Online Harassment and GamerGate (Current Events 4)

The group South by Southwest (SXSW) regularly holds a music and media festival in Austin, Texas. This year's festival was going to include panels on video games and also online harassment; however both panels were canceled because of threats towards some of the panelists. Both panels featured people who had been proponents of GamerGate as well as people who had been targeted by GamerGate. Those in favor of GamerGate are bothered by the effects that female gamers and critics are having on the video game industry, and they have often resorted to threats of violence to discourage women from speaking out. Critics like Brianna Wu and Caroline Sinders are disappointed that SXSW didn't offer increased security in response to the threats - by canceling the event, SXSW is sending the message that online threats and harassment can be effective. This goes to show that there are winners and losers with new technology, as we discussed in class. The anonymity of the Internet has made it easier for people to send threats and bully others without facing repercussions. In online forums, good moderation can discourage that sort of behavior, and in real-life events, proper security measures can be taken to show that threats will not deter an event. Since other smaller groups have responded with better security in response to death threats, SXSW should have done the same.

Study Journal 3

Oct 6, 2015

• You must be able to redistribute and/ or modify software without paying any fees in order to call software free.

• Linux has followed the bazaar-style development pattern, which has been surprisingly effective due to the dedication of the programmers involved.

• The cathedral view of program development views bugs as intense problems that a few people need to work really hard on, while the bazaar view characterizes bugs as problems that will be really simple to someone, so it's important to have as many people as possible testing and examining the source code.

Oct 8, 2015

• Copyrights are automatically granted once you complete a creative work.

• Employers like to set agreements where anything you create outside of work belongs to them, unless you get their permission to work on it first. This is intended to protect their intellectual property,

• Non-compete clauses and non-disclosure agreements in contracts serve a similar purpose - the company doesn't want you sharing insider knowledge with another company.

Oct 13, 2015

• Cliff Stoll gradually became more aware of the seriousness of the hacker's intentions and attacks throughout the time he was tracking the hacker.

• Cliff realized that the need for security in information systems was something that liberal and conservative people have in common, and he became more moderate.

• Cliff tried to make others more aware of the danger of hackers, since it was a new issue, and he warned them when he noticed the hacker infiltrating their networks.

Oct 15, 2015

• Hackers believe that all information should be shared.

• Hackers don't tend to follow the normal political divisions of left and right.

• The NSA has collected a lot of data about emails people send, and their actions were made public due to WikiLeaks, a site made by hackers.

Oct 20, 2015

• The Espionage Act of 1996 made it illegal for people to steal information, not just material objects.

• Betrayal from an insider, like John Walker, who sold government secrets to the USSR, is one of the most dangerous security breaches for an organization.

• Spies may use pre-arranged drop sites when exchanging secret information in order to minimize the risk of multiple people being compromised if one person is caught.

Oct 22, 2015

• The professor broadly dismissed anything "socialist" as bad, based on a talk by Ezra Taft Benson, when America has plenty of socialist practices that are good. There was a lively discussion.

• Consecration is basically like socialism, except that you choose to do it, so it's good. But what if people want to choose to practice socialism by democratic reform? Well, that doesn't count, because socialism is bad.

• Ezra Taft Benson was way involved in the Red Scare and suppressing dissidence. His attitudes contributed to the culture of the LDS church, which fears dissident opinions.

Women in the Islamic State (Current Events 3)

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS or the Islamic State now occupies a significant portion of Syria. There are many aspects of the ways that they rule which are highly problematic, like their use of brutal violence to enforce laws and their commitment to war against all other states to establish a global caliphate, but their treatment of women stands out as one of the worst aspects of the Islamic State. Women may be punished by whipping if they leave their homes without a male relative. Single foreign women must stay in a hostel, where they receive food and a small monthly allowance. Single male fighters can come to this hostel and immediately become engaged to one of these women, with hardly any choice on the woman's part. Women who refuse to marry a soldier can be killed. Yazidi women who are captured in Iraq are forced to be sex slaves for the conquering soldiers. Controlling women or men through coercion or threats of violence is a terrible way to run a society. This will engender hatred towards the government and hopefully be a factor that leads to the downfall of the Islamic State. The practice of restraining women from participating in society except as mothers and wives decreases the productive and intellectual capacity of the region. No society which denies freedom to its female members by forcing them to marry or be sex slaves can be considered ethical.