P3 Reflection

The idea for project 3 was intriguing. Taking the work from a simple unattached pen and paper format to a real world initiative gave the class a bit of a 3dimensional view. The ability to choose the topic was probably one of the best parts because I got to work with something is important to me, and relevant to my field of work/interest. The research part of the paper was only difficult due to a lack of established sources on the matter. The field and its study tends to be based on news and commercial sites that are affected by the issue, so limiting to .edu .org, and results from google scholar proved to be a bit of a hassle.
The presentation part of the project was more enjoyable than I expected. As one that typically despises talking to people, my chance to get up and discuss an important issue, be taken seriously, and actually get people to realize how dangerous the issue can become was fun.

Overall, I can say this project was probably my favorite bit of work for this class, and even though it required the most effort, I am happy to say it provided the most results.

Internet Censorship

Adam Meder

Jeffery Honnold

ENC1102-045

07 April 2010

Internet Censorship

Censorship is a topic not commonly discussed by the average Internet User in America. If one were to visit a website composed of mainly the average user, such as “Facebook.com”, and search through the site; one would find maybe .05% of the users have ever discussed internet censorship. For most of us, the Internet is the modern day equivalent to the Old West, where there is no law, and anything is available if you know where to look. However, that is a freedom that we take for granted. In many parts of the world, many things are completely unavailable on the internet. Some countries censor based on local or religious morals, so that things such as pornography or alternative religious beliefs are unavailable to the local populous. Some censor on political grounds, blocking certain parties, and topics such as racism, euthanasia, certain video games, etc.

Internet Censorship can be accomplished using a few different ways. The most common is to filter based on certain keywords, and creating blacklists of sites that the Censoring Party deems inappropriate. These lists make up a firewall that is placed on all internet connections within the region; any connection made to something on the list fails, and depending on the region, may or may not create a log of who attempted to connect to it. This requires the involvement and compliance of multiple parties, including the Internet Service Provider (ISP), as well as Internet Search Companies, such as Google. This is viewed by many as an intrusion on the human rights of Freedom of Expression and Opinion. These companies, though US based, follow the laws of the Censoring countries to make their jobs easier, and to provide good relations should they choose to expand into that region (Nolan).

There are ways to get around Internet Censorship, but those methods are usually the target of massive attacks by the censoring party. You can typically use a proxy service to avoid a blacklist. A proxy service funnels all your outbound connections through a third party (sometimes multiple, depending on the how hidden you wish to remain), so that all it appears you are doing is connecting to the one site, while that site is making the actual outbound connections (Leavitt). However, proxy services are typically also blocked by blacklists, and so new ones must be found often. Depending on the strength of the firewall in place, one can sometimes encrypt the data they are sending, and use a darknet[1] to access censored or illegal material. Darknets are host to massive amounts of illegal content, but provide such a high level of anonymity, that it is almost impossible to trace the users. However, this comes at the cost of speed of access, and availability of content. Sometimes content may go down randomly, as it may or may not be hosted by one single PC. Typically, the content is hosted on many different users’ machines, and it works like a peer-to-peer network: one user downloads from many, but in the process becomes an uploader themselves. Darknets' typically work by limiting connections of new users. To obtain any real speed on the network, one must already know, or get to know, someone on the network that is well connected.

Censorship work-arounds such as this are very common, but require a lot of knowledge and skill to employ. Files can be hidden within other files, and thus become undetectable with thorough scrutiny, the only telling sign being a larger file size than seems appropriate.

China is one of the biggest players in the Internet Censorship game. China began the censoring game by blocking out politically sensitive and disruptive information on the web. They used this to keep a grip on their people, and to help keep them from revolting against the communist regime (Jung). They now have a huge firewall, jokingly referred to as the Great Firewall of China, that is in the highest ranks of complexity, and thus difficulty to crack, in the IT world. They limit their citizenry on many aspects of life, and have been found to block sites sometimes on a simple whim. This has led to a lot of trouble inside and outside of the country with people fighting for free speech. Recently, Google, Inc. has used China’s Internet Censorship demands against them; by refusing to take part in the censorship game any longer after they were attacked by Chinese hackers who seem to have governmental ties.

Internet Search Results typically show, here in America, any website that matches the keywords given, and order the sites based on popularity, use, and relevance. However, in censoring countries such as china, they are also passed through a long list of filters, removing up to half the sites on the results, and depending on the keywords, they may even block the search completely. Hosting a website, from within a country that censors the internet, is a whole separate ordeal that requires extra registration, such as requiring an ID card, as well as limits the content that can be put on the site. Anything that goes on the site that is out of the governments allowed content can typically result in punishment such as imprisonment. [2]

Now, you may ask, “Why is it important to an American to know about Internet Censorship? We have the First Amendment here, they can’t censor anything.” However, that amendment only goes so far to protect what can and can’t be said. Social mores still affect certain things that are legal or illegal, and certain other services may also be determined to be disallowed. Recently in the US, the site “WikiLeaks.org” has come under fire for hosting leaked government files, and there were many attempts to shut the site down, and to censor the content greatly. The debate is still ongoing, but for the moment the site remains up and protected (Werve).

In Italy, Censorship has become an issue as well. In August of 2008, the Italian government began blocking websites such as The Pirate Bay. They had previously battled with the site over content and distribution of copyrighted materials, but ultimately they could do nothing to stop the site as it is a completely legal and legitimate website and service. This is a prime example of using censorship to do what the law cannot. This, however, is hurting the Italian citizens, as well as The Pirate Bay website itself. The reaction given by The Pirate Bay was a call to arms of the Italian Citizens, They provided information on how to bypass the block, and rallied them to contact their ISPs and their government and fight back against the censorship laws (The Pirate Bay).

Incoming to our governmental forums is a bill that attempts to bring censorship to the forefront of American Internet use, and will begin the Great Firewall of America. This is something that affects every single one of us here in the USA. We must fight back and prevent bills such as this from passing. We must fight for Net Neutrality, and keep the internet out of the controlling hands of the Government, Internet Service Providers, and Lobbyist organizations like the RIAA.

Should Internet Censorship become a part of American life, we can be sure to see a wide range of fallout effects. It will start slowly, controversial websites will be the first to go with sites such as 4chan.org and many of the more extreme pornographic pages will be blocked due. From there, limits will be imposed restricting access to any pornographic pages without true proof of age, this will most likely be done through a government imposed registration system, with log on required to access the Internet. This will lead to privacy concerns, because the government will then have immediate access to view everything a person loads on their computer, simply by logging it, or intercepting and copying every bit of data that goes to and from the suspect machine.

However, there is another side to the fallout of enforced Internet Censorship in the US. The civilian reaction to Internet Censorship will be scattered all across the spectrum of emotion and action. Some people will applaud the decision, they do not access anything of the sort that would be censored, and thus do not care. Some will abhor the decision, though they do not access the material, they feel it is a violation of free speech, and will fight it peacefully, with words and protests. Those that are actually affected by the placement of censors will be split into 3 broad categories of reactions. Some will feel helpless against it, and will accept the law, knowing not what else to do; they will alter their own habits to not use the censored material, and go on with their lives. Some will be outraged, and take to the streets and the pens, protesting in any way they can. Riots will be unlikely, but possible, breaking out at protests due to a few who feel violated by this invasion of privacy. The last group will be the most harmful to the Government’s decision to censor, yet will have no real effect on removing the laws. Those are the computer whizzes, the hackers both ethical and non-ethical. They may or may not have accessed the materials in question, but they will help provide access to it, through the Great US Firewall. Be it only for themselves, or for all citizens, they will find holes in the censors, the blocks, and Firewalls, and they will access that illicit material, no matter how many safeguards the government may place against them. This is not all that the hackers will do, however. Some will not stand for the alienation of our protected natural rights or this atrocious invasion of our privacy. They will fight back in the way that overall will be most harmful. Those that consider themselves ‘Black-Hat Hackers’[3] will begin a war on the US Government. Just like the Hackers that ran ‘Operation Titstorm’[4] this year in Austrailia, the Hackers will attack US Government websites and the methods of censorship themselves. Using DDOS Attacks to flood the servers with connections, they will take down websites and the firewalls and censors, though only temporarily. This will stress the government and it will be forced to place harsher restrictions on Internet content, perform deeper invasions into privacy in order to attempt to catch the hackers, and all of these repercussions will mainly be felt by the innocents. Some hackers may be caught, but the best ones, those that do the most damage and cause the worst backlash, will remain free to attempt to terrorize the government into submission.

Ultimately, it will be the protestors that win. The pen is mightier than the LOIC[5], thus those that take the clean path, and write to our leaders, those that publish work speaking out against the censors, will eventually overturn the law. Though it may last until a younger group can take over in the Houses of our Government, the Censors will eventually be repealed, as they cannot stand. However, in the process, we will lose billions of dollars and hundreds of lives, all because the government wants to protect our innocent senses from what we only see if we choose to search for it.

Annotated Bibliography

Jung, Euichul and Eunsung Kim. "More Democracy or More Restrictions." Cultural Space and Public Sphere (2006): 407-421.

This article will be used to examine Internet Censorship in the past, how it has evoloved in only a few short years, and how companies typically deal with the issue, as well as reasons a country may have for censoring content.

Leavitt, Neal. "Anonymization Technology Takes a High Profile." Technology News (2009): 15-18.

This article analyzes how Internet Censorship works, how it can be bypassed, as well as reasons and histroy behind it. It will be used to explain Internet Content Censorship, and how it's done.

Meiss, Mark and Filippo Menczer. "Visual Compariosn of Search Results." First Monday (2008). < http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewArticle/2019/1988>.

This article is a case study that directly compares search results in their censored versus uncensored forms. It analyzes and explains what typically goes missing when censored, and shows the dramatic difference that censoring causes to the web.

Nolan, Justine. "The China Dilemma." Asian Journal of Comparitive Law (2009): 30.

This article discusses the responsibility of companies when it comes to censoring internet content in a certain area of the world at the behest of that regions governing body. This articles seems to be critical of companies following that regions laws. The practices discussed will be compared to modern times, with Google pulling out of China, and recently refusing to censor content in China any longer.

The Pirate Bay. 10 08 2008. 31 03 2010 .

This blog posting is a first hand example of a victim of Internet Censorship. It will be used as an example of what can cause it to happen, what happens when it does, and how people are fighting back.

Werve, Jonathan. Global Integrity Commons. 19 February 2008. 31 March 2010 .

This article analyzes an attempt at internet censorship in the US, and explains why it doesn’t work very well, why it happened, and how it was attempted. This can be used as an eye-opener to readers that it is not a problem present only in foreign, communist countries, that it has existed here in America for years, and really is a problem that needs to be faced head on and defeated.

Appendix

· A Google Image Search for the phrase “Tiananmen Square”. Results on left are from China, results on right are from the United States (Meiss).

· A traditional Google Search comparing Chinese (left) and American (right) results for the term “Tiananmen Square” (Meiss).

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[1]Similar to the idea of the black market or the underground; It is not hosted by any commercial users, and follows no rules or law.

[2] See the attached section for a visual example of the differences between search results.

[3] Unethical hackers that will break into others accounts, steal information, etcetera

[4]A massive DDoS attack against the Australian government when they began to censor internet content in their country.

[5] “Low Orbit Ion Cannon”: a program used to perform DDOS Attacks

How does writing an argument compare/contrast with speaking (or yelling) one? Look at Perry's schema of cognitive development and place your self in that schema. Write about your spot in Perry's schema and how this might relate with project 2.

Writing an argument requires more planning than speaking one. Although it gives one more time to prepare the argument, more time to react to opposing views, etc, the opponents also have this advantage, and more becomes expected of both of you

As for Perrys Schema, I'm not exactly sure what we're supposed to do with that. I'll do a larger post on it, after we discuss it more in class.

Project 3 Response

Project 3 seems like an interesting take on a writing assignment. I am not too keen on actually sending in the finished product, or actually performing the tasks mentioned, but it is intriguing to consider.
Personally, I prefer the 1st project option, but that's simply because I already have a super-secret totally-confidential uber-rare shiny idea.
Option 2 is also a very interesting idea, and seems similar enough to option 1 that students could probably pick between the 2 rather than be forced to do one or the other, with grading not being very (if at all) hampered by the use of two different options.
Option 3, on the other doesn't seem very good. It's description is kinda lax in the details department, and it isn't very clear on what exactly is to be done.

Response to Project 1

For project 1, I aimed to run a clear concise analysis. Rather than go through each section point by point, I decided to go ahead and analyze the work as a whole. I picked out the specific goals King had, then determined the best way to classify his arguments used to achieve these goals.
His argument was easily split into an Ethos and a Pathos base, with more analysis set into his specifically planned out use of Diction and Syntax to back up the Ethos side, and Imagery and Allegory on the Pathos front.
It was difficult to spend too much time analyzing his use of Point of View and Audience, as they did not truly contribute to the argument, other than giving the base point to the argument. His tone, on the other hand, helped to back up both his Ethos side, with a scholarly attitude, and his Pathos side by seemingly filling his words with a righteous fury at the injustices he was arguing against.

Response to Rogerian Argument Section Pg 75-79

It's kind of sad that the Rogerian Argument is not more widely used today. However, the bigger tragedy, is its misuse today. There are countless places that use the Rogerian Argument theory as punishment, which breaks the point of it. A friend of mine, recently, was rather rude to an RA in his dorm, and as punishment, was forced to follow the RA around one night on his rounds, and write a paper saying what he learned about him. In essence this seems like a good idea, however, when you really think about it, it's pointless.
My friend will not have learned anything from this experience, other than RA's do a lot of menial repetitive tasks. He will have not seen anything from the RA's point of view.
This solves nothing about the issue, and only serves to cost both sides time and effort.
There are times when it is appropriate, but punishment is not one of those.

Response to Letter From Birmingham Jail - MLK

Dear Dr. King,
First of all, we would like to thank you for your response to our comments on the issues in Birmingham, we k now it must have been hard to schedule time in during that busy stay in the Birmingham Jail. I regret to inform you, that although your letter was strongly worded, we will not be retracting our statements, nor will we be speaking out for the "Negro sit inners."
You see, our position here is a tough one. Although your claims of abuse in the jail make a very fine argument, we have seen no proof of such things, and even if you are abused, how are we to know you did not actually earn it? We do not know what goes on behind closed doors, we cannot know, and we do not want to know. It is our place in this world to offer penance from sin, and a route to God, not to take a side in a political debate with which we are not connected.
Our previous comments have only been made to thank the police for peacefully ending the protests, and to urge those considering something similar to rethink their actions, and to stand down.
Although the laws of man are not the laws of God, they are still laws, and just or not, we will not suggest breaking them. As we have done previously, we insist that you take your battles to the courtroom, and not the streets.

Thank you for your time, Dr. King,
We hope that some day, you will see that there is a better path to obtain your goals, if your goals are what God desires.

Sincerely,
* C. C. J. Carpenter, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Alabama
* Joseph Durick, D.D. Auxiliary Bishop, Diocese of Mobile, Birmingham
* Milton L. Grafman, Rabbi of Temple Emanu-El, Birmingham, Alabama
* Paul Hardin, Bishop of the Alabama-West Florida Conference
* Nolan Bailey Harmon, Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the Methodist Church
* George M. Murray , D.D., LL.D., Bishop Coadjutor, Episcopal Diocese of Alabama
* Edward V. Ramage, Moderator, Synod of the Alabama Presbyterian Church in the United States
* Earl Stallings, Pastor, First Baptist Church, Birmingham, Alabama

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