Final Exam Flashcards
Digital Divide
The gulf between those who have ready access to computers and the Internet, and those who do not. • We have discussed Facebooks attempt to bridge the digital divide through solar-powered unmanned aircraft and Google attempt to bridge the digital divide through Project Loon (the hot air balloons).
Cute Cat Theory
Most internet users use the internet and social media tools for harmless activities, like looking at pictures of kittens online. However, an open social media site is open to political content as well as pictures of kittens. Repressive governments might attempt to block this political content by blocking access to, say, all Twitter, but in doing so they also block people from looking at non-political content, like pictures of cute kittens. When the government blocks DailyMotion, it impacts a much wider swath of Tunisians than those who are politically active. Cute cats are collateral damage when governments block sites. And even those who could care less about presidential shenanigans are made aware that their government fears online speech so much that they’re willing to censor the millions of banal videos on DailyMotion to block a few political ones. We have discussed the implications of the Cute Cat Theory in the Arab Springs. These governments may have underestimated the power of Twitter and Facebook because people used them often to share pictures of cute cats.
Digital Dualism
The belief that the on and offline are largely separate and distinct realities.Digitaldualists viewdigitalcontent as part of a “virtual” world separate from a “real” world found in physical space. We see this belief in Barlow’s A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
Technological Determinism
The theory that a society’s technology determines its cultural values, social structure, and history. According to the theory, social progress follows an inevitable course that is driven by technological innovation. We see arguments about technological determinism in Sanvig’s paper about indigienous Internet infrastructure.
Copyright
A legal right created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use and distribution. This is usually only for a limited time. We have seen numerous copyright cases involving peer-to-peer file sharing (Napster) and software code (Google v Oracle).
Net Neutrality
The principle that Internet service providers (ISPs) must enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites. We read Tim Wu’s paper proposing net neutrality. Recently, however, the Trump administration ended net neutrality in the US.
Public Key Cryptography
An encryption scheme that uses two mathematically related, but not identical, keys - a public key and a private key. Unlike symmetric key algorithms that rely on one key to both encrypt and decrypt, each key performs a unique function. The public key is used to encrypt and the private key is used to decrypt. We read Rogaway’s paper on the moral and ethical implications of cryptography. We have seen how it was traditionally within the domain of the military/government and has huge political implications: it greatly contributed to the Allies’ victory in WWII, it inspired the founding the NSA, and it allows users to privately communicate.
Open Source Software
Software with source code that anyone can inspect, modify, and enhance. We enjoyed a guest lecture by Gilli Vidan about Bitcoin, an open source software, which was able to grow, improve, and gain value largely because of this feature.
In “Election Day: The Construction of Democracy through Technique,” Kimberly Coles writes that “the deployment of things and processes, such as invisible ink, ballots, polling, results forms, and voters, do not affect democracy and its possibilities so much as they articulate them.” Based on the lectures and the readings, choose one technology discussed in the “counting” unit to illustrate Coles’s claim. How has the paper ballot, electronic voting machine, the census, or public opinion polls constituted the possibilities of democracy?
The census illustrates Cole’s claim that technology constitutes the possibilities of democracy because it forms the basis of free and fair elections—it defines the voting electorate, determines representation, and impacts civil rights and liberties.
- 3/5 Compromise, Undercounting (Lecture, Bowker)
- Advancements in counting techniques (Hollerith)
- 2020 Census (Lecture)
Undercounting (Bowker)
As Bowker highlights, even after the country counted African-Americans as full persons, it still undercounted them in the census.
Advancements in counting techniques (Hollerith)
Advancements in technology like the mechanization of counting in the 1890s by Cameron Hollerith (described in his paper), introduction of punch cards in the 1930s, and use of digital computers for data processing in the 1940s has allowed the Census to ask more nuanced questions.
2020 Census (Lecture)
On the one hand, the DOJ wants to ask the respondent whether he/she is a citizen or not to comply with Section II of the Voting Rights Act. On the other hand, however, people argue that in the current political climate, to include this question would have an effect on minorities and they will avoid being counted in the census and therefore be undercounted in the census.
Twenty-two years have passed since John Perry Barlow published his “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” With the historical hindsight available to you today, evaluate Barlow’s manifesto. Is his vision of the Internet still applicable today? If your answer is yes, can you think of contemporary technologists who advocate similar ideas? What are the similarities and what are the differences? If your answer is no, explain why. Draw from the lectures and readings to support your argument.
While Barlow’s manifesto reflects the goals and aspirations of the Internet two decades ago, his vision is no longer applicable today.
- Internet Independence v Snowden (Rogaway)
- Government involvement v Senate hearings (Lecture)
- Equality v digital divide (Sandvig)
Internet Independence v Snowden (Rogaway)
Barlow states that the Internet is naturally independent from the tyrannies of the government. But as Rogaway highlights, Edward Snowden revealed that governments can monitor almost all our communications to determine our thoughts and behaviors.
Government involvement v Senate hearings (Lecture)
While governments did not significantly contribute to the development of the Internet twenty years ago, they certain have a seat at the table now, as most recently evidenced in the Mark Zuckerberg hearings with the Senate in which the Senate tried to converse with the head of the largest social media company in the world.
