Writing Discussion 4

I am so pissed off right now. I just spent an hour writing like five hundred $&*###* words about this last assignment. I enjoyed the assignment, but it just got erased when I tried to submit it. F$%*& the internet and UTC's dependence on it. Whatever, I don't even care anymore. I am going on an 'effin relentless typing jihad concerning our last assignment.
I liked the first video we watched. It is always neat to see the urgency of the things in the flashpoint of conflict. Apparently Mubarak thought that there was an urgent need to disconnect the internet in an instant so that people would not be able to communicate and get together in protest. If you failed to notice the thousands of people in the street, barely flinching when tear gas is fired, then I wanted to tell you that people are still getting together to riot against the man. The internet has helped people get together for revolutions such as we have witnessed in Iran and Tunisia, but it is not necessary in order to organize. Just as the reporter said, people will walk out into the street to see what's going on, especially in tumultuous times. Blogging is used heavily by Egyptian activists and several are well known. I bet it was hard at first, but people got into the swing of things. By swing, I meant dodging the swing of riot batons.
I was glad to see that Google and Twitter teamed up to make a way for Egyptians to circumnavigate to block of the internet. They allowed people to Tweet with voice messages. Being that per capita their are a lot of cell phones in Egypt, this was a great solution to the despotic ruler's attempts to limit communication. Information, gathered by citizens must be able to be shared freely if a government wants to foster a good civil rights atmosphere. The Egyptian government wanted to foster an atmosphere of tear gas. I never thought I'd see a corporation fight for the human right to information.
In the third link we saw, a reporter said that they just started "calling people they know" when the connectivity was canceled in Egypt. This is what I call "the Nineties" form of communication. I like it. It's more personal and it's easier to be aware of the nuances of tone, intent, and inflection. The phone is the back up to the internet. The back up to the phone is a written message. If you can't leave a written message or be seen with it, then you have to physically meet people. Regardless of what happens anywhere, human beings will do whatever it takes to communicate. Whether you are in East Germany, North Korea, or my hometown, which is like Saudi Arabia for white Christians in terms of how conservative it is, the message will get delivered.
I thoroughly enjoyed the Cracked.com article. Although they can be crude, their articles provide a lot of insight about a lot of awesome things be it dinosaurs, robots, ninjas, or the internet. I did not know some of these facets concerning the Internets vulnerabilities, but I do hold the notion. The internet is weak. It can be subverted with a lot of nerd/money power or by an act of God. Transoceanic cables can be cut or a nerd's robot army will attack your computer. I believe the opinion of this article's author and I tried to hold myself to a certain ideal because of it. I have the ideal to not base my lifestyle on the internet, although it's got a firm hold on me now.
In articles 5 and 6 we learn about legislation to grant the President emergency powers over the internet. Although the senate released an official statement saying that it was not true, this legislation has been labeled with the "kill switch" characteristic. This means that the President would be able to shut down the internet in the event of a threat to national security. This instills a Big Brother type fear in me. I also fear Orwellian references, but I had to do it. This would give Obama the same powers that Mubarak exercised when he instantly removed the internet from Egyptian life. I believe that the new frontier of intelligence, counterintelligence, espionage, warfare, and terrorism will be the internet. However, I do not believe that one person should be able to cut off the supply to 270 million-ish people. Our whole lives are based on it. Academia, work, and fun are all derived from the internet. There is a freedom to lose here.