Here Comes YouTube

In Shirky’s book "Here comes Everybody", the author discusses the possibility of something called “mass amateurization”. Any one can post anything to the internet using blog sites or other social networks. This includes uploading videos and images, as well as other content. The author describes that these tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring, and that sharing is enhanced through them. Shirky also states that society was transformed by tools such as the printing press but it is harder to prove that it was made better. it’s simple to say the internet is an interesting phenomenon. Recently I watched a YouTube video called The Machine is Us/ing Us. An Anthropologist from Kansas State University, Michael Wesch, created the video to show the future of Web 2.0. Over the course of the week it became viral. Because of this video, Wesch gave a presentation before the library of congress. Today Welsch and his students study the videos posted YouTube through Anthropology, or the effects of YouTube on society. Watching YouTube is practically a major now. We can see the effects that it has on society, the good and the bad. The web is an interesting place because it allows anyone to post anything, which changes how media is portrayed. But is this what the human race needs? Should people be allowed to post things without consequences? I believe that we should be responsible for our actions. I think that there has to be some way to genuinely authenticate a user before they upload anything so that they can be held morally responsible for what they upload.

Technologic Advancements

While reading an article put out by the Church, I was confused why it took so long for these changes to take places. Thinking that it had come out recently, while it was talking about CADs and how much computers can save time, I stumbled across a reference to the Apple II. It was then I realized that the article was not recent, and checking yes it was written in 1984. Many of the systems described in the article are still being updated and worked on. Today it may feel like the Church is still behind where it could be in regards of technology. The reason why I feel this is that it takes awhile for technology to be implemented in a place where peoples' faith are concerned. It would get too impersonal if everything were automated and too much computerization can make a person less receptive to the spirit. The Church has done a marvelous job using the tools that have been given to the world. So much more now is available and so much more is possible that can be done now.

The Mobile Cuckoo

After reading The Cuckoo's Egg I came across an article stating that 99% of NASA's portable devices are unsecured. The reason why is that mobile devices have certain security features turned off, such as preventing cross-domain requests. Modern browsers have the ability to send cross-domain requests, but this option is turned off by default. The reason? A user can load a page that looks valid but is used by a hacker to send requests to desired server to get sensitive data and information. In The Cuckoo's Egg, a hacker was able to access government computers by guessing common username and passwords. This can also be done with cross-domain requests, guessing HTTP GET and POST queries on a cross-domain request. Finding the right query, a hacker would be able to access a user's information from his own server using a cross-domain request. In browsers to make this possible the hacker would have to hack into the server, put a page on the server to make it a domain-request, and then get the user to that page. If you are a hacker use a mobile device, it's a lot easier.

The Cuckoo's Egg

When I started reading, the fast paced nature of the book and the catch-me-if-you-can-ish spy story of an astronomer turned computer security specialist lead me to believe that it was a work of fiction. The elaborate processes that Stoll took to catch the hacker and the general lack in security in government and company systems seemed to confirm it for me. I especially couldn't believe that Stoll hooked up printers in order to track what the hacker was doing. Little did I realize that it all it actually happened! It is amazing to see how far computers have come in terms of levels of network security and what it takes to catch a hacker. While reading I found myself thinking of the steps that would have prevented the hacker from accessing the systems he did. First is that total overhaul of security. Having weak credentials allowed the hacker into many of the systems that he shouldn't have been able to enter.Second is that having a secure centralized logging location would of prevented the hacker from deleting local logs. He would have had to hack to central location, which would have been more difficult to cover his tracks. Third is the covering and fixing of security loopholes in software. This is a bit harder to track, mostly because system admins generally use outsourced software instead of creating it in house. Looking back just 20 years ago it is amazing how primitive computers seemed. It is amazing to see how far we have come today.

Family Wiki

About a year ago FamilySearch.org combined data and features from other sites that offered similar ancestory services. Users can now receive email notifications when changes are made to a specific ancestor, as well as the ability to make and undo changes. Ancestry Search is headed in a new direction, ready to break new ground as it fully begins to take advantage of the internet. As it becomes more wiki-like, more and more people will contribute to it and add infromation about common ancestors. The future will eventually lead to social media being fully integrated with ancestry sites. It might be frightening to think that even now our entire lives are slowly being uploaded to the internet, but this is not a bad thing, our descendants will be able to look on ours lives and learn from our mistakes. This will be one step closer to our lives and memories living forever.

Standardization of the Webkit

With the rise of webkit in mobile browsers it becomes more and more tempting to drop support for the other browsers altogether. This leads to a problem that other browsers will eventually add de facto support for webkit. You add something with a -webkit prefix to your CSS and the browsers will automatically support it, even if they are not a webkit browser. This is bad. It leads to confusion and chaos. Browsers shouldn't be implementing other browser prefixes. As a developer it is frustrating to have to test in every browser, and then come up with a work around that is not as effective as one would want. But with the standardization of webkit it will be more frustrating to be limited to only webkit browsers when others are better in certain areas. I believe that standardization is not something to be feared, but poor implementation should be. Prefix support is not is not the right way.

Google Dart plans to usurp JS.

I read an article on arstenica about a new language that Google is developing called Dart. JavaScript has some fundamental issues that Dart addresses, the most important being that JavaScript is not as fast as a desktop language such as Java or C++ and probably will never be. It's no fun developing a slow web app when you know it could be a lot faster natively.

However there is a lot of talk about how this will affect the web community. JavaScript has been around for years, why should we switch to another language now? My personal feelings on the subject is that if there isn't much performance gain from Dart then it will be really slow for browser venders to switch to it (obviously). With the rise of the mobile market and how slow mobile browsers are, if Google creates a smash with Dart, if it is 10 times faster than JavaScript it is a sure guarantee that Web Developers will switch to it.