Post 01C

The biggest news around the world recently relates to SOPA and PIPA.

SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, or the PROTECT IP Act (which apparently means Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act), is essentially America's government trying to find new ways to wage war. 

Before I go on about America trying to find a new enemy, I just want to point out two things. First off, how much money was spent in hiring the people responsible for making these names sound like they have meaning?  It seems like that whole PROTECT thing was a bit of an unnecessary acronym.  An acronym within another acronym?  That's like using the English language with recursion, i.e..defining a word while using the word inside the definition.  Second of all, why does America want to stick its nose into something that is almost impossible to curb now that it has boomed?  The Internet boom was so big 10 years ago, that it's virtually unstoppable now.  This sounds like an uphill battle, and for at least the third time in America's history, this war is going to end in disaster. 

With the troops dragging themselves outside of Iraq, and the impending war on Iran not exactly finalized yet, America has a huge load of money to spend.  It just really pains me, because I think I don't see what impending problems America has that would need money.  Maybe that's why they're justified into making a decision that would cost $47 million through 2016.  One of the things that have been worrying people recently is the shortage of food.  The shortage of food is actually attributed to a few things, some of them relevant to the shortage of water and even erosion of topsoil.  Of course, in today's society, no one wants to eat any food, so fixing the shortage of water and erosion of topsoil is obviously nothing to be of concern.  Again, if anything I just said made sense at all, then of course I'm totally bullshitting the reader.  America has a lot of things on its agenda that can make use of $47 million.  Might I suggest medical research?  Better subsidized sports programs to cut down on obesity and perhaps cut back on the number of heart attacks or cholesterol pill abusers?  In fact, why not just a better education program that can educate the next generation?

You see, a computer science student has been taught many many things with regards to security and data communications.  If America really intends to go through with PIPA and SOPA, a few things needs to be done.  First off, they would need to train personnel to be able to sift through network content, and like the TSA, find ways to track down "illegal activity".  They will invade your privacy and find a wonderful way to put you in jail for it.  Secondly, after sniffing through all the network content, they have to be able to do something to aggressors.  Of course, what world would it be if the hero doesn't get to put the baddie into jail and give them a nice beating for it in the process?  That is America, the world where everyone is a baddie but America and its allies. 

America, land of the free, and oppressor of the dictator and communists, is now putting a stop on your freedom to go online to do whatever you want.  It's funny, because the America is against North Korea for being a dictator and controlling of its people, going so far as to deem the crying crowd at the funeral of Kim Jong-Il to be fake, and yet they are now putting barriers on its own people.  The enemy of the state is now officially, the state itself.  Let's go further into law with this, The First Amendment.  America came up with a list of Amendments, also known as the Bill of Rights.  For some reason, violating these is absolutely okay, because the government is doing it.  Censorship is now allowed, because America deems that it's okay.  America has been condemning censorship since day one.  They've spoken out against the Russians, the Cubans, the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, and even their latest and most favourite business partner, the Chinese.  Does this mean that the war against everything America believes for has changed?  Or does it mean America has finally admitted that they ran out of things to fight for, so they'll fight themselves if needed?

Let's go and talk about costs.  Let's sit down and think how far this will go.  The $47 million that was to go to these two acts, if passed on January 24th will definitely not be $47 million.  Like I said, that money could have been wisely spent in other fields.  Then there's the issue about maintenance.  Maintenance fees will be on TOP of the $47 million, unless of course, America forgets that it is necessary, in a manner similar to most of their aging technology, then yes, it isn't a huge fee.  Then there comes the cost for the legal aspect.  Of course, no one ever puts these charges into play until the cases actually go through.  The average tax payer, having been shut down from the Internet only wants to reason with the governing body to give him his life back, now has to go to court, and lose a lot of money to the lawyers so that he could be granted freedom he truly deserved.  Another ploy against the tax payer.

In fact, there's another very funny bit to this, because they want to stop drug dealers online.  People who sell over the counter drugs online, are a target here as well.  However, it's a situation similar to the disturbing images on cigarette cartons.  Why are we doing this?  Shouldn't we have educated the children to know better?  Does anyone even pay attention to the pictures or will they even pay attention to what happens when they stop these sales?  Like the situation in Pakistan, where text messages have a list of banned words, people will find a way around the problem.  This opens up new markets of employment where people will now be a certified illegal online drug dealer.  Absolutely new, absolutely 100% more dangerous.

So, since America is doing this in the interest of America, where is it?  What is it that they aim to achieve?  Has America been at war with other people so much that slapping itself in the face once in a while feels right?  Now that America is making a move, when will Canada, America's understudy, decide that they need to do the same?  Canada has been in the footsteps of America since the beginning.  The whole country has basically mapped itself after the country that prides itself in most heart attacks a year, by being within the top 10.  We're very close behind America when it comes to rampant morbid obesity, and just about as far behind if not worse when it comes to technology.  Canada claims to be a developed country, but we're every bit as far behind as most countries when it comes to technology, efficiency, and literacy.  So, why not keep on with status quo and just do what the Americans do, it's what our government does best anyway.

Post 01A

Exam season has started, and it couldn't have come at a better time.  Perhaps the last four months were filled with some sort of joy and happiness, but it can't be said that it was all fun and games.  For starters, the web course had seen a drastic change, and it went from a fun and helpful course, to a ridiculous and time consuming course that wasn't helpful at all.

That aside, academics is not the topic of this blog, so I'll digress.  as anyone seen the new YouTube layout?  It's been there for about two weeks, and the more I see it, the more annoyed I get.  YouTube has changed its layout more frequently lately, because Google believes they can make it better in the hopes that they can trump Facebook.  It started off as an innocent tweak, really.  I never looked at YouTube as if it's a social networking site at first.  I always looked at it like a video sharing site.  That's all changed now.

Because the norm of society is to always be in the know of what Johnny from down the street is doing at any given time, everything is taking the form of Twitter and Facebook.  People don't need to talk anymore, or share photos of their vacation to Cabot.  All they have to do is put it online so that everyone can see.  What I find most ridiculous is that people don't think they're loud enough in real life, so they need to broadcast what they're thinking to everyone and anyone in the form of Twitter.  It just seems like everyone has to know about you right now, in spite of where you are and what you're doing.  With the dawn of the smartphone, I think people have managed to take that concept and brought it literally everywhere and anywhere. 

Of course, it didn't end with just pictures and simple 140 character blurbs, so that's when Facebook makes an even greater assault.  Many people have Facebook accounts, and they're practically replacements to homepages and blogs.  Every now and then, people do something (i.e..upload a photo/video, visited some place, liked something, wrote something on someone else' wall) and that is now documented as an event.  It automatically is loaded up onto Mark Zuckerberg's networks and the whole world can see.  That's the last straw really.  People have wasted so much time to go on about how they're unique and individual, but here they are, putting their personal lives into the hands of Facebook and trying to grab attention.  If you're so unique and individual, why do you need to join in with other people who believe they're unique and individual by showcasing it on Facebook?

That's perhaps what's gotten into Windows Phone 7 and YouTube.  "Events" or anything, that is new, is now posted like a news feed.  That's why the new YouTube is so annoying.  It now lists everything, like a news feed in the similar fashion that Facebook is doing.  Windows Phone 7 has been even FOCUSING onto the fact that it was all about having your friends' events appear as a huge news feed.  While I understand that catching up with the times is necessary, can someone explain to me why following in the footsteps of Facebook is necessary?  It's precisely the same reason why a lot of the population does not like the new Windows Live Messenger.  This Facebook obsession has to stop.  If it can't even give people the freedom to enjoy their favourite webpages, then I think it's intruding into people's lives.  That alone, is crime worthy of punishment.