Web Hoaxes

The article “Web Hoaxes, Counterfeit Sites, and Other Spurious Information on the Internet” is an eye opening article that illustrates problems with fictitious websites on the internet that I did not know existed. I knew that there were some sites that seemed fictitious or not 100% accurate but I did not know that there were sites that were devoted to such idiotic ideas as lip balm addiction. I also agree with the statement that there are many sites which contain accurate information for the most part but may have errors due to poor editing which could mislead or misinform its readers. These sights are not bad but the sites that try to fool readers on purpose and sell products or ideas that are completely false should be eliminated from the internet, but there is no way to do this. One website that came to mind when I was reading this article is “LegalSteroids.com”. This website attempts to sell every banned steroid in the United States “legally”. Anyone who would seriously try to order products from this site and give them a credit card number would have to be out of their mind. Although the products seem legit and the site is somewhat professional looking, there is something about it that just tells you it is trouble. There are sites that are fake that are not harmful or deceitful that can be for shear amusement of readers such as Edreport.com as listed in the reading. This site was created by two creative writers who wanted to entertain readers while voicing opinions. There is a line that should not be crossed as far as funny/fictitious sites and harmful/illegal/deceitful sites that do nothing positive for the internet and society.

news article 10

On Friday, the U.S. House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank and senior member Ron Paul announced the introduction of legislation to prohibit the federal government from issuing regulations called for in the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The legislation, H.R. 5767, will forbid the secretary of the Treasury and the board of governors of the Federal Reserve System from proposing, prescribing, or implementing any regulation that requires the financial services industry to identify and block internet gambling transactions. There have been issues dealing with internet gambling for the last few years because there is really no way to control what people do with their own money and by u sing the internet they can gamble on sites run from over-seas. According to Ron Paul the Act of 2006 infringes on two basic rights of Americans: freedom from the government regulating our internet use, and the right to do what we want with our own money. These two reasons are solid grounds for getting rid of the Act because honestly what is the harm in people spending their own money gambling? The internet allows us to gamble with/against people in other countries and makes it so we do not have to go to Vegas to go on a gambling spree. I think that the main concern with the Act of 2006 is the rights of Americans. The expense of enforcing the regulations is an unnecessary cost for our country and we should focus on more significant issues than someone losing their money on an online poker site etc.

news article 9

A group of teenagers who videotaped a beating of a fellow teenage girl were arrested in Lakeland Florida last week. The father of the victim is blaming the internet in general for the beating of his daughter because of the popularity of youtube videos about fighting and beatings that lure kids today. What is disturbing is that one of the teens was heard saying “make it good”, meaning they wanted the video to be something that would be good to watch on the internet and would get lots of attention. The internet is putting a spotlight on lots of illegal activities as far as videos on youtube go because children can access the site and watch gruesome fights and even see people being killed and they feel that there is nothing wrong with this behavior. I would have to agree with the father of the victim as he feels the internet is to blame because of its appeal to teens and the desire to see videos of brutality. However, it is the fault of those who put these videos on the internet not the websites themselves. Youtube could edit and not allow such videos but then it would lose its popularity. This is just another situation where there are lines of what is right and acceptable and what should not be allowed on the internet. Seeing young teens making videos of brutality is disturbing, however our society is entertained by such things and there is no easy way to edit material being put on the internet today.

reading #4

The answer to the question, “can wikipedia ever make the grade?” is not a question with a simple answer. The online encyclopedia that can be used by anyone with internet access and can also be updated and have information added by anyone with internet access has had a reputation for supplying many false statements and false information. However, recent studies are showing that the information on wikipedia is actually fairly accurate and is almost as accurate as the encyclopedia Britannica. A study performed by the journal Nature, showed that the average amount of errors in an encyclopedia Britannica article was three while the wikipedia only averaged four. Alexander M.C. Halavais, an assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac College tried to design his own experiment to see how well wikipedia edited information added by adding articles with completely false information and bogus stats. The errors he added in his articles were found within hours and deleted from the site, showing that wikipedia is trying hard to become a credible source of information that can be used in research and not seen as an error filled source of information.
If professors and scholars would help by adding their research or helping share their knowledge on wikipedia the site would become a much more credible source and could rid itself of its bad reputation. Of the 40,000 contributing members only about 1,000 list themselves as graduate students and hardly any list themselves as professors. If more scholars add information then the information will be more accurate and trustworthy which will help wikipedia make the grade it desires to obtain.

internet grooming

South Wales Police in the Vale of Glamorgan are reminding parents to be aware of the dangers their children may face when using the popular internet chat-room sites such as Facebook and Bebo. Police say millions of children divulge personal information over internet chat-room sites and openly talk to anyone oblivious of the dangers that could be around them. However, parents are oblivious to what their children are doing on the internet and what information they are putting out there for the world to read. With the access to the internet becoming increasingly easier through Schools, Libraries and Internet Cafes as well as at home combined with an increase in the number of online chat-rooms, internet crime has seen a marked increase. Children are leaving themselves open to the dangers of online grooming. Popular sites such as Facebook and Myspace are very dangerous because now anyone can create an account and it is very easy to access other’s information. The internet is a great tool and is very helpful in many areas but it is also a dangerous and scary thing as far as privacy is concerned. The Virtual Global Taskforce is a website made up of police from around the world dedicated to fighting child abuse online. Its main goal is to build an effective, international partnership of law enforcement agencies which helps to protect children from online child abuse. These type of task forces are a innovative way to interact and see what children are being exposed to. There are profiles created to bate abusers and try to lure them into giving away their location and their motives. More parents need to be aware of what their childr4n are doing online and be protective of the information that they are putting out there for the world to read.

Infodiet

The comparison of Google to a fast food restaurant the way college students tend to lean toward the “quick” and “easy” way of learning is a great comparison because I can closely relate with the idea. When trying to write multiple papers or do research for projects it is sometimes inconvenient to spend loads of time doing the extensive research and working with the library search engines much like when you are in a hurry you swing by McDonalds instead of cooking a healthy meal at home. Also, I agree that though it is easy, the information found on Google or other non-educational search engines is often not accurate and can make papers not as strong and less accurate.
If libraries and librarians could somehow make the academic search engines easier to navigate I believe that students would be more likely to lean towards the academic engines than the Google’s and other popular search engines. We tend to go for the easy and quick route because often our time to write multiple papers is limited and taking extra time to do “academic” search when we can use other engines we chose the easy way out.
Another good point brought up in this article is that more often than not the professors who are giving out assignments and requiring research to be done do not know how to use the search engines that they are expecting their student to use. If students and professors alike will both lean toward the academic search engines and have a better understanding of how they are used, the learning process will be easier and the quality of work will also increase.

youtube.com problems

This weekend Youtube.com was temporarily shut down due to the Pakistan government officials believing that the site was airing digital images that were putting down the Islamic religion. Originally the shutdown was just for Pakistan but accidentally the entire website was put out of order while trying to apply the censorship. Critics believe that the “mix-up” was not so accidental but more a way of Pakistan showing that it was in power of this site and they could eliminate one of the most popular websites with ease. I think that the excuse of having negative images of the Islamic faith is a mere excuse to have a slight power trip and show the rest of the world that they had power. Most people do not know where websites are based out of or how they are controlled so when things like this happen it can be a red flag to users. There is somewhat of a trust factor with the internet because so much information is available out there. A nation state or other adversary could stir up diplomatic trouble by toying with this sort of trust built into the Internet. What would our government make of it if all of a sudden all traffic destined for .gov domains wound up in China or North Korea? We do not stop to think about these things when we are using the internet day to day and it can be an eye opener to see incidents such as the youtube.com closing. We should be wary and think about how we use the internet and what we allow to be made public.