Too Paranoid or Paranoid Enough?

Living in this viral world, we depend on Internet in so many aspects of our life. It is easy to just expect it to be safe and ok – I know I usually do. My general attitude is “when everybody does it, it must be safe”. The government will take action if somebody is endangering my privacy. As long as you don’t click on those “obviously dodgy pop up ads”, and don’t share all your private information with the public, your fine.

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine shared an paper article from a pretty reliable Norwegian newspaper with me (Dagens Næringsliv). Despite the credible newspaper that obviously had a reliable source, I had a really hard time believing it. Just because these facts where so shocking! I feel the need to share it with you guys because if this is the reality, I believe everybody should be aware of it.  

The article was based on an interview with a former employee of the United States National Security Agency (NSA). William Binney was part of building the nations communication surveillance, and in the five page long article he explained how he quit because of what he believed to be unethical practice and extreme surveillance violating people’s privacy. Maybe you already have heard of this. I have however translated some of the facts that I found most sticking. 

-          The storage capacity of NSA's planned infrastructure matches purely mathematical to store ALL electronic communication. It will be measured in yottabytes, a byte with 24 zeros after it! With current capacity they will be able to store at least 100 years of communication.

-          They do not need a reason or a permission to record your phone conversation, read your texts or go through your emails.

-          Binney can inform us that they already have the keys to everything. They already have all algorithms figured out. He says that nothing you do online is safe. Everything from facebook to emails, what you buy on Amazon, what you search for on google, how much money you have in your banking account and what you spend the money on, absolutely everything…

This is absolutely scary, but the terrifying part is how much power the person in charge of this information has. Because what does KGB, Stasi and Gestapo and any other dictators have in common? They figure out what their public is up to, and basically get rid of any resistance. When you have access to every little detail in almost every people’s lives all over the planet, your power is unlimited according to William Binney. This is an extremely powerful political weapon, and can for example be used to affect the public opinion by leaking certain information to the press about any opponent. 

I have to apologies for the loooooong and pretty heavy post, but this is such a complex and a huge field of information, so I encourage you to do some further research on your one, from several sources. This might not be something we can protect ourselves from; at least I don’t have any good suggestions other than perhaps moving out to an abandon cabin in the woods without cellphones, Internet or electricity perhaps. (Yeah, not going to happen) But regardless of what’s true and not, I believe it might be our own responsibility to keep ourselves informed, and maybe this is a good reminder that we shouldn’t always assume that the government have every single person’s best interest in mind, and that they are not always there to protect our privacy.

Hope you all have an amazing spring week, almost May! :)

- Lise 

How Linked In are you?

Getting through my last semester of college I have been more and more concentrated on getting an actual job instead of just working at the university's mail room for the rest of my life. As I have been looking for a job and asking people if they know any good companies to work for they always ask me the same question. "Do you have a LinkedIn profile?" Admittedly I do have a LinkedIn profile but I never really use it for what is meant to be used for. I have been thinking more and trying to figure out how many people my age actually use this social media site. I have been asking around some of my friend group and it seems that most of them have a profile but never really use it or barely look at it. I decided to look up more facts about LinkedIn and I was actually shocked what I found. One of the craziest facts I found was that on average 2 new users sign up for a LinkedIn profile every second. That was completely unexpected. What I found more shocking was that according to LinkedIn around 64% of users are based outside the United States. So I decided to keep my ears open around the school of business and see how often this site actually comes up in conversation. I wasn't as surprised what I noticed. Though many people have a profile, no one really talks about this site and it isn't "all the rave' like twitter or Facebook  Since this is a professional site, what would happen if people started treating LinkedIn as the next Facebook? Would employers stop using it to look for credentials? Would it have a negative impact on the job market? These are all questions that would probably come up if this site went down that road.

Human right to be anonymous?

I realize that several people have trouble commenting on the blog. I have been made aware of that fare to many of our Norwegian readers struggle with sharing their thoughts on our blog. Obviously that’s not acceptable. I have emailed “blogger” and asked about this, and will get back to you on this as soon as I hear anything.

To be able to make a comment on this blog you need to identify yourself with one of the recommended profiles. If any you readers know how to do this if none of the suggested profiles fit, please let us know!

This week I want to touch upon a slightly different aspect of the social media jungle.

All this fuss about sharing comments has made me think a little about this relatively new concept of discussion, and sharing both positive and negative feedback online. Not only has it changed the way people communicate with people, it has also change the content of what we choose and allow ourselves to say about and to other people.

Online bullying is an increasing problem. By allowing people to anonymously say whatever they feel like, fare too many seam to lose their sense of courtesy, and often the general idea of common sense along with it. We live in a country with the right to say what we want. And the internet is a great tool reinforcing and assuring these rights. Clearly some subjects are easier to talk about online if you don’t need to identify yourself. However keeping in mind the negative sides of this, is it a human right to do this anonymously? Additionally it’s important to point out that the internet is crawling with fake profiles and false personalities, because there is not many ways of controlling and verifying information.  

I just want to throw the question out there; is this something we should be concerned about? How important is good online ethics to you?

Writing this blog post I remembered this really sad story about a girl that committed suicide after recording this video, from a couple of months back. Many of you probably recognize it after it went viral on many social networks. If you haven’t seen it or don’t remember it, I strongly recommend taking a look.

- Løve Lise

Tweeting Its Way to the Top

Yesterday as I was sitting in the lobby of the School of Business building, I noticed more and more people talking about twitter. As most people know, at least anyone who has been on the web over the last decade social media sites have taken this world by storm. First there was Myspace  then there was Facebook for college kids, then Facebook expanded to include everyone, and now what is becoming more and more popular is Twitter. For all those who don't know what Twitter is exactly, it pretty much a social media site to upload picture and "tweet" status'. It is mainly used to quickly say something on someones mind or idea. The main difference a tweet and a status is that while a status is usually about how the user fells or something to that extent, a tweet is something like a quick footnote that one posts not really about how he or she feels or anything but just anything in general. When people are out and they something gets said no one says "Oh let me status this" or if they do saying that isn't all that common. More often than not they will say "I'm going to tweet this." 

While people do alot of background checks on Facebook for like a social insight to other people, Twitter can be used as a mental insight to people. Ya i know this may sound like a stretch but it really makes sense. While Facebook these days are used for posting picture and writing on people's walls, Twitter is used to post something on someones mind. This is why this is the perfect insight on how people think about certain things. If whoever is checking up on you wants to know what goes through your head, Twitter is the perfect site to use because its all about posting whats on your mind. This is why people should avoid posting things on twitter about things or topics that could possible be seen as controversial. A picture of an night out can be easily seen as a one night occurrence but a view or attitude is something a little more permanent in someones mind and isn't easily changed since it is ones attitude. 

Facebook: A Blessing or a Curse

Being a senior in college the sphere of adult living is way too close for comfort. This means bills, taking care of my own place, and first, before anything else, a job. In the age, jobs are a lot harder to find, and more often than not, many employers are turning to the web to take care of applications. This also means that they turn to the web for informal background checks. The most common of these checks are checking if possible employees have a Facebook page and what content is on that page. So the first thing anyone who is looking to get a job at a pretty reputable company should do is check their profile and make sure all the privacy settings are set to private.  This makes it so only the people that you want to see the content will see it. The next big thing is the pictures. No employer wants to see the possible employee all rosy holding a red solo cup. This will create a bad impression right out of the gate. Go through and delete any pictures that can be seen as risqué or juvenile or at the very least untag yourself so they don't show up on your pictures page. If someone really wants to make sure those picture aren’t even up there, they can report the pic to Facebook and do a sort of petition to remove the picture completely from the social network.

            These are just tips on how to improve the security of one’s profile from a possible employer. There is another possible road to go down, but that is for the extreme people. This is actually creating another profile just for the professional world. This profile would have things such as a friends list comprised of professional connections, only a few pictures, all of which in business or professional attire, and only posts that are professional in nature.

            Like I said before this is the extreme option if one wants to make sure that nothing slips through the cracks that an employer can find. All these tips are to make sure that an employer sees the best side of a person. In all honesty I believe that people can have a bit of a wild social life, and still have impeccable work experience, qualifications, and ethics. But employers don’t want to roll the dice on individuals that could be a potential bust for them.  So its best to just “cover one’s tracks” to make sure that a great job opportunity doesn’t pass you up because of a picture of you and some friends drinking.

What's the point of Twitter?

Twitter has been exploding since its introduction to the world in 2009.  I actually do have a Twitter account, but rarely used it until recently.  The main reason I created an account was simply to stay updated without having to constantly check news articles on my computer.  I could simply get tweets sent directly to my phone which essentially is laziness at its finest.  I could care less about tweeting at the time; I had Facebook for that.

Until recently I had very few tweets. and the ones I did have were usually dumb conversations between me and a friend.  At the beginning of this semester I started tweeting more frequently and started following athletes and comedians who I knew or thought were funny.  The goal was to hopefully gain a few followers who would see my posts regarding this blog and who would hopefully view and spread the word.  What I got was not what I was expecting.

Only after following maybe 20 people, my page because flooded with a bunch of "crap" that I could care less about.  Literally every tweet that appeared on my homepage were basically in this format "omg I got 1000 followers just by following (somerandomperson)."  Retweeting nonstop the same tweets promoting followers for simply following some random person.  I literally thought to myself "this is the sadest popularity contest Ive ever seen."  It got me thinking, what is Twitter actually used for?  Maybe Im not seeing the point.

The initial goal of Twitter was to be primarily a platform for microblogging.  Twitter allows users to basically do minute-by-minute updates (if they have literally no life) about what exactly they are doing at that exact same moment.  I can see the point of this, but why do it on Twitter if you have a Facebook page?

Another useful application for Twitter is simply asking questions and/or crowdsourcing.  Most people who have a fair amount of followers can ask a question and within seconds have a handful of answers.  I don't see how this would replace Google, unless your questions are opinion-based.

One of the more beneficial uses for Twitter is job searching.  Many employers have Twitter accounts and may post that they are hiring for "x" position.  Simply posting that your are searching for a job in a certain field may lead to job opportunities from potential employers.  I personally would probably not do this.  Personally I feel that fishing for jobs via Twitter is an act of desperation, or would be perceived as one by a lot of people.  Maybe that's just me.

There are numerous other reasons on how Twitter can be used.  I encourage you to read the article for more information that I did not cover in this blog post.  

The more I use Twitter, the more I keep asking myself "What am I doing on here exactly?"  Maybe I'm just completely missing the point of Twitter.

I would really appreciate some comments or personal insights from anyone reading this blog.  Iam only looking at this through my own perspective.  Perhaps some of you readers use Twitter for more practical uses.  Either way I would appreciate some insight; it may sway my perspective of Twitter.

Until next week...

Chris...