You're Awesome!

I’ve been told that I’m awesome more often since joining Twitter six months ago than throughout out all of prior life and almost exclusively by people who have never met me, don’t know me and who seem to think that because I can click the follow button I’m - well - simply amazing!

I don’t let it go to my head because I've also been called a 'capitalist lickspittle', a 'right-wing neo-fascist' and a 'left-wing socialist jerk-off'. I also have lots of people in my real life who know me quite well and who regularly assure me that I am merely just ok.

Then too, there is something about trusting the sincerity of an automated direct message telling you that you're awesome that tends to get in the way of believing it.

I’ve often commented on the extreme rhetoric used in social media and usually my comments focus on the accusatory and over-the-top attacks on someone else’s point of view or opinion. But not all of the extreme language in places like Twitter is reserved for attacking others. Sometimes it’s just so downright obsequious it’s embarrassing. 

The fact that someone chooses to follow someone on Twitter doesn’t make them awesome. It doesn’t even make them special. It might mean they’re curious, interested in the other person’s tweets or just simply hoping that the person they’re following will follow them back but it doesn’t raise them up to a level of awesome achievement.

In the real world, we tend to reserve that for people who discover cures for diseases like polio or who invent new technologies nobody ever thought of before. Steven Hawking is awesome, the last person who chose to follow you on Twitter isn’t.

I follow lots of people. Sometimes I follow them because they were recommended by Twitter, sometimes because they followed me and after checking their profile and reading some of their previous tweets, I thought they might be interesting enough to follow. Sometimes, I unfollow them later because it turns out we have nothing in common. Occasionally, Twitter randomly unfollows a few on its own.

And that, of course, is the other side of being awesome.

People are not merely offended that you unfollowed them; they are downright insulted and even hurt. They send messages demanding to know why you are no longer following them or tweet that you have unfollowed them to the Twitterverse as if anyone else actually cares. It’s as if you have committed a grave injustice to them and they feel the need to tell the world what a mean, selfish and uncaring person you are.

It makes me wonder what this whole follow thing really is about.

Clearly for many, it isn’t about connecting with people and exploring ideas or just chatting. It seems to be like acquiring points and the more you have, the more value you have as a person. Some seem to think that the number of followers they have is a measure of their popularity but that seems pretty shallow to me.

I follow a guy who has less than 50 followers and communicate regularly with him. Our connection started when he severely criticized one of my blog posts which prompted a back and forth argument for about a week. I learned some things in that debate that I didn’t know before and started following him on Twitter and he started following me. We communicate reasonably regularly now and have established a solid mutual respect for each other.

I contrast that with some who have a few thousand followers, who never interact with anyone or who waste my timeline with meaningless quotes by famous dead people. I haven’t got much time for that so I tend to unfollow those people (the tweep, not the famous dead person) after awhile. Likewise, I’m not overly interested in following those constantly trying to flog their latest book or sell iPhones so I tend to unfollow them as well. It’s not personal nor do I think those people are bad people; it’s just not where my interest lays.

But a lot of folks online take it very personally. 

They protect their follower’s list like a lioness protects her cubs and they can switch from thinking you’re awesome to telling the world you aren’t in a heartbeat. One Twit, (or is it Tweep?) that I followed based on Twittter's recommendation, tweeted me that he didn't permit fascists to follow him and immediately blocked me. It was if people he permitted to follow him should feel honoured. It really doesn't get much more adolescent than that.

But here’s the thing. I thought it was my follow list. I thought it was up to me to decide who I wanted to follow and when I make a decision to follow someone, it isn’t like I’m bestowing some great honour on anyone. Likewise, when I decide to stop following someone, I'm not intending it as a personal slight,

I’ve had a number of people actually tweet me to tell me they’re honoured that I am following them. Why? I’m just reading their tweets; I’m not leading them to the Promised Land.

The most interesting thing I’ve noticed in all of this is that those who were most honoured that I followed them and who took the time to thank me and tell me that I’m awesome, almost never contact me again unless I unfollow them. Many of them were so honoured they used a bot to send me a direct message to tell me so. But they have no connection to me, make no attempt to get to know me and forget I even exist until another app they use tells them I am not following them anymore.

It’s like accumulating a lot of stuff over a period of time, never using most of it but becoming upset because you suddenly become aware of the fact that something you never used and forgot you had has gone missing. It’s a shock and your life is somehow diminished.

I have a message for people like that. Get a life!

It’s Twitter, not a new universe. People will follow you and unfollow you randomly and for countless reasons. It means nothing. It is not an honour to have someone follow you, it is merely an opportunity to potentially get to know someone online. It is not an insult when you are unfollowed, it simply means that the person with whom you had no contact has moved on. 

If a person’s life is so bereft of meaning that they measure it by who followed or unfollowed them on Twitter, I suggest they need to spend less time online and more time out in the real world building a real life. 

A person’s value as a person is not measured by how many people do or don’t follow them. It’s measured by things like character, talent, ability, intelligence and compassion for others. We are what we think and do in life. We are not defined by how many follow or stop following us online. A followers list is merely what its name implies, a list of people who are following their tweets. It is not a measure of a person's worth.

It’s nothing more and nothing less than that and treating it like it is somehow the measure of a life is like trying to evaluate a life based on how many ‘things’ you’ve acquired. At the end of the day, that’s how most people treat their followers. They’re just things that make the list bigger.

There is no humanity in that, just an insecure need to appear to be popular. It's an illusion of popularity brought about by the delusion that the number of followers one has is a reflection of how popular they must be. People offer to sell followers and others set up "follow back teams" in an attempt to gain more followers.

That isn't popularity. It's just one more illusion in the great cloud, a universe where virtual reality for too many has become more important than the reality we live out here in the big world.


RELATED

|The New Apple iPad - More Pointless Hype
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/03/apple-ipad-more-pointless-hype.html

My Days On |Twitter
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/02/my-days-on-twitter.html

SOPA & Bill C-30. The Bizarre Fear Of Our Own \Governments
http://bearsrant.blogspot.ca/2012/02/sopa-bill-c-30-bizarre-fear-of-our.html

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

Apple And Foxconn - A Fabricated Scandal

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on." -Winston Churchill


I stumbled across an interesting little sidebar tale shortly after posting my last article about the release of the latest Apple iPad. Someone on Twitter sent me a note that they were boycotting Apple products because of the Foxconn situation. Having never heard of Foxconn, my first thought was that Apple must be advertising on Fox News and the person who messaged me was opposed to that but I decided I should probably do some quick research just to confirm that and so I did.

On January 6, This American Life aired a documentary by independent producer Mike Daisey about the manufacturing of Apple products like the iPad, the iPod and the iPhone at a plant in China called Foxconn. The documentary detailed dangerous working conditions, abuse of employees and basically put Apple in the same category as a 19th century sweat shop.

It appears that the folks at This American Life have pulled the documentary and are retracting its content declaring it inaccurate and somewhat fabricated. It should be noted that they were not responsible for the content and that they are dedicating an hour program to correcting the misleading information presented in the documentary that aired.

Mike Daisey documentary journalist
turned entertainer

Apparently, Mr. Daisey didn’t feel that he was engaging in journalism when he produced his documentary or at least, that's his spin now that the jig is up. He stated, “My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge.”

He went on to state, “It uses a combination of fact, memoir and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity.”

Excuse me? We now call making stuff up and presenting it as fact, integrity?

This is one of those tiny little stories that usually whip by unnoticed but which are representative of the real problem in our society today. Consider the objective of what Mr. Daisey now calls entertainment but was nothing more than a melange of some fact and a lot of  fiction. He wanted to create a “human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge.”

Wait a minute. If the “brutal circumstances from which they emerge” were fabricated as “entertainment” rather than journalism, what is the real point of this piece?

I believe that the real point was yet one more example of somebody with a biased opinion blending a bit of fact with a lot of opinionated fabrications to justify and validate their point. There is no dramatic license when you are presenting something as factual about someone or something else. It is either true or it isn't. This was a deliberate attempt to prove a point that was not supported by the facts so…..some facts were made up.

I call it the Wikipedia - Guitar Hero Syndrome or Wikipedia - Guitar Hero Syndrome for short.

Wikipedia is a lovely, egalitarian concept where anyone who wants can add stuff to anything regardless of whether or not it is true. The concept is that eventually, after enough people have viewed and edited the material, it will be accurate. The problem is that during the period of evolution, many thousands of people may have been exposed to the incorrect information.

This was underscored this past week when Soledad O’Brien, from CNN used Wikipedia as her source for information about Critical Race Theory. That particular Wikipedia entry has been updated no less than 82 times since Ms O’Brien’s shortcut to inaccuracy and being a Harvard graduate, she really should have known better.

I don’t fault Wikipedia, the concept is interesting but we are now the ‘shortcut’ generation. People are looking for quick information, quick resolution and quick instant gratification. In other words, we’re looking for the shortcut to get what we want. Why learn to play the guitar when you can buy Guitar Hero and have your every musical dream fulfilled without any effort or talent required?

Personally, it’s not all that surprising or important except for the fact that the same lazy attitude to attaining what we want is now seeping into all areas of how we think. Why bother to properly research something when we can grab it off Wikipedia in a flash or from any one of thousands of blogs and websites that will support our opinion?

We no longer formulate what we think or believe based on what we are learning or have learned from reliable sources. We pick up our information online from sources that confirm our suspicions and which too often bend facts and even invent some to fit their opinions. In the process we are not only being intellectually dishonest, we are dumbing down society as a whole.

It really doesn’t get much more stupid than presenting a documentary that is full of errors and outright fabrications  as factual and then trying to pass it off as entertainment after your caught for sloppy and dishonest journalism.

Mr. Daisey can claim what he likes about his piece now but the simple fact remains. He made no attempt prior to his 'piece' being aired to qualify it as entertainment rather than a fact-filled documentary. It was a dishonest and deliberate attempt to prove a point by misleading those who listened to the piece, a point that doesn't actually exist except in Mr. Daisey's mind and those now of countless people who bought into the misrepresentation.. It slandered a corporation with fabrications and that created the usual tidal wave of uninformed social media condemnation. No amount of rationalization or obfuscation is going to change that.

It's reminiscent of the "Vaccinations Cause Autism" scandal which lead hundreds of thousands to stop vaccinating their children based on a deliberately fraudulent medical study produced in England. To this day, there are still people who believe that vaccinations cause autism even though the study was proven to have been deliberately fabricated to help a pharmaceutical company.

This is the era we live in now, an era where opinion trumps fact and facts can be invented when they don't support our opinions.  It's a dangerous business and one of which people need to become more aware.

There was a time when the dissemination of accurate information was almost a sacred trust. That time is gone. Today, we lie to each other but more importantly, increasingly we lie to ourselves.

LINKS

This American Life Retracts Apple Story
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/03/16/radios_this_american_life_retracts_apple_story/

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

The Apple iPad - More Pointless Hype

I dropped Maggie off at work this morning and was listening to the news on the way back to the ranch. Guess what the top news story was. If you guessed the robo call election scandal, the trial of an accused child murderer currently under way or even the ongoing election coverage in the United States, you’d be wrong.

The leading news story was about people who had lined up since yesterday morning at 9:30 to purchase the new Apple iPad. This wasn’t a phenomenon in my own city, it happened all over North America, Europe and Asia and not for the first time. I confess that I don’t get it.

I have no idea whether or not the new iPad is a major technological advancement but I’m willing to accept that it is. I’m even willing to accept that it is so revolutionary that it not only advances technology but peels vegetables and makes the bed.

So what?

It’s not like this is the only day it will ever be offered for sale and it’s not like it was a special introductory price. In fact, it will probably be cheaper six months from now, like most technology usually is after it has been around for awhile.

What’s the big deal? Why do so many put themselves through ridiculous hoops and waste so much time waiting to buy something that is going to be widely available for at least the next year and not just at specialty stores. Stores from Best Buy and Future Shop to Wal-Mart and Target will carry the new Apple iPad along with a whole lot of other tech gadgets, some of which people lined up to buy when they were first released and which now gather dust on the sale rack.

In fact, this latest precious icon of Apple technology will be replaced within 18 months by a newer version or something else equally as temporary because that is what all of these products actually are….temporary. They come and go with increasing frequency.

Does all this tech enhancement really change our lives to the extent that it is worth standing in the rain overnight to get it when the store opens in the morning?

I can understand lining up for food during a famine or water during a drought but a new iPad in the middle of a perfectly normal retail/manufacturing environment? Please….give your head a shake.

This is nothing more than an absurd hysteria over nothing.

Are we really that shallow as a society that being the first to buy something is more important than actually purchasing something for its functionality? Like I said, I don’t know if the new iPad will really enhance that functionality for users but assuming it does, so what? If there isn’t one in the store today, there will be in a couple of days. Whose life is so important that they will not be able to survive those few days without the increased functionality Apple is offering.

People worry about government control but are led around by the nose by companies like Apple who create this artificial hype which serves no other purpose than to keep the price high. The people who line up at the store to be ‘first’ are their own worst enemies because they are the ones who pay the most. If you want a new Apple iPad at a reduced price, encourage your friends not to be at the store on launch day or for a week or two after and guess what, the price will drop like a stone.

I've owned a dozen computers since I first started buying them and almost as many mobile phones. I never paid the initial price for any of them or lined to buy any of them. Surprisingly, my life was never diminished for being a few weeks behind the sales curve.

Still, I believe that everyone gets to choose for themselves so if the only way that someone can feel fulfilled is by being one of the first to own the latest gadget from Apple, Blackberry or Microsoft, fill your hat.

But….CNN and the rest of you in the media….it ain’t news. It’s just another gadget so let’s move on and try to get back to some semblance of rational reality.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

My Days On Twitter

And so it’s just another day on Twitter….

It starts with the usual slew of Direct Messages from people thrilled that I am now following them, so thrilled in fact, that they can't wait for me to also visit their website, buy their new self-published novel or contact them immediately if I have any questions at all about Internet marketing, social media, want lots more followers or am in need of personal development.

Most of the messages start the same way. “Thank you so much for following. Check out my….”. I often wonder at the expertise of these online marketing experts who think that the best way to develop a new client is to whack them over the head with the sales pitch while they’re still shaking your hand during the introduction.


Even more are so excited that I am now following them on Twitter, they can't wait for me to become their friend on Facebook and imagine, we only just met.

Twitter is one of many social media and a social media that has all but removed the ‘social’ part from the medium. People concerned about the fact you might be a bot require you to validate yourself before they are prepared to speak to you. These are people who don’t see the irony in using a bot to weed out potential bots.

Others send you automated DMs to express their deep appreciation for having the opportunity to get to know you. I gather what they really mean is they’re happy to have you increase their list of followers while you get to know their auto-reply bot.

These are people who somehow have come to believe that the best way to ‘sociaize’ is to automate the whole process. I guess they have forgotten how many of us are frustrated by those automated receptionists that ask us to press different menu options when we call some company or our governments.

It’s not all sweetness and light. Some are quite offended if you unfollow them and have software that sends out tweets telling the world that you have removed them from your list of followers, as if the world really cares. How sad a life do these people have that they are not only personally insulted that you are not following them any longer but that they are compelled to share that with the Twitterverse?

I have better things to do than to spend time every day checking my list of followers to see if someone had the audacity to unfollow me. Besides, their indignation has always puzzled me because I  thought it was my list and I could put who I wanted on it. Apparently not.

Once we get through the housekeeping, it’s time to go out and and start browsing the current tweets.

The messages are many and varied but can usually be broken down into main categories: politics, selling and spam (which is more extreme selling), virus/hacking attachments, trivial and self-indulgent nonsense, the tragically profane trying to gain attention by shocking a world too jaded to be shocked by much, outrage, oppression-envy, humour and real conversations with people you have had an opportunity to get to know. The last two categories are the only reasons that I stay on Twitter.

Politics dominates Twitter and the great dichotomy is that most of the discourse is on the oppressive nature of government to the point where Twitter seems more like an episode of Angry Birds than social tweets. It is almost laughable how so many can be so hysterical about living under oppression even as they are free to voice that opinion and to openly criticize government. Try that in China or North Korea and see how far it takes you.

The right, when it isn’t busy trashing candidates within it’s own ranks gleefully attacks the left and any cause will do: environmentalism, activism, education, being a Democrat (or a Liberal, if you’re Canadian) while the left pontificates with self-righteous indignation about the perfidity of the right. Occupy has simplified this somewhat. They simply hate everybody.

I’ve seen playground bullying with less verbal violence and more intelligent discourse.

Many younger people step up with painfully ill-informed opinions on everything from Internet regulation to social issues, toss out a quick opinion, set up a hash tag or two (just to see if they can get a trend going) and then move on to whatever next distracts their attention.

Woven through this tapestry of what passes for political debate and discussion are the sales pitches. Buy my book, click this link for a free gift, contact me for the secrets to better online marketing. The list is endless. Almost none of it is targeted, especially from the marketing gurus which begs the question, how much do most of these self-professed experts really know? It’s more like the old direct mail shotgun approach from the ‘70s than anything approaching a real understanding of this powerful still new online environment.

Every now and then an ‘egg’ pops up with a really great offer. These eggs usually follow almost no one and have no one following them but they’re happy to provide us with a link to get a great opportunity (for which they get a small commission). Considering how few people on Twitter are unaware of the spam nature of these folks, it’s amazing so many still buy into trying. I treat these tweets like the Whack-A-Mole game at the fair and just whack ‘em with the Spam report  menu option. Some days there are so many, I try to see how many I can whack in 60 secs. My current record is 11.

People I don’t know and don’t follow, copy me on tweets they’ve sent to others, on topics in which I am not only uninterested but in which I have little to no knowledge. They become annoyed if I don't reply and even more so when I do.

Some jump into conversations to which they weren't invited to voice their opinion, usually rudely and become even more rude when their particular opinion isn't considered the right opinion. Who needs this?

Some contact me to tell me I’m a idiot which may be a reasonable assessment while others tell me I’m a fascist in direct contradiction to the person before them who called me a socialist pig. Sometimes I get called a Liberal or a Conservative which apparently are two of the worst insults online, depending on which side of the political divide you embrace.

Fortunately, there are tweets by some who devote their time on Twitter to making others laugh or at least smile and I sincerely appreciate their efforts. Sometimes the humour is quite subtle, other times it is very in-your-face almost vulgar but it is almost always quite funny and usually makes me laugh out loud. Once, one of the messages was so funny, I spit my coffee on my keyboard and discovered that the quickest way to undermine technology is to expose it to moisture. I guess, technology is just like people, we all have our vulnerabilities.

But what keeps me coming back are the people I’ve met from all over the world, good people, interesting people and people who are reasonably well-informed about whatever it is they are interested in. I’ve had some great discussions and debates with these people bordering on the inane to the very serious. We haven’t always agreed but it has always been respectful, thought provoking and/or just plain fun.

It is these people who put the meaning in the word ‘social’ in social media.

These are the people who, while they may not share my opinions, share a desire to connect with others to learn, to understand and to satisfy our curiosities. These are also the people who, for the most part, remind me that not everyone in this world has lost their minds.

And here’s the thing I find most interesting.

It is these same people who remind me of what I learned in the real world, a world in which I have lived in many places both within my own country and internationally. People are people the world over. We have far more in common than we have that divides us. Too many forget that in places like Twitter where the primary buzz is usually against something or someone.

I learned some other things from my few short months on Twitter as well.

I’ve learned that there are an incredible number of frightened, insecure and even paranoid folks out there; people who fail to see the irony of living in a society with they are free to express their paranoid fear of their democratic governments. 

I’ve learned that there are many people who because they can remain  anonymous, lack the values or self-discipline to conduct themselves with respect for others or themselves. 

I’ve learned that opinion is more important than fact to many and that there is a growing intolerance that our societies once had started to defeat before the Internet explosion. 

I’ve learned that the herd mentality is alive and well with a majority of people only too willing to jump on a bandwagon without much prior thought and I’ve learned that stupidity and hypocrisy continue to thrive and spread faster than any computer virus.

I’ve also learned that there remains a lot of nice people in the world, people with values, morals, character and common sense.

It gives me cautious optimism that just perhaps, when the current madness no longer grips so many, we just may have a shot at making the world the better place most of us seem to want. We’re not going to get there through war, polarized opinion or stupidity but we just might if we remember those who understand that the true power of social media goes beyond merely shouting out opinions, demonizing those with whom we disagree  or trying to turn places like Twitter into one large flea market.

We're only going to get there thanks to the people who brought their values to social media rather than checking them at the log-in screen  like too many others.

It is also those people who keep me coming back and I thank them for that. It is a pleasure to have met and to know them.

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

SOPA & Bill C-30 - The Bizarre Fear Of Our Own Governments

There are days when I become so confused by the confused logic employed by so many that I sometimes wish my head actually would explode.

The ongoing hysteria over proposed government legislation on the Internet is one of those illogical knee-jerk reactions that I can’t reconcile with reality. I try, honestly I do, but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t make the facts fit the assertions being made by the righteous defenders of liberty and democracy feverishly screaming across social media networks. I've even been accused of fear mongering for pointing out general issues about cyber crime.

Let’s look at a few facts.

Let’s start with a basic question. Who owns the Internet? While lots of people who use social media like to think they own it, the simple fact is that they don’t. They don’t provide the infrastructure, the software, the protocols or any of the other things required to maintain and operate the Internet. Government doesn’t own the Internet either. In fact, if you look at the Internet as a single, global entity, nobody owns it. The Internet is an interconnected group of small to large networks all over the world.

But if nobody owns it, how does it exist? The basic infrastructure is owned and operated by large corporations like ATT, Sprint, Verizon and others.  Protocols and domain name registrations are handled by organizations like IAB and ICANN. Web sites, networks and individual systems belong to whoever produces and operates them.

Social media and other sites routinely track
and collect personal information and user
habits which they then use to make money

Nonetheless, it is clear that most people who use the Internet feel some kind of ownership and look on any attempt to interfere with what they see as their personal freedom as a violation of their rights and what they mistakenly believe is pure democracy at work.

Those of us who use the Internet do so at the pleasure of those who provide the infrastructure and sites and at our own risk. How much risk? More than most who are opposed to any kind of government regulation want to admit to themselves.

According to the Internet Crime Complaint Centre there has seen an 1800% growth in online crime in the past decade and that’s just the crimes that are reported and they know about.

Business and governments tend to under-report the growing level of crime in order to maintain public confidence in the economy but it is growing and faster than in the physical world.

“More criminals that were involved in traditional crimes

are moving towards the Internet. They know that it’s easier, 

more profitable and the probability of being caught is lower.”

-East-West Institute report on cyber crime

Among the most often reported crimes were identity theft, FBI scams and non-delivery of merchandise or payment.  Panda Labs, a major provider of online security software, reports a significant increase in credit card theft now escalating into the theft of other financial information, passwords, bank credentials, log-ins and fake credit cards.

Of the top 10 countries with the most perpetrators of cyber crime, The United States is first, Britain is number two and Canada is fourth.

The odds of a person being in a plane crash are 1 in 10.7 million, a car accident 1 in 6,000 and victim of a cyber crime 1 in 2.27.

The U.S., Britain and Canada lead the
world in cyber crime

These statistics reveal even more clearly the level of risk. 79% of people who spend 49+ hours a week online will be the victims of a cyber crime at some point but even those who spend far less time are not safe. 64% of people who spend anywhere from 1-24 hrs per week will be victimized by cyber crime

Add to this pedophile rings, racist attack sites, suicide promoters, Craigslist scams, sexual predators, copyright piracy, as well as, all those legitimate sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter who track their users and collect and sell personal data to make a buck and it becomes clear that the Internet, for all of its benefits, has some serious issues.

Malware sites now exist offering cheap software that allows even the most inexperienced would-be scammer, spammer or just out and out twisted mind to invade the systems and computers of others. Similar sites, so called 'bullet-proof' sites, now exist where pedophiles, hackers, and the sellers of stolen and fake credit cards, pedophile rings, terrorist groups and petty thieves can operate with relatively impunity and anonymity.

Online users have 1 in 2.7 odds of
being victims of a cyber crime

Cyber crime is evolving. Where once it was reasonably simplistic it now includes highly sophisticated techniques that include: Hacktivism, Clickjacking, Cross site scripting, Attacks on vulnerable mobile devices and Cloud computing loopholes.

Much of this crime is enabled by groups like Anonymous and other groups and individuals who devote their careers to theft, destruction, promotion of hate, violation of the privacy of others and online bullying along with every day users gleefully engaging in the piracy of movies, music and other copyright material. It's all protected by the anonymity and lack of regulatory law that the Internet affords them. These are also some of the key groups leading the charge against legislation like SOPA and PIPA in the United States and Bill C-30 in Canada. They have an investment in keeping the Internet free of regulatory protection of honest users.

They’ve been quite successful at whipping up paranoia about government intervention in an attempt to protect “their turf”. In this, they’ve been more than ably supported by online companies and sites that make their living off of the very kind of tracking of personal information so many now fear from government.

But, it will not be Anonymous or Facebook or MySpace that the victims of cyber crime will turn to when they get hit, it will be government law enforcement agencies like INTERPOL, The RCMP in Canada and the FBI in The United States. These are the same government agencies they currently protest and try to deny the very tools needed to provide that protection.

In Canada, people are in a tizzy over the provision in Bill C-30 that will require Internet providers to turn over basic IP and contact data without a warrant to law enforcement. They scream that it is an invasion of privacy, an example of Big Brother undermining democracy but this is the same data that is currently already being handed over voluntarily in 95% of all requests by law enforcement.

They are also concerned about interception and monitoring of communications, something already being done but mostly by hackers and cyber criminals like Anonymous who released a Scotland Yard conference call and posted it online.

Does it not trouble you that the people leading the charge against Internet regulation are the same people who use the Internet to disrupt, to track, to spy, to make money, to do all of the things they've told you government wants to do? 

It’s the same in the United State and democracies around the world.

What most people fail to realize is that clarifying in law what police can and cannot obtain without a warrant, actually protects us. When there is no law, there is confusion. When there is confusion, the wrong information or too much information may be turned over. With legislation, the boundaries of what law enforcement can demand, is established. We are further protected by our courts who routinely overturn laws that violate our constitutions and Bills/Charters of Rights. Do you currently have that same protection from those who would invade your computer, steal your data, intercept or track your communications?

The current hysteria is both misplaced and poorly informed.

Canadian Pubic Safety Minister, Vic Toews

Yesterday, our local rag ran a front page story about a Twitter account that was used to post personal information about Vic Toews, the Canadian Public Safety Minister.

This is just one more example of the misuse of the Internet and how those who scream the loudest about privacy and their rights are among the first to violate those of others.

But what I found most interesting is that the newspaper was actually able to obtain and track enough information about the Twitter account without any assistance from law enforcement. Using readily available software, the newspaper was ablt to track down the IP address to Canada’s House of Commons. That’s right, the ability to track you is already all over the Internet and being used daily by people and organizations you don’t know and will never meet. I installed anti-tracking software last Sunday. It’s Saturday morning today and that software has already blocked more than 7,000 attempts to track me and to monitor my online behavior……and that software only blocks some of the tracking.

The account, by the way, has been shut down by the user who having violated Mr. Toews right to privacy is now concerned about being exposed and maybe facing severe penalties for misuse of a government IP address, penalties that could include termination of employment.

That\s the other side of the Internet, too many people acting and reacting without consideration of the consequences to themselves or others in the real world.

It’s a sad thing when people become so paranoid about their democratic government they align themselves with the very people and groups who can hurt them. These are the same people and orgnaizations who most benefit from keeping the Internet free of regulation so that they can continue to shear others as though they were little more than sheep. Sheep follow blindly and too many are blindly following the wrong people and that my friends is a more serious threat to our democracies and our way of life than SOPA, PIPA or Bill C-30.

….and that is not only a logic I can’t fathom, it’s just dangerous and willful stupidity.

Sources for the statistics in this post:

The 2011 Norton Cyber Crime Study; Panda Labs Security Cyber Crime Investigation Report; East West Institute; The Ottawa Citizen, a Post Media publication; The Crime Complaint Centre; The FBI Cyber Crime Reports and techmaish.com

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

If Not SOPA, What?

I just bought a new computer and have been busy going about the business of setting it up. One of the first things I did, as most of us do, was install anti-spyware, anti-malware and anti-tracking software. There is just so much malevolence out there that without this software, your computer is like a bank vault left open all night.

My father used to say that a lock only keeps out an honest man and he was right.

Consider hackers like Anonymous who break into systems and computers to disrupt and steal data. Sometimes that data is highly sensitive, sometimes it’s financial. Sometimes, hackers break-in just to damage your system.

This is equivalent in the real world to breaking into your home or office and either stealing valuables or trashing the place. We absolutely don’t accept that in the physical world. We demand laws and enforcement of those laws to protect our property. We demand that those who are tried and found guilty be punished but online, we either ignore or actually go so far as to defend these actions by others out of some misguided sense of democracy in action.

It doesn’t stop there, of course. Anonymous for all of its recent attempts to present itself as a defender of democratic and individual rights has done more than its fair share of encouraging illegal and hate-filled behaviour while disrupting the lives of people  for no other reason than because they can and because they get a twisted kick out of it.

There are thousands of weak-minded thrill seekers all over the world, like Anonymous, sitting in their bedrooms or their basements plotting new viruses to send out into the world to do nothing more than destroy what belongs to others. This is like having a psychopath go on a rampage in your town, vandalizing and burning down buildings and smashing cars. Again, in the real world we protect ourselves as best we can with the rule of law using the police and the courts to bring those responsible to justice. |In the virtual world we merely complain about it and feed more money into the Internet security industry.

The real world is full of Bernie Madoffs, Enrons and far too many small-time fraud artists. We use the law to not only punish these offenders but to try and recover our lost money and investments. The virtual world has no end of scams. Whether it is some inheritance scam from Nigeria, mystery shopper scam, get rich quick scam or any one of a thousand others, there is no end to people online trying to scam others out of their money.

Artists  including musicians, painters, photographers, writers and others routinely have their work pirated by millions which means they lose money they earned through their creativity and to which they are rightfully entitled.

And then come the really twisted.

Consider all those sites with discounted pharmaceuticals, drugs that really aren't drugs at all but rather are useless imitations designed to scam people out of their money. It probably seems harmless when you're thinking about vitamins and even Viagra but what about those people with life-threatening illnesses like AIDS and cancer who are looking for discounted medication to try and prolong their lives?

It is illegal in most jurisdictions to council suicide and yet online, people have not only counseled it, they have gone out of their way to encourage the potential suicide while they watch online. A young girl died in Canada because of a male nurse in the State’s ongoing and persistent encouragement that she take her ownn life rather than seek counseling. In Florida, a young man was encouraged to go through with his threat of suicide by hundreds who had logged in to watch his live-stream. Nobody thought to call the police in an attempt to try and save his life. The Internet is now the primary entertainment provider for the truly diseased mind.

Others, thankful for their anonymity don’t go quite that far. Instead they surf the Internet in search of memorial sites for people who committed suicide, were murdered, killed in an accident or who died from a fatal illness. They get their kicks from logging in to these sites and leaving vile, disgusting messages designed to denigrate the deceased and hurt their family.

Social media sites like Twitter are over-run by small-minded people with even smaller vocabularies who take delight in spamming the community with profane verbal graffiti.

Pedophiles have embraced the Internet like an addict embraces their next fix. They have set up networks to share information and child porn which has created greater access and demand which only puts more children at risk, worldwide. Child-sex rings offer ‘tourist’ trips to exotic locations and access to children as young as infants.

Have an addiction? The Internet has folks only too happy to service it. Gambling. Drugs. Porn. Pick your addiction of choice, search Google or drop by a couple of chat rooms and in no time you’ll have more selection than you’ll find at an all you can eat buffet.

Even legitimate sites are not above tracking your Internet usage, packaging it up and then selling it to others who then use it to to make a buck or two. Where do you think most of the adware and spybots come from? If you spend any time online and belong to a social media site or two, your privacy is merely an illusion. The anti-tracking software I installed earlier today has already blocked more than 1000 attempts to track my Internet use and access my information. Without any doubt even more trackers got by my software.

It’s like having people you don’t know follow you around all day watching you, jotting down everything you say, you buy and you do and then selling it to other companies. It’s all so convenient. You don’t even have to belong to most sites. Just drop by for a short visit and they will take care of the rest.

Yes, there is software that prevents some of this but there is no software that prevents it all and especially not the sick, twisted and illegal behaviour of too many out there. In the real world, we have laws to protect us and to provide us with recourse when a crime happens. The Internet is simply anarchy and an unlimited playground for the morally bankrupt and dishonest....although some have confused that for democracy.

Recently, the United States government started to work on anti-piracy legislation to try and get some sense of order and protection on the Internet. The response online was the predictable knee-jerk reaction by those who don't think beyond their own self-indulgence.

Cries of outrage over the audacity of the government to even consider interfering with the Internet were over the top. Labels of censorship, oppression and tyranny started popping up all over social media and many of the big Internet players led the charge. Of course, for many of them, it was less about censorship than it was about income. It's an easy mistake to make when your business model is based on there being no laws or regulation.

Sites like Wikipedia and Twitter shut down for a day in protest. Go Daddy which offered tepid support of SOPA was almost put out of business by those outraged that Go Daddy had dared to voice a contrary opinion to the rest of the online community. So much for democracy.

But here’s the thing.

While I think SOPA is a flawed bill and needs serious rethinking, I believe we need some kind of enforceable regulation for the Internet to protect the innocent and the not so innocent from those who seek to rob and harm others.

Why should we have to armour our computers to protect our personal information like the military protects the gold in Fort Knox? Theft is theft whether it happens online or in the physical world. Child abuse in the form of kiddie porn spills over into the real world and viscious, threatening behavior is the same wherever it happens. We’re working overtime in North America to reduce schoolyard bullying even as we defend against regulation on the Internet where far more bullying takes place.

The Internet is a great place full of information, interesting things to do and places to go. It is how many of us now connect with each other and I use the Internet every day. But it is also too much like Dodge City before Wyatt Earp showed up and I believe it needs a little 'Wyatt Earping' to try and put some sense of civilized order to it.

Perhaps I'm an idiot but I fail to see why we should even consider accepting, let alone condone in many cases, online behaviour that we would not for a moment consider acceptable in the real world. 

The Internet has opened up an entirely new spectrum of information, entertainment and connection. Thanks to the anonymity and collective mindset it affords, it has also brought freedom to those who have no sense of responsibility, morality or respect for their societies or the rights, feelings or well-being of others. It is an attitude that is spilling over into the real world where an unwarranted sense of entitlement is on the increase.

To those who oppose any kind of online regulation, what do you propose to protect yourself and others? What are your solutions to child porn rings and suicide clubs? What do you propose to protect the privacy of individuals, not from government, but from Internet corporations who look on you and your personal information as nothing more than a commodity to tracked, captured and sold? How do you  propose to protect your family, your neighbours and your society from those who lack the morality, the values or the decency to act responsibly and honestly? How do you propose to defend society from those who see the Internet as an opportunity to destroy, to steal and to indulge every whim they may have no matter how perverse?

It seems to me that rather than give in to yet another simple-minded reaction against the idea, we would be better to ask ourselves, "If not SOPA, what?" and then get busy making the 'what' happen.

Here's a free app to block sites from tracking you online.  http://www.abine.com/

Links to just a couple of the millions of articles available on this topic. Do your own research and draw your own conclusions

An Overview of SOPA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act

Why you don't get a cut of the billions mad by social media websites when theyt go pubic
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/your+content/6141515/story.html

Anonymous
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/intolerance-hate/anonymous/

Encouraging suicide
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100526/1822349594.shtml

A quick look at some recent online scams
http://www.hotscams.com/

© 2012 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others

The Adverse Reality Of Virtual Reality

Recently some folks at an NHL hockey game booed the Premier of Alberta when she was introduced. They were, no doubt, displeased with her positions on certain issues and wanted her to know about it. This would be the same premier who was elected with a significant majority just a few months ago.

Canadians like to think that we’re a tad more civil than our American and European counterparts but clearly we’re not and the lack of civility and respect for the offices of government has eroded into mob reaction.

We saw it at a NASCAR event where Michelle Obama and Joe Biden’s wife were booed by the crowd as if, somehow, these two women were singularly responsible for the things the crowd was displeased with.

I call it mob courage because there weren’t too many in either of those crowds who would have behaved with the same lack of common courtesy if they were alone and face-to-face with the person the crowd booed.

I blame the Internet for much of it.

Over the past few years, social media has created an environment where anyone can not only say what they want but can be what they want. There is an anonymity about being online that not only allows people to reinvent themselves but provides them with a degree of courage to act and behave in a way they wouldn’t have considered in the real world.

Like any learned behavior, it eventually becomes part of the genetic make up and spills over into other parts of life. We’re dealing with that now globally.

We react rather than respond. We’re misinformed and becoming increasingly lazy in challenging our beliefs and our knowledge. Why bother? There are plenty of people and resources on line to support what we already think and the rhetoric becomes more and more extreme.

Obama is Satan incarnate..no wait, that was Bush. Oops, wrong again. It’s Islam, no it’s Christianity. It’s whatever someone disagrees with. Vaccinations which all but eradicated some diseases suddenly became evil based on fraudulent science and those diseases are making a comeback thanks to the sheer stupidity of some people who can’t look beyond the last web site they visited.

Everyone has a cause or is a cause now. They hold and voice opinions, not in support of their cause but against everyone else who doesn’t agree with them. Its anger and accusation masquerading as debate. Its misinformation and opinion posing as informed fact.

Dating sites are hotbeds for liars, opportunists and scam artists. Facebook is a false representation of a global village and Twitter is merely graffiti sprayed on walls around the world. These are great resources being misused by people who trivialize their own lives. 

People rail against governments’ invasion of their privacy even as they expose themselves to the world in a naïve belief that somehow their private information is safe because it is, after all, Facebook.

Occupy, concerned as a result of a recent court order that Twitter turn over information about Occupy Boston’s account, is moving to set up its own Facebook type site. How droll. Changing site URL’s isn’t going to do anything to ensure privacy and the superficial understanding of the real world are incredible.

But, the virtual world provides that false sense of community, empowerment and secunity. It also fills some human need to be liked, even if it is merely an illusion.

Apps are available to help you collect followers on Twitter. Social media experts will help you develop strategies to gain more "friends" on Facebook or Google + and no one seems to understand that collecting names on a list is not the same as developing true friendships and lasting relationships.

People use apps to validate potential followers rather than taking the time to discover whether they're real or a bot for themselves. They set up auto respond messages because they're too busy to actually take the time to respond personally and then wonder why people stop following them. The lack of personal investment in building relationships is incredible but it is the unwarranted expectation attached to that lack of effort that is even more amazing.

I follow people on Twitter who I think might be interesting. If I find they aren't after awhile, I stop following them. It still amazes me how many broadcast to the world that I no longer follow them as though I have committed some sin or at the very least, intentionally set out to harm them. Good Lord, how pathetic does a life have to be that it is measured by who does or doesn't follow them on Twitter?

Hackers, like Anonymous are nothing more than common thieves and yet online, they achieve a certain swashbuckling cache as if criminal activity is only a game in the virtual world.

Language is devolving into a series of symbols and grunts and becoming more truncated and extreme.

Things like human values and rights take a back seat to the importance of marketing yourself on social media and there is an almost pathetically sad need to collect followers and friends on social networking sites rather than devoting yourself to your friends in the real world. I know families that now connect more often online than they do in person.

Misinformation, delusions and outright lies travel around the world at the speed of light. People post comments on their Facebook pages and Twitter about the most inane activities in their lives as if somehow the rest of the world is waiting breathlessly to hear how their hair turned out this morning. 

We argue, accuse and block others at the drop of a hat. The opinions of others are not important and are shouted down rather than discussed and debated in a civilized manner and everywhere there is pointless profanity and an increasing lack of simple courtesy and good manners.

Where is it heading? You already know the answer to that.

It is the road to perdition, a breakdown of values, self-respect and the respect for others. I have difficulty thinking of something more lonely that counting your success in life by the number of friends you collect on Facebook or the number of people who contact you on a dating site.

photo: photobucket.com

But that is what is happening to our society. For all the activity, for all the communication, we are becoming increasingly isolated from each other and there is nothing but a profound sense of being alone at the end of that road.

I use the Internet and social media primarily for information gathering but it is not my life. My life is outside of the little box and monitor at my desk. My real life involves a two-year old little boy who finds everything in the real world amazing and he’s right. My real life includes a woman who has a smile that warms in a way that words on a screen never will. Out here in the real world there are real people doing real things and that is where I live. When I am online, I try to maintain the same values and manners that are a part of my real life. I try to live in virtual reality, what I live in reality with my family, friends and colleagues. Too many of us are allowing our online persona to change our real lives.

Out here, where the wind blows, you can hear the laughter rather than reading LOL. Out here where you can actually see and touch a person, there is reality. We have replaced our real communities with the illusion of community in a virtual world which allows us to be whatever we want rather than taking pride in who we are, even to our own detriment. It destroys our willingness to constantly improve ourselves. (Why waste time learning to play guitar when you can buy Guitar Hero and pretend?)

The Internet can provide much. It can entertain. It can inform and it can offer opportunities for business, professional and personal communication. What it can't offer and will never deliver is reality. The Internet is merely reality's illusion....and increasingly, a very uncivil illusion of reality at that.

© 2011 Maggie's Bear

all rights reserved

The content of this article is the sole property of Maggie's Bear but a link to it may be shared by those who think it may be of interest to others