Censorship

George W. Bush in one of his final acts as president signed the child safe viewing act, which will essentially allow parents to have a wider range of censorship over a childs computer. "The new law requires the FCC to issue a notice of inquiry to examine what advanced content-blocking technologies are available for various communication devices and platforms. It also calls for the FCC to consider how to encourage the development and use of such technologies without affecting content providers' pricing or packaging.(C Net News, 1)" Essentially it seems that America is leaning towards the approach of allowing elders to have more of a profound impact over their child's life. The problem with censorship is the idea that it will gain way for the government to begin using this power over the people of America. As one can see with China and the mass incarceration to any Pro-Tibet supporter this is not how a democratic land should govern or live. Sure there are many reasons as to why it would be good for adults to censor their child's devices such as smart phone or computer, but allowing any type of this entity can only be so good for so long. It will cause massive law suits and in the end will allow the government to gain more power over the first amendment to the US constitution. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10111752-38.html

Spyware Conflict

It truly seems that every time I log into my computer and open internet explorer there are excessive advertising and pop up's on just about every site. A Florida district court ruled recently on a case in which spy ware was downloaded onto a persons computer without any true form of consent by the user themselves.
Allegedly Spy ware uses some type of key logger system where the current FTC act was being violated and in-turn a lawsuit was filed. It seems that courts need to begin trying internet based cases in larger volume and need to establish some type of better laws to ensure ones safety and privacy while in cyberland and until this occurs there will be many more suits filed in a similar manner to this one. The article goes on to say that this keylogger software is used by some government agencies, however it does breech ones privacy and truly hinders the development in fraud protection.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10099123-38.html

Crime and Hacking

An article was recently brought to my attention that involves a former high tech network administrator and various crimes that he committed while pretending to be such. Andrew Madrid, who was convicted of various crimes involving hacking ones identity, pretending to be someone who he was not, and other hacking crimes within various companies. Madrid was said to pose as a security guard and an IT employee in order to gain access to various companies networks and in doing so stole important passwords or information that helped Madrid embezzle money through certain scams. What really bothers me about people such as this is they are nothing short of criminals. They are, and one could say well he did not harm anyone directly other than a little hacking. I completely disagree with this and feel that the 12 year sentencing given was fair and maybe even a little light. This man is a rational, smart person, and since this is true than he should suffer the consequences and in doing so scaring future people from commiting such crimes. Hacking is a major issue currently in this Country and society really needs to crack down and find ways to prevent this type of crime from occurring. When people are able to crack into company systems through simple wifi shows the problems occurring in this present time and how regulations and rules need to be set in place to limit this type of crime.

Election and The World Wide Web

This upcoming election has become more or less a major problem. There have been massive reports done with the idea of "middle-man" hacking that the Republican party allegedly has been involved with. It has extenuated to the extreme of a man who they say is behind all of this is being subpoenaed to testify in open court. The Republican party has funded legal aid and are trying to push back the hearing until after election day. If this isnt enough I recently came across an article on BNA's internet law news that deals with this "joe the plummer" character and the controversy surrounding it. The article goes on to explain how the Democratic Party illegally accessed this mans information and they breached legal code. This Joe the Plummer character has been a hot topic as of lately and all it does is distract the masses from what each canidates views and beliefs truly are. I have chosen not to vote in this upcoming election and it is because of these ideals that surround voter fraud and the ways that it is handled. It is tough to understand the magnitude of which this can cause, and no one truly can understand what can come of this. These many situations and the many others that cause for impartiality in this current system truly show how this current system does not value canidates equally or each persons single vote. Regardless, measures need to be taken to ensure each persons true vote and maybe switching to computer devices can only add to the mass scare of identity theft.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10075746-38.html

Supreme Court and Identity Theft

Within the past week, news has surged that the US supreme court is hearing a case that involves an illegal immigrant. The case involves a man who worked for six years under a false name, green card, and social security number and than apparently unknowingly changed these and passed in different numbers. Well these numbers were that of a US citizen and thus this man was prosecuted. The controversy surrounds the theme of if a person did not intentionally steal ones identity than how can he be held responsible for such. In my person opinion it is tough for the courts to determine if a person knowingly or unknowingly stole a persons identity to use for their ability to work. Therefore each case should be thought of as the offender knowingly stole the persons identification for even if they didn't mean too, they still put themselves in a position where they had to. The bigger problem may be the idea that these immigrants need to falsify their identifications in order to work, but with regards to this case it cannot be a determinant. I think that the supreme court should and will rule in the lower courts decisions to incarcerate this man and even extending two years onto his sentence in what seems that increasing penalties will decrease the amount of these crimes committed. All in all this is an extremely relevant topic to society and there have been multi-million dollar illegal trades occuring around identity theft and the courts and the legal system need to find a way to cut down on this type of crime.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/20/AR2008102000883.html

You Tube and Congress

I recently read an article on BNA's Internet Law News and it was related to the recent decision on the dilemma of whether or not congressman can post on YouTube. It will essentially be the first time government officials will be able to post outside of the .gov domain realm. It seems as if this will allow too much leniancy with what will be allowed to be posted by these officials anywhere else in the cyber world. I do agree though that allowing videos on youtube will make it so anyone can access debates or speeches to help further their knowledge with regards to the election that is coming up. Another problem I forsee is internet hackers are going to change speeches or debates through illegal computer programming that will cause for the idea of not knowing whats real and not. Before this bill passed it was widely known that congressman were not able to post this way and one would know that many of the videos can be seen as a farse or a joke. Regardless of the situation it needs to become aware what is real and not through various government seals or some type of firewall system. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted as saying, "a significant step forward toward bringing House rules into the multimedia age and allowing for members to effectively communicate with their constituents online."I agree completely with this statement and in an ideal world it sounds great, but realisitcally speaking it doesnt seem as if this is going to work as well as planned and it could cause controversy and the idea of not knowing what to believe. The link for this article is: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10058034-38.html.

Stock Market with IT

The Stock Market is an entity that really does give the fairest evaluation of how our economy and our lives will be effected for it shows the growth or decline of many companies. This past summer a lot of things occurred which led me to begin following this entity closely and really begin to understand the meanings of various things. It occurred for I interned at an IT staffing company that deals with placing and hiring various technical specialists for most of the fortune 500 companies. The other thing that occurred that helped me understand what was occurring was my brother worked for Bear Stearns in sub-prime mortgages and really was in the middle in what would develop as the credit crunch. What I took out of these events is information and life lessons that have ensured that every day at least three or four times I follow the market and check certain companies welfares and attempt to understand what is effecting each one and how. The field i find most interesting though is technology and how the project managers to the programmers and business analysts are being treated with the recent uprising in the companies such as Lehman Brothers, Merryl Lynch, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, AIG and Bank of America. Since my employer, Comsys IT, is training myslef for sales I worked directly with the IT consulants that we placed at these companies as well as the hiring managers. The pay rate that these people receive is extremly high based on the qualifications and amount of time, training, and education that these people have been consumed with. It goes to show that the value weighted in technology is second to none and that without proper IT departments these corporations could crumble from the top down. The amount of legal questions that are going to arrise with regards to the corporations technological rights and that of the advertising market are going to coincide and become a major issue.