is humor as a norm. A norm which I believe if given more play in our daily (political) lives, might save lives around the globe. Such as, the, “No one cares about your garage band norm,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_one_cares_about_your_garage_band). Read: "Keep yourself in perspective." Again, not to state the obvious, but I would imagine others who read this may have been struck by the attractiveness of applying these or very similar norms to our daily working environment outside of the Wikipedia world. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 21:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The pattern of emerging of a Generative System was particularly interesting. The power of the five qualities (leverage, adaptability, ease of mastery, accessibility and transferability) and the reciprocity between them allowed a better understanding of the Generative pattern and how it can influence innovation both in positive and negative ways.
Already, the emergence of a collective, collaborative generative system is apparent in diverse forms in the cyberspace. However what I found most interesting (and enthusiastically agree with) is Zittrain’s mention of how this change in the cyberspace is making general societal, cultural and political changes in the real, non-cyberspace world.
[[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 20:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

As per Zittrain's argument, I found that his reasoning about "affordance" and "adoptabilty", although defined with great deal of common sense, has enough ambiguity to start questioning ourselves about that tipping point at which the environment's affardances take over the user's adoptability. The point is difficult to trace in the light of constantly changing user interfaces that in turn are sensitive to changes in hardware. It seems that Zittrain wants the reader to complete his thought. As in the bicycle example, the environment is meant to compete for more users by adding value in a form of a new hardware and then dressing it up with a new, often more complex user interface. This motion triggers the action on the user's side where after the initial opportunity cost, users attempt to improve the interface, often falling behind on the hardware due to its cost. This is where the peer-production and collaboration takes place that is defined by users' "four-freedoms" and stimulated by systems' "generativity". Now everything seems reasonable in the market terms, but when the added-value concept is applied to Wikipedia, it just does not make sense because there is no classic law of supply and demand can be applicable to the intellectual property market, nor there is a right of ownership. There is a marginal social benefit however, but again, it is unmanaged and therefore no accuracy guaranteed and thus it cannot be a beneficial nomenclature as for instance a library is.

After yesterday's meeting with a guy who has a doctorate in the field of Wikipedia, it remains unclear, or perhaps completely unanswered, whether Wikipedia, as any other entity on the market of "intellectual goods and services", should have its ultimate authority and who that authority might be. I often wonder how else I could have phrased the question on a person's native language to obtain a straightforward answer. I know one thing for sure based on years of seminar experience that if a scholar is not answering the question directly or asking for reinterpretation, he or she is probably a dilettante. Anyway, I am thankful for his marvelous answers and his efforts to take a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

A common but still under-developed theme throughout the readings is a comparative look at how traditional companies are adapting to the technological and social changes brought about by the internet. As described by Zittrain and Benckler, incumbent firms are essentially undergoing a massive increase in competition from generative systems. There look to be three sorts of reaction. Some firms are treating this as a traditional attack and their strategy is to undermine the competing product based on quality (i.e. Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia.) Others are co-opting newly-developed methods and changing or developing new products (Google’s embrace of Linux to create Android and drive search revenue.) A third set is building whole new businesses on top of the generative processes (IBM’s extension of open-source software into services.) [[User:Smithbc|Smithbc]] 22:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Listening to, and reading, various pieces on Wikipedia I am struck by the amount of effort that Jimmy Wales seems to put into promoting the idea of Wikipedia as, to paraphrase, "a close-knit community of dedicated users" with emphasis on user reputation and his role as "benevolent dictator", and distancing himself from the more "democratic" (read: anonymous contributors) aspects of the site which (I assume) are generally the first things that come to most peoples' minds when Wikipedia is mentioned. I wonder if this attitude was always a core part of the site's conception, or whether it was developed in response to outside criticism of the encyclopedia’s (lack of) credibility. Or if it is merely an accurate description of how the site has evolved... I would hazard to guess that Wikipedia, despite what Mr. Wales may say, is *both* a close-knit community *and* a conglomeration of faceless, unorganized (naturally organizing?) "ants"; I doubt the site could survive without both aspects. I am also struck by the parallel between this view and the criticism of Wikipedia skeptics: they see "peer review" being essential, where a "peer" is a responsible member of the academic community, while Mr. Wales sees "peer review" as equally essential, only with "peer" defined as a responsible member of the Wikipedia community. I wonder that seems to occur to no one that the "Wikipedia community" (let alone the "faceless ants") might very well contain those self-same learned academics who compose and edit articles for Britanica. And if companies are hiring PR agents to "protect" their image on Wikipedia, then I wonder why University faculties have not taken it upon themselves to jointly, publicly venture into Wikipedia to improve the quality of the articles found there in. Surely, after 10 years we should have started to take this thing seriously.
[[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 00:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

What has struck me most about the readings from this week has been the innate desire of most people to help and be helpful. "Be Nice" was particularly interesting because of how thorough the author was in examining these behaviors; I've never read social theory like that before and it's great to get a good foundation to start working from. However, beyond the obvious example of the Wikipedia community, there are dozens of other communities and companies that I did not realize were taking advantage of people's urge to contribute constructively, including the importance of peer reviews for sites like Amazon and Yelp, and the adoption of consumer-generated innovations by companies like LEGO. The article from Business Week, "The Power of Us," contained one quote, from Yochai Benkler, natch, that really caught my attention: "The economic role of social behavior is increasing." Today, consumer input is not just useful, it's almost mandatory in order for a company to be successful. This made me consider what Hollywood and the record and publishing industries are doing with themselves. They have been referenced in nearly ever reading we've had so far as the industry most affected by the easy sharing of information via the Internet, and yet not one article has discussed what that industry is doing to counter that damage. Is this a simple omission by these authors, or has the industry not responded at all? [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 3:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

McKensey has conducted annual surveys the past several years on companies' use of web 2.0 in various ways. This year's report is on its web page at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_Web_20_finds_its_payday_2716. Interesting to see the number of companies reporting increased number of successful innovations and decreased product development costs when fully utilizing the web. After reading this week's assignments, I went back to re-read this article and wondered why it had not impressed me as much on my first read-through. [[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 16:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)]]

As for the books of this month, I am reading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikinomics Wikinomics] by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tapscott Don Tapscott] & [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_D._Williams Anthony D. Williams] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody Here Comes Everybody] by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky Clay Shirky]. Coincidentally, these two books describe and reveal amazing aspects of peer collaboration and its consequences. Regarding the mass collaboration's economic effects, the Goldcorp Challenge can be deemed a symbolic case. To summarize a long story behind the success of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldcorp Goldcorp], sending an SOS to people outside of the company significantly contributed to discovery of new gold mines and boosted its financial growth. In a common sense, showing any sign of a company in a trouble is looked as a disaster in business management. Nonetheless, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_McEwen Rob McEwen], at then the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., risked asking for a help and announced the Goldcorp Challenge to look for undeveloped mineral properties; and it worked out incredibly well. These books are absolutely recommended for someone who is looking for a detailed explanation on our class topic. --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 17:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

So much for Wikipedia and so little about Academia as we've been hearing and reading so far. It could probably mean that there is a clash of ambitions between scholars and free lancers. Each of us has attempted to measure the intellectual climate, sort of speak, in the area of our interests and now we have formed our reports and opinions about which no body really cares. Our opinions are only for the purpose of this course, not for the purpose of creation of policy, so as opinions of millions of others who attempted to make changes to Wikipedia but lost their rights due to lack of authority. This is what ultimately matters the most as Chris Anderson is simply begging the question on [[NPR]] about the efficiency of the review process: a review by three fellows with a doctorate versus a review by the bunch of scholars with degrees from the university of life is the quantitative approach. The qualitative approach perhaps, not of the major concern but participation is. Ok, an average user might say, the participation will build a virtual community that could educate itself after time. Well, good luck with that virtual degree, virtual job, and virtual personal life, an average scholar might say. The reality just does not work that way and fiction should not be a part of it. The web governing organization, as Henry Jenkins describes in his article "Science Fiction and Smart Mobs" [http://www.technologyreview.com/web/13053/page1/], remains unofficial but its possible function is sketched out in the Ellis's book "Global Frequency"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency]. The real Wikipedia agents however, unlike agents of "Global Frequency", are unable to enforce the policy and contribute their intelligence to the real society. Then, the question rises why we even considering Wikipedia as a model of a wider web space a proper control of which we are attempting to establish? --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

As I was searching for materials related to Prof. Zittrain's Generativity theory, I found quite interesting websites that might help other classmates who want to better understand this term.
*[http://ssrn.com/abstract=847124 Zittrain, Jonathan, The Generative Internet. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 119, p. 1974, May 2006; Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 28/2006; Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2006/1]
*[http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/09/future-of-the-internet-symposium-generative-end-hosts-vs-generative-networks.html 'Future of the Internet Symposium: Generative End Hosts vs. Generative Networks?' posted by Barbara van Schewick]
In particular, I was intrigued by the double natures of generativity of the Internet. According to Zittrain's explanation, generativity - the platform for creation and innovation - also possesses threats in itself (e.g. widespread of viruses and other badwares). Would it be possible to maintain generativity without compromising to reduce malicious codes floating around the digital world? --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 14:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

== Links ==
Chris Anderson: [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/people.html People Power]

Business Week: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm The Power of Us]

Nasa: [http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top Clickworkers Study]
* the link to the NASA Clickworkers Study seems to be broken. Here is a link to the [http://www.nasa.gov/open/plan/peo.html program's home page] --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 13:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yochai Benkler's Seminal Work on Peer Production: [http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html Coase's Penguin]

Jimbo Wales: [http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20050711_76 Talk on the Wikipedia Community]

Peer Production and Collaboration

2011-02-22T20:04:07Z

Quill80: /* Class Discussion */

<div class="editsection noprint editlink plainlinksneverexpand" align="right" style="float: right; margin: 5px; background:#eeeeff; color:#111111; border: 4px solid #dddddd; text-align: center;">
<big>'''Syllabus'''</big>
{| border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4" style="background:#eeeeff; text-align: left;"
|
* [[Politics and Technology of Control: Introduction|Jan 25]]
* [[Paradigms for Studying the Internet|Feb 1]]
* [[New Economic Models|Feb 8]]
* [[Peer Production and Collaboration|Feb 15]]
* [[Collective Action and Decision-making|Feb 22]]
* [[New and Old Media, Participation, and Information|Mar 1]]
* [[Law's Role in Regulating Online Conduct and Speech|Mar 8]]
* Mar 15 - ''No class''
|
* [[Regulating Speech Online|Mar 22]]
* [[Internet Infrastructure and Regulation|Mar 29]]
* [[Copyright in Cyberspace|Apr 5]]
* [[Control and Code: Privacy Online|Apr 12]]
* [[Internet and Democracy|Apr 19]]
* [[Internet and Democracy: The Sequel|Apr 26]]
* [[Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare|May 3]]
* [[Final Project|May 10]] - ''No class''
|}
<br clear="right" />
</div>
'''February 15'''
<div style="background-color:#CCCCCC;">'''Note: To make up for the snow day on February 1, tonight's class will run an extra hour, until 8:30pm.'''</div>
The free software movement is one example of a trend towards distributed volunteer networks of individuals collaborating on collective projects that were formerly the domain of the for-profit private sector. In this session, we explore how far such peer production can go in redefining the economic and social structures of modern society.

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/sites/is2011/images/InternetSocietyFeb15.pdf Slides: New Economic & Business Models]

<onlyinclude>
==Readings==
* Yochai Benkler, [http://mitworld.mit.edu/play/394/ News, Information and the Wealth of Networks] (watch from 8:32 to 26:07)
* Zittrain, [http://yupnet.org/zittrain/archives/13 Chapter 4: The Generative Pattern]
* Joseph Reagle, [http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/06/reagle-nrhm-special-collab-norms.html ”Be Nice”: Wikipedia Norms for Supportive Communication]

== Additional Resources==
Joseph Reagle's book: [http://reagle.org/joseph/2010/gfc/ Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia]

The following audio streams from NPR may be interesting:
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4986453 Wikipedia, Open Source and the Future of the Web]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6051103 Wikipedia Wins Users and Critics by Jenny Lawton]
* [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4506421 Wikipedia's Growth Comes with Concerns by Laura Sydell]
</onlyinclude>

== Class Discussion ==
Wikipedia’s norms were the most thought provoking and entertaining subjects of last weeks readings for me. The emergence of the rules of behavior for Wikipedia, many of which seem to be just as valid and useful during the non-plugged in moments of our daily life, strikes me as being as unique and interesting as the overall notion of Wikipedia it self, if not more so. Some of the basics like apology and civility are pretty standard and not overly surprising in their development. Others however, like, “Drop the stick and back slowly away from the horse carcass” are excellent, and I would like to post on my companies intranet as a new code of conduct, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drop_the_stick_and_back_slowly_away_from_the_horse_carcass) . Of equal importance is humor as a norm. A norm which I believe if given more play in our daily (political) lives, might save lives around the globe. Such as, the, “No one cares about your garage band norm,” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_one_cares_about_your_garage_band). Read: "Keep yourself in perspective." Again, not to state the obvious, but I would imagine others who read this may have been struck by the attractiveness of applying these or very similar norms to our daily working environment outside of the Wikipedia world. [[User:Coreymacd|Coreymacd]] 21:27, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The pattern of emerging of a Generative System was particularly interesting. The power of the five qualities (leverage, adaptability, ease of mastery, accessibility and transferability) and the reciprocity between them allowed a better understanding of the Generative pattern and how it can influence innovation both in positive and negative ways.
Already, the emergence of a collective, collaborative generative system is apparent in diverse forms in the cyberspace. However what I found most interesting (and enthusiastically agree with) is Zittrain’s mention of how this change in the cyberspace is making general societal, cultural and political changes in the real, non-cyberspace world.
[[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 20:04, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
As per Zittrain's argument, I found that his reasoning about "affordance" and "adoptabilty", although defined with great deal of common sense, has enough ambiguity to start questioning ourselves about that tipping point at which the environment's affardances take over the user's adoptability. The point is difficult to trace in the light of constantly changing user interfaces that in turn are sensitive to changes in hardware. It seems that Zittrain wants the reader to complete his thought. As in the bicycle example, the environment is meant to compete for more users by adding value in a form of a new hardware and then dressing it up with a new, often more complex user interface. This motion triggers the action on the user's side where after the initial opportunity cost, users attempt to improve the interface, often falling behind on the hardware due to its cost. This is where the peer-production and collaboration takes place that is defined by users' "four-freedoms" and stimulated by systems' "generativity". Now everything seems reasonable in the market terms, but when the added-value concept is applied to Wikipedia, it just does not make sense because there is no classic law of supply and demand can be applicable to the intellectual property market, nor there is a right of ownership. There is a marginal social benefit however, but again, it is unmanaged and therefore no accuracy guaranteed and thus it cannot be a beneficial nomenclature as for instance a library is.

After yesterday's meeting with a guy who has a doctorate in the field of Wikipedia, it remains unclear, or perhaps completely unanswered, whether Wikipedia, as any other entity on the market of "intellectual goods and services", should have its ultimate authority and who that authority might be. I often wonder how else I could have phrased the question on a person's native language to obtain a straightforward answer. I know one thing for sure based on years of seminar experience that if a scholar is not answering the question directly or asking for reinterpretation, he or she is probably a dilettante. Anyway, I am thankful for his marvelous answers and his efforts to take a trip to Cambridge, Massachusetts. --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:55, 16 February 2011 (UTC)

A common but still under-developed theme throughout the readings is a comparative look at how traditional companies are adapting to the technological and social changes brought about by the internet. As described by Zittrain and Benckler, incumbent firms are essentially undergoing a massive increase in competition from generative systems. There look to be three sorts of reaction. Some firms are treating this as a traditional attack and their strategy is to undermine the competing product based on quality (i.e. Encyclopedia Britannica vs. Wikipedia.) Others are co-opting newly-developed methods and changing or developing new products (Google’s embrace of Linux to create Android and drive search revenue.) A third set is building whole new businesses on top of the generative processes (IBM’s extension of open-source software into services.) [[User:Smithbc|Smithbc]] 22:14, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Listening to, and reading, various pieces on Wikipedia I am struck by the amount of effort that Jimmy Wales seems to put into promoting the idea of Wikipedia as, to paraphrase, "a close-knit community of dedicated users" with emphasis on user reputation and his role as "benevolent dictator", and distancing himself from the more "democratic" (read: anonymous contributors) aspects of the site which (I assume) are generally the first things that come to most peoples' minds when Wikipedia is mentioned. I wonder if this attitude was always a core part of the site's conception, or whether it was developed in response to outside criticism of the encyclopedia’s (lack of) credibility. Or if it is merely an accurate description of how the site has evolved... I would hazard to guess that Wikipedia, despite what Mr. Wales may say, is *both* a close-knit community *and* a conglomeration of faceless, unorganized (naturally organizing?) "ants"; I doubt the site could survive without both aspects. I am also struck by the parallel between this view and the criticism of Wikipedia skeptics: they see "peer review" being essential, where a "peer" is a responsible member of the academic community, while Mr. Wales sees "peer review" as equally essential, only with "peer" defined as a responsible member of the Wikipedia community. I wonder that seems to occur to no one that the "Wikipedia community" (let alone the "faceless ants") might very well contain those self-same learned academics who compose and edit articles for Britanica. And if companies are hiring PR agents to "protect" their image on Wikipedia, then I wonder why University faculties have not taken it upon themselves to jointly, publicly venture into Wikipedia to improve the quality of the articles found there in. Surely, after 10 years we should have started to take this thing seriously.
[[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 00:57, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

What has struck me most about the readings from this week has been the innate desire of most people to help and be helpful. "Be Nice" was particularly interesting because of how thorough the author was in examining these behaviors; I've never read social theory like that before and it's great to get a good foundation to start working from. However, beyond the obvious example of the Wikipedia community, there are dozens of other communities and companies that I did not realize were taking advantage of people's urge to contribute constructively, including the importance of peer reviews for sites like Amazon and Yelp, and the adoption of consumer-generated innovations by companies like LEGO. The article from Business Week, "The Power of Us," contained one quote, from Yochai Benkler, natch, that really caught my attention: "The economic role of social behavior is increasing." Today, consumer input is not just useful, it's almost mandatory in order for a company to be successful. This made me consider what Hollywood and the record and publishing industries are doing with themselves. They have been referenced in nearly ever reading we've had so far as the industry most affected by the easy sharing of information via the Internet, and yet not one article has discussed what that industry is doing to counter that damage. Is this a simple omission by these authors, or has the industry not responded at all? [[User:mcforelle|mcforelle]] 3:32, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

McKensey has conducted annual surveys the past several years on companies' use of web 2.0 in various ways. This year's report is on its web page at http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/The_rise_of_the_networked_enterprise_Web_20_finds_its_payday_2716. Interesting to see the number of companies reporting increased number of successful innovations and decreased product development costs when fully utilizing the web. After reading this week's assignments, I went back to re-read this article and wondered why it had not impressed me as much on my first read-through. [[[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 16:01, 15 February 2011 (UTC)]]

As for the books of this month, I am reading [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikinomics Wikinomics] by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Tapscott Don Tapscott] & [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_D._Williams Anthony D. Williams] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Comes_Everybody Here Comes Everybody] by [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_Shirky Clay Shirky]. Coincidentally, these two books describe and reveal amazing aspects of peer collaboration and its consequences. Regarding the mass collaboration's economic effects, the Goldcorp Challenge can be deemed a symbolic case. To summarize a long story behind the success of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldcorp Goldcorp], sending an SOS to people outside of the company significantly contributed to discovery of new gold mines and boosted its financial growth. In a common sense, showing any sign of a company in a trouble is looked as a disaster in business management. Nonetheless, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_McEwen Rob McEwen], at then the CEO of Goldcorp Inc., risked asking for a help and announced the Goldcorp Challenge to look for undeveloped mineral properties; and it worked out incredibly well. These books are absolutely recommended for someone who is looking for a detailed explanation on our class topic. --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 17:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

So much for Wikipedia and so little about Academia as we've been hearing and reading so far. It could probably mean that there is a clash of ambitions between scholars and free lancers. Each of us has attempted to measure the intellectual climate, sort of speak, in the area of our interests and now we have formed our reports and opinions about which no body really cares. Our opinions are only for the purpose of this course, not for the purpose of creation of policy, so as opinions of millions of others who attempted to make changes to Wikipedia but lost their rights due to lack of authority. This is what ultimately matters the most as Chris Anderson is simply begging the question on [[NPR]] about the efficiency of the review process: a review by three fellows with a doctorate versus a review by the bunch of scholars with degrees from the university of life is the quantitative approach. The qualitative approach perhaps, not of the major concern but participation is. Ok, an average user might say, the participation will build a virtual community that could educate itself after time. Well, good luck with that virtual degree, virtual job, and virtual personal life, an average scholar might say. The reality just does not work that way and fiction should not be a part of it. The web governing organization, as Henry Jenkins describes in his article "Science Fiction and Smart Mobs" [http://www.technologyreview.com/web/13053/page1/], remains unofficial but its possible function is sketched out in the Ellis's book "Global Frequency"[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Frequency]. The real Wikipedia agents however, unlike agents of "Global Frequency", are unable to enforce the policy and contribute their intelligence to the real society. Then, the question rises why we even considering Wikipedia as a model of a wider web space a proper control of which we are attempting to establish? --[[User:VladimirK|VladimirK]] 20:45, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

As I was searching for materials related to Prof. Zittrain's Generativity theory, I found quite interesting websites that might help other classmates who want to better understand this term.
*[http://ssrn.com/abstract=847124 Zittrain, Jonathan, The Generative Internet. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 119, p. 1974, May 2006; Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 28/2006; Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2006/1]
*[http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2010/09/future-of-the-internet-symposium-generative-end-hosts-vs-generative-networks.html 'Future of the Internet Symposium: Generative End Hosts vs. Generative Networks?' posted by Barbara van Schewick]
In particular, I was intrigued by the double natures of generativity of the Internet. According to Zittrain's explanation, generativity - the platform for creation and innovation - also possesses threats in itself (e.g. widespread of viruses and other badwares). Would it be possible to maintain generativity without compromising to reduce malicious codes floating around the digital world? --[[User:Yu Ri|Yu Ri]] 14:21, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

== Links ==
Chris Anderson: [http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/people.html People Power]

Business Week: [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_25/b3938601.htm The Power of Us]

Nasa: [http://clickworkers.arc.nasa.gov/top Clickworkers Study]
* the link to the NASA Clickworkers Study seems to be broken. Here is a link to the [http://www.nasa.gov/open/plan/peo.html program's home page] --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 13:14, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Yochai Benkler's Seminal Work on Peer Production: [http://www.benkler.org/CoasesPenguin.html Coase's Penguin]

Jimbo Wales: [http://webcast.oii.ox.ac.uk/?view=Webcast&ID=20050711_76 Talk on the Wikipedia Community]

Paradigms for Studying the Internet

2011-02-08T19:12:41Z

Quill80: /* Class Discussion */

<div class="editsection noprint editlink plainlinksneverexpand" align="right" style="float: right; margin: 5px; background:#eeeeff; color:#111111; border: 4px solid #dddddd; text-align: center;">
<big>'''Syllabus'''</big>
{| border="0" cellspacing="4" cellpadding="4" style="background:#eeeeff; text-align: left;"
|
* [[Politics and Technology of Control: Introduction|Jan 25]]
* [[Paradigms for Studying the Internet|Feb 1]]
* [[New Economic Models|Feb 8]]
* [[Peer Production and Collaboration|Feb 15]]
* [[Collective Action and Decision-making|Feb 22]]
* [[New and Old Media, Participation, and Information|Mar 1]]
* [[Law's Role in Regulating Online Conduct and Speech|Mar 8]]
* Mar 15 - ''No class''
|
* [[Regulating Speech Online|Mar 22]]
* [[Internet Infrastructure and Regulation|Mar 29]]
* [[Copyright in Cyberspace|Apr 5]]
* [[Control and Code: Privacy Online|Apr 12]]
* [[Internet and Democracy|Apr 19]]
* [[Internet and Democracy: The Sequel|Apr 26]]
* [[Cybersecurity and Cyberwarfare|May 3]]
* [[Final Project|May 10]] - ''No class''
|}
<br clear="right" />
</div>
'''February 1'''
<div style="background-color:#CCCCCC;">'''Note: Due to snow in Cambridge, class is canceled today. To make up for the cancellation, we'll be adding an hour to each of the next two class sessions (February 8 and 15).'''</div>
Before we can even begin exploring the who's, what's, and why's -- we need to answer the critical question of '''how.''' Indeed, the phrase "studying the web" could embrace a staggering world of possible routes to explore, even before beginning to examine its relationship with society and culture. We need something to guide us through this massive field of (very interesting!) foxholes, and link the ideas we encounter into a consistent piece. We need some kind of structure to allow us to ''understand'' what we are looking at, the same way a chemist thinks of things in terms of atoms and molecules, or a philosopher can think about things in terms of schools of thought.

This class will propose and develop one framework for the web, which will structure both the discussion and topic matter covered in the course, as well as the methodology that you should apply to your assignments.

<onlyinclude>
== Readings ==
* [http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_11.pdf Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks] (Read pages 379-396. The rest of this chapter expands the discussions of each layer in more detail, if you want to read more about them)

* [http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~zs/decl.html John Perry Barlow, A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace]

* [http://www.cluetrain.com Chris Locke, Doc Searls & David Weinberger, Cluetrain Manifesto] (just the manifesto)

== Optional Readings ==

* [http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961 Jack Goldsmith & Tim Wu, Digital Borders]

* [http://futureoftheinternet.org/ Jonathan Zittrain, The Future of the Internet - Chapters 1 & 2]
</onlyinclude>

== Videos Watched in Class ==

== Links ==

For people interested in a more technical primer on the architecture of the web, how email works, etc. check out ethan zuckerman and andrew mclaughlin's [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/digitaldemocracy/internetarchitecture.html Introduction to Internet Architecture and Institutions]

Some fred turner resources: [http://blip.tv/file/125930 video presentation], [http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/mediaberkman/2006/12/01/from-counterculture-to-cyberculture-the-rise-of-digital-utopianism/ audio presentation], and [http://www.stanford.edu/group/fredturner/cgi-bin/drupal/ homepage]

[http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Citizendium Citizendium]

Jason Scott on [http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808 The Great Failure of Wikipedia] (2004)

[http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/012611-internet-providers-are-the-new.html Internet providers are the new secret police, says report]

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/business/media/31link.html Define Gender Gap? Look Up Wikipedia's Contributor List]

[http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/open-source-fail Open Source #FAIL]

"For all its allure, the Internet can be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets." - US Senator Joe Lieberman, chairman of the U.S. Homeland Security Committee [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1352375/Plan-Obama-kill-switch-powers-cut-internet-access-event-national-cyber-crisis.html Call to give Obama 'kill switch' powers to cut internet access in the event of national cyber crisis] 1 Feb 2011

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/weekinreview/30shane.html Spotlight Again Falls on Web Tools and Change - article on how repressive regimes can use the internet and new media to their advantage]

== Class Discussion ==
<div style="background-color:#CCCCCC;">'''Please remember to sign your postings by adding four tildes (<nowiki>~~~~</nowiki>) to the end of your contribution. This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post, like so: [[User:RebekahHeacock|RebekahHeacock]] 14:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)'''</div>

Reading the Cluetrain Manifesto, I could not help but to remember what Henry Ford said, “Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black.” Clearly, this kind of top-down approach no longer has its place in the modern world. The fact that the Internet has changed the way companies interact with their customers is as widespread as undeniable. However, I want to remark that the lack of universal access to technology has actually marginalized those consumers without the means or skills of getting themselves heard through the cyberspace more ever than before. Businesses are adapting quickly to the new changes in the market. However, I want to question, how well are we, as a society, sharing the benefits of technology to those who do not have access? [[User:Quill80|Quill80]] 19:12, 8 February 2011 (UTC)

While reading this Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace i can not shake a thought of Technological Singularity which is supposed to come by the earliest estimates around the year 2020... Science fiction or a true possibility? --[[User:Jastify|Jastify]] 22:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Although Wikipedia offers knowledge on extensive topics, holding the better model, is there not a huge concern that there is no longer postings of validated facts versus mere opinion?

Here is a link to the BBC World Service documentary Wikipedia at 10 - a 22.5 minute retrospective on the occasion of Wikipedia’s 10th anniversary. It covers a number of topics, some of which may be relevant to the upcoming Wikipedia editing assignment. ''(Reposted from the January 25th discussion page, as it seems more appropriate here. - BrandonAndrzej)''

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2011/01/110111_wikipedia_at_10.shtml

The rhetorical use of the euphemism of the monolithic corporation in the [http://www.cluetrain.com/ Cluetrain Manifesto] undermines the effectiveness its message. Thesis number two states, “Markets consist of human beings...” Last time I looked, so do corporations.

In fact corporations are highly organized social creatures with diverse internal cultures, rules, mores and recognized standards of behavior. They respond to a broad spectrum of internal and external influence. If only solving today’s problems were so easy as to point our finger and say “off with their heads.” The real challenge, however, is much more complicated and a matter of personal responsibility.

Corporations come in all flavors. Some are highly democratic. As requirements of participating in the public capital markets all have democratic institutions: a constitution (articles of incorporation), boards of directors, shareholders, external advocates and most importantly customers. The Manifesto takes the all too easy out of blaming the generic “them.” The truth is that the reason corporations are as they are today is because the majority of corporate stakeholders abdicate their responsibility to guide the direction of the organization through exercise of their enfranchisement as shareholders and customers.

The behavior of corporations is a function of ''our'' collective actions and inactions. We have cheap goods made by slave labor because in the exercise of our conspicuous consumption we don’t want to - or without sacrificing our consumption volume can’t afford to - pay the price of having the same goods manufactured by the un-oppressed. The result is that we send our dollars to evil places rather than fund the social infrastructure that improves the standard of living of more humane societies.

Further we have out-of-control executive salaries, unrestrained executive actions, boards of directors driven by motivations other than the interests of the shareholders and other unsavory corporate behaviors because we fail to fulfill our responsibilities. Too few read the prospectus, attend shareholder meetings, or even vote shares beyond granting proxy to the someone else. I am guilty as charged when like so many, I seek to maximize my ability to profit by pooling my finances in investment cartels while leaving decision making to fund managers, investment advisors and other members of the vested interest.

Many say we need more regulations. I say we have the regulations that we desire. This is true because through our collective actions we drive corporate investment decisions. If we did not want corporations to spend scarce investment dollars to employ the more than 45,000 lobbyists in Washington who water down and fight against regulation, the corporations would find other places to invest. If instead we used our purchasing power and shareholder votes to direct investment elsewhere, there it would flow.

The Icelandic version of Microsoft Windows mentioned in [http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961 Digital Borders] proves the point. On the other hand our abdication of this power as Digital Borders expresses results in the fact that the, “[http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961 technologies of control in China are essentially the same technologies designed to satisfy consumer demand for geographically tailored Internet products.]” Due in part to our marketplace behaviors, oppressors are given the tools they so effectively use as an unintended consequence of our desire for applications to tell us how many of our friends are in close proximity who might be interested in a game of beer pong.

Chasing our dollars and with our benign assent, corporations have followed the instruction we have given them. Let’s stop blaming “them;” for we are them and start taking responsibility for the results of our actions. --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 00:06, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Enjoyed watching the BBC anniversay documentary on Wikipedia. As businesses start to utilize this media, I wonder how the controls put in place by Wikipedia for neutral content can possibly be effective. I compared an entry for the holding company for which the company where I am employed is a subsidiary and compared it to one of our competitors. The difference was substantial. The competitor's had a distinct advertising (promotion) flavor along with company's graphics on the right hand border of the page. My company's was a four sentence historical overview providing little relevant information to any potential customer or employee. After checking with our PR Department, I was told no one in the company had written the posting. They assume it was done by a third party contributor. Just by comparing these two companies, the lack of uniformity is readily apparent.--[[User:Sjennings|sjennings]] 20:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC) sjennings

Hello. First remark is concerning [http://www.cluetrain.com/ Cluetrain Manifesto]. These 3 'Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.' I think that big part of our current comminucation has a sound of 'message' or 'MS Outlook Email Sound' if you know what I mean. Sad, but true.

Another remark is about [http://ww2.cs.mu.oz.au/~zs/decl.html A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace].'You claim there are problems among us that you need to solve.[...]...governance will arise according to the conditions of our world, not yours. Our world is different.' I think this is very good statement for discussion. I am not sure to what extend Internet shoudl be independent from real world. Should not be there governing rules? Should it be for intance ISP who decides what they do with my personal data, or information about what kind of webpages I visit, or even where am I located?We do not need any law for that?
We do not need Ecommerce directive or DMCA in US? I am not sure whether I get it right but to me it looks like declaration wanted to say somethink like we do not need them (nbot particular those ones but in general). Any suggestions?
--[[User:VladimirTrojak|VladimirTrojak]] 15:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Principal ideas expressed “The Cluetrain Manifesto“ and „The Great Failure of Wikipedia” I have found in sharp contradiction. The “Cluetrainers” consider the conversation and trading of information and traverse of ideas over the Internet as the essence for present corporations, markets and cultures. On the other hand the author of “Great Failure of Wikipedia” considers gathering and structuring information through communication of masses over the Internet as a work of “wonks”, “twiddlers”, which amount to “ procedural whackjobs”.
The clash between these two ideological approaches to the essence of the Internet remind me challenges between the governance of majority expressed in democracy and democratic system and governance of elite represented by oligarchic system. These two philosophical, sociological and political approaches are well reasoned and analyzed in the work of Jose Ortega y Gasset “ The Revolt of the Masses” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/José_Ortega_y_Gasset).
To make a short summary of this scholar ś ideas, only elite “content generators” formed by some “barriers of entry” could produces welfare “content” in all aspects of human society “the Internet”. I believe that this struggle would never have the winner. [[User:Zholakova|Zholakova]] 21:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Regarding the concept of a “borderless Internet,” the article [http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961 Digital Borders] claims it is reflective of both government and consumer pressure for an Internet that conforms to their individual preferences and laws. I would also argue that such filtered content delivery also arose out of huge corporate demand. Yahoo! has a wealth of user data (geographic, demographic, behavioral, etc) at its disposal, and advertisers are willing to pay a premium to be able to leverage that. So, while a formidable blow to Internet freedom, Mr. Yang and his company have ultimately benefited greatly from the byproduct of their legal defeat, which is a highly profitable business in localized content delivery.

This also raises the controversial topic of how relevant is ''too'' relevant. Internet consumers are keenly aware that their personal information is being collected and repurposed, but it does not seem the boundaries are permanently drawn yet. [[User:Jsanfilippo|Jsanfilippo]] 19:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I just had some initial comments before we discuss further in class. Digital technology and the Internet have revolutionized the cross-border communication and information sharing, and this has benefited everyone unimaginably. However, the Internet also has created many great issues and problems that are very serious and threatening (i.e. privacy issues, cyber-terrorism, support for terrorism and other criminal activities, etc.). In order to maximize/protect the benefits and minimize/eliminate damages caused by the Internet, I feel that law, regulation and censorship sometimes are necessary. Anarchy eventually leads to destruction, and I do not think the cyberspace is an exception. Thus, I was a bit uncomfortable with the ideas portrayed in either the [http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~zs/decl.html Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace] or the [http://www.cluetrain.com Cluetrain Manifesto]. Moreover, as discussed in the [http://www.legalaffairs.org/printerfriendly.msp?id=961 Digital Borders], there are vast differences in laws, regulations, cultures and traditions among countries around the world, and they must be respected in the cyberspace as they are aimed to be as such in the “real world.” Through this course, I hope I can gain more ideas about the extent to which the Internet should be regulated and controlled by governments.[[User:Edwardshinp|Edwardshinp]] 17:39, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

The idea of a free, humanistic and borderless Internet expressed in the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace and Cluetrain Manifesto is simply romantic but naïve idealism. Certainly the Internet is a wonderfully powerful communication medium, but we must recognize that it stands upon the shoulders of television, radio and the various printed media. Egyptians are using twitter to challenge Hosni Mubarak’s authority in the same way Thomas Paine printed Common Sense to challenge the authority of King George III. But the Internet can just as easily be used as a tool of government to monitor and control its people. Benkler (The Wealth of Networks), Goldsmith and Wu (Digital Borders) understand the reality that government regulation of the Internet is a natural and inevitable process, and that it’s a messy business. The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that it will be subject to both international and every sovereign state’s laws simultaneously. Of this there can be no doubt, as we have already seen Egypt’s “kill switch” in action. [[User:ChrisSura|-Chris Sura]] 20:30, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

[http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/is2011/edit/User:ChrisSura?redlink=1 Chris], You are right that there is a lot of “romantic but naïve idealism” expressed in many of the proclamations about what digital technologies mean to the world. Is it not true that most great movements have often had anthems with flowery rhetoric aimed at inspiring some who may not have acted to action? “[http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/ We hold these truths to be self evident …,"] “[http://www.history.org/almanack/people/bios/biohen.cfm I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death …,"] and “[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB6hLg3PRbY Ask not …"]?

Shouldn't we ask how we may learn from the evolution of “television, radio and the various printed media” and apply the lessons of those experiences in shaping the future? [http://www.benkler.org/Benkler_Wealth_Of_Networks_Chapter_11.pdf Benkler] pointed out how the early perception of, use and regulation of communications media still shape the way those technologies apply to the world today. In our discussions I hope we will leave ourselves open to the possibilities that the nature of digital technologies may make a difference. I hope we can free our thinking from preconceptions we may unknowingly hold as we ponder these questions and contribute to the frameworks for the future.

Take for example the idea of an Internet kill switch. Aside from arguing the merits of such an idea the question is: is it even a technical possibility? Paul Ford points out that, “[http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-01/what-could-possibly-go-wrong-internet-switch The last time someone could shut down the Internet was probably in 1969, when it consisted of two computers."] In fact within hours of the Egyptian government throwing the “kill switch,” in Cairo’s Tahir Square “[http://antonyloewenstein.com/2011/01/29/what-egyptian-uprising-says-about-the-desperate-desire-for-freedom/ nearby residents reportedly opened their home Wi-Fi networks to allow protesters to get online”.] As well, “[http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-20029927-245.html activists were faxing WikiLeaks cables into Egypt to bypass the Internet blockade,”] external players [http://www.deathandtaxesmag.com/49101/google-and-twitter-tag-team-for-egypt/ Twitter and Google] were teaming up to provide an alternative and many other factors were at play to provide a workaround for the people of Egypt. Is it not possible that the nature of digital technologies may be a force to push the needle that gauges where we stand at any moment on the spectrum between liberty and oppression more toward liberty thus justifying optimisim? --[[User:Gclinch|Gclinch]] 18:15, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Some thoughts regarding Wikipedia: Wikipedia presents itself as a "democratic entity” - one which gathers its content from users around the globe and allows everyone to freely participate. However, many observers (such as in the BBC Worldservice documentary) have noted that the majority Wikipedia's content is derived from a relatively small number of regular users. The picture painted is one of an oligarchy where a limited number of "elite" users control the content of the encyclopedia via enforcement strict of policy rules, essentially erecting barriers to casual users. I am trying to reconcile this picture with that painted by Jason's Scott's "Great Failure of Wikipedia", in he describes a small number of "content generators" under siege from a great mass of "wonks, twiddlers, and procedural whackjobs" who are essentially negative contributors to the site. "Content generators" become "content defenders", with only those few contributors willing to put extensive effort into protecting their content actually seeing that content become (more or less) permanent additions to the encyclopedia. I am unsure of how accurate this depiction (or either depiction, for that matter) is... The central question here is whether the "elite" users generating the majority of the content are also the users most active in enforcing policy/policing entry barriers, or whether these roles are largely divided between separate user populations. [[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 00:04, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Some (pessimistic) links regarding social networking technologies and political change:
First, a blog post dismissive of the impact of the internet and social networks in the current crisis in Egypt:
"Tell Mubarak we don't need his damn internet" http://www.al-bab.com/blog/2011/blog1102c.htm
Second, a Slate Magazine book review looking at the way politically repressive regimes are using the internet and social networks to their advantage:
Evgeny Morozov's The Net Delusion http://www.slate.com/id/2281743/
[[User:BrandonAndrzej|BrandonAndrzej]] 00:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Assignment 1 Submissions

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Assignment 1 Submissions

2011-02-08T18:36:39Z

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