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Cyber Anthropology
Study of online culture and culture online.
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April 3 2018

You’ve been data-mined

Diana Internet, social networking data, facebook, privacy 0

Yes, you, if you’re on the Internet in any capacity, you’ve been data-mined.  This is especially true if you participate on any social media platforms. While you might have known this already, now you can see it!

Facebook's data-mined categories on me
Facebook’s data-mined categories on me

Here is what Facebook thinks about me based on the data I have posted. Note, none of this data is data I have shared directly with them via any sort of survey or other personal research methodology.

This is all data that has been mined from my profile and posts I have made on the platform.

If you want to find this data out for yourself, log in to Facebook, go here and then expand the “Your Information” accordion heading. At the top you will see two navigation points, the second of which is titled “Your categories” and there you have it in all its glory.

While you’re there, take a moment to adjust your ad settings as well.

As I’ve said in several previous posts on Facebook, you pay for your access with your data. If you have children on Facebook, they do this with their data as well. Data is one of your most precious resources in this day and age. Do what you can to protect it or at least be vigilant about how it’s used and where.

Side note: Never in my life have I ever said anything or done anything with soccer. I have no idea where that came from!

March 26 2018

On the latest Facebook Scandal

Diana cyber law, Internet facebook, law, social media 0

Techcrunch has a great rundown on the most recent Facebook scandal. If you haven’t heard of Cambridge Analytica before now, please take the time to read the full piece. One of the most interesting points to come out of it is Facebook stating that it’s “open to regulation”. If you’re a reader of this blog, then you know that I’m very interested in government regulation around our information and data. I’ll be keeping tabs on that as the story continues.

As always, you can read my multiple blog posts on Facebook for a better understanding of what you give up when you provide the company your data. Bottom line, if you don’t want others having your data without your permission, don’t post it on the web.

February 15 2018

Lootboxes in the news again

Diana cyber law, gaming gaming, law, researching video games 0

Lootboxes are in the news again and this time it is U.S. Senator Hassan who is challenging the ESRB. As I predicted last month, the new WHO classification of Gaming Disorder is already starting to make the rounds as a fabulous scapegoat.

“We should be doing all that we can to protect our children and to inform parents about their options when it comes to these types of games,” she says.

This comes right on the heels of 4 bills introduced in Hawaii to regulate games that utilize lootboxes as a game mechanic.

The issue is that though most parents give a cursory glance to the ESRB rating, many fail to recognize when descriptors are used or what they mean. This is a finding straight out of my dissertation. That’s not to say the ESRB shouldn’t note that these games utilize this type of microtransaction, simply that they should do more to inform people as to what exactly it is and how it works.

My prediction is that if any of those bills in Hawaii pass, they’ll be repealed at the appellate court as all previous gaming legislation has been. If you want to know more about gaming legislation, I have a nearly 300-page dissertation I’d be happy to share with you. 😉

January 23 2018

Attention grabbing headline here

Diana anthropology, gaming, Internet, research addiction, gaming, research, social media 0

Two headlines recently made the news. The first was the World Health Organization’s consideration of adding “Gaming Disorder” to their International Classification of Diseases. The second was how our mobile devices are making us stupid. Both of these have more in common than you might think. What gaming has that makes it addictive is often utilized by the same dark patterns that power much of today’s social media interactions. Most notably, interactions that cause dopamine responses. The problem with these artificial (aka computer-mediated) interactions providing a dopamine release is that if you lack in-person interactions that are the biological basis for dopamine responses, you’ll turn to artificial ones to supplement them.

When artificial interactions work better, faster, and easier than organic ones at providing a dopamine high, they might induce a person to engage in an addictive relationship with the artificial interaction at the expense of an organic one. In layman’s terms, this may cause a person to have problems in their daily life due to their detrimental relationship with technology. For example, a person may forgo an in-person interaction to engage in an artificial one because they find the artificial one more compelling. These may start out as situations like skipping out on going to dinner with friends to instead engage in synthetic interactions but may escalate to neglecting essential responsibilities such as going to work or school.

The real question is, is the subject matter that induces the dopamine response to blame for the addictive relationship that is developed or is the environment where the person cannot find organic interactions that would produce such natural and beneficial reactions responsible for the resulting addiction of looking for them elsewhere? Careful consideration should be made here as people who are diagnosed with an addiction to a particular trigger are thus restricted from engaging with that trigger in the future. What would this mean in situations where grade-school students are diagnosed with gaming disorder and are thus unable to do their school work because their school utilizes game theory and electronics in much of their teaching? What happens when someone recklessly engages in social media and thus is forced to give it up, but must interact in a similar environment for their careers such as utilizing tools like Slack or office Intranets?

Questions for consideration:

Should the underlying cause of addiction not be of more concern than those places to which people look to supplement their natural human needs? What can be done as designers and researchers in these areas to bring possible addictive behaviors to the attention of the user before they go too far? Are businesses at risk of losing revenue by putting the customer’s behavior and mental, physical, emotional health first? Should they be responsible when a user becomes addicted? If so, to what end?

January 8 2018

#luckywelivedhawaii

Diana anthropology, opinion, politics, random, work anthropology, culture, hawaii, remote work, technology 0

Having lived in Hawaii for almost four years this article in the Washington Post on people leaving Hawaii hits home in multiple places.

This picture is one of the last I took, December of 2016, while we were living on the island of Oahu. It was a beautiful place to live and as the hashtag states, #luckywelivehawaii, we felt lucky indeed. But, that luck only went so far. Working in the technology industry as a remote worker for an off-island company (we had one office on the island that I never visited – it was mostly for transient workers going between the far east and the US) I was able to continue to work in my field. Had I not had my remote job, however, I would have never found work on the island.

I interviewed for a job before moving out there, hoping that I’d be a great fit coming from the mainland with all of my experience and expertise (which by the way you should never do – Hawaii has her own way of doing things and it should be appreciated). The problem was, though the cost of living was at least 3x what we were used to in Texas, they paid a 3rd of what I was making to do the same work. In all my time living on the island, I never saw another job available in my field. And yes, I did look.

What I found instead were other workers like me who worked for mainland offices, on mainland hours, from our tiny island in the middle of the Pacific. There weren’t many of us, but we did exist. Other technologists, I found in the tech startup community, mostly tried to develop opportunities that focused on capitalizing on the tourist market, because it was the only market.  Either that or they did like Hello Makana, a company that ships Hawaiian delicacies all over the world, and catered to the people who had left and wanted a reminder of home.

Still, others who were once the white-collar workers of the mainland fell so much in love with the island that they found a way to make it work by doing things like becoming bee-keepers, tour guides, or were a part of the service industry in jobs like bartending and masseuses.

What I will never forget is the disparity between the tourists, the rich who make money off the backs of the tourists, and then the natives who were either exploited for the tourists or forced to work menial jobs because that’s all there was available. In the worst cases, they were destitute or completely homeless. Of those who were able to afford homes, they did so because they had multiple extended family members or multiple families living under one roof. Those homes they could afford were dilapidated, old, and generally unkept due to the cost of doing so.

Now, this is in no way meant to be representative of every possible Hawaiian experience on the island, just a snapshot of what my experience was there and one that falls in line with what the article reports. The natives will always have a soft spot in my heart. During our time there we did our best to avoid most of the tourist trappings and instead sought out experiences of the beauty and the nature of the island that helped the islands in one way or another. That will always be my recommendation to anyone who visits. Skip the tv dinner version and find a way to support the local culture and community any way you can.

Would I have stayed had I been able to find equal work for equal pay? It’s a possibility. What was more important were the opportunities afforded to my children, not only as children but also as adults. While we had to leave the island, part of it will always live within us. My children are better for having experienced their early childhood there. And, though they may never remember it, I have a lot of photographic evidence to help them relive as much as possible.

Relevant links:
To read more about the cultural perspective of native islanders here is an interesting piece I recently came across from a cultural anthropologist.
Here is a perspective from native Hawaiians on their culture versus the culture that is sold to tourists.
Here is yet another cultural look.

 

December 15 2017

Net Neutrality Vote

Diana cyber law, Internet law, net neutrality 0

TechCrunch provides a great summary of how the Net Neutrality vote went down and how yet again people who don’t know what they are talking about are making laws that affect us all. You can find my opinion on Net Neutrality in a post I made in 2014.

November 25 2017

Gambling for Loot

Diana cyber law, gaming 0

Lootboxes are making the news. Ars Tech reports on how Belgium is calling them into question and how Chris Lee (state representative from Hawaii) calls them predatory. If you’re like me and have ever played Overwatch or Heroes of the Storm, you’re quite familiar with them as items you can win as you achieve levels within the game. The problem is you can also pay money for tokens that allow you to buy them. And, because they are randomized, some are considering this ‘pay to play for random odds’ a form of gambling. It will be interesting to see where this goes with the ESRB in the US as that is what my dissertation is on.

July 12 2017

Microsoft is battling the Digital Divide

Diana Internet digital divide 0

One of the things that is near and dear to me that I do not talk about often and rarely see addressed in the news is the digital divide. The digital divide is the difference between those with ready access to the Internet and those without. Many of those affected by the digital divide are in rural parts of the United States. Microsoft is on a mission to help close that divide right here in the U.S. This is in contrast to many other companies who work on this in developing markets around the world.  This is important for many reasons from work, to education, to even medical care and has become even more evident in the wake of the recent political turmoil in the U.S. As NPR reports, “In 2017, not being online hurts your education, your job prospects, your civic engagement.”

I’m excited to see where this goes. Growing up in rural East Texas in the 90s, not only did I not have Internet, I didn’t even have a computer. With the advent of computing being more readily available, access to the Internet is one of the remaining few gaps in the digital divide.

June 12 2017

Backdoors again?

Diana cyber law, Internet, politics, security 0

Boing-Boing on Theresa May and Internet privacy.

“Use deliberately compromised cryptography, that has a back door that only the “good guys” are supposed to have the keys to, and you have effectively no security. You might as well skywrite it as encrypt it with pre-broken, sabotaged encryption… Theresa May doesn’t understand technology very well, so she doesn’t actually know what she’s asking for. For Theresa May’s proposal to work, she will need to stop Britons from installing software that comes from software creators who are out of her jurisdiction… any politician caught spouting off about back doors is unfit for office anywhere but Hogwarts, which is also the only educational institution whose computer science department believes in ‘golden keys’ that only let the right sort of people break your encryption.”

May 18 2017

Net Neutrality on the Defense Again

Diana cyber law, politics net neutrality 0

Ars Technica reports on the latest Net Neutrality news:

“The US Federal Communications Commission voted 2-1 today to start the process of eliminating net neutrality rules and the classification of home and mobile Internet service providers as common carriers under Title II of the Communications Act.

The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposes eliminating the Title II classification and seeks comment on what, if anything, should replace the current net neutrality rules. But Chairman Ajit Pai is making no promises about reinstating the two-year-old net neutrality rules that forbid ISPs from blocking or throttling lawful Internet content or prioritizing content in exchange for payment. Pai’s proposal argues that throttling websites and applications might somehow help Internet users.”

You can find the docket and add a filing against it here.

May 13 2017

Global Ransomware Attack

Diana Internet ransomware 0

The New York Times reports that hackers using a “cyberweapon developed by the N.S.A” have conducted a large bold strike against targets all over the world.

“Governments, companies and security experts from China to Britain raced on Saturday to contain the fallout from an audacious global cyberattack amid fears that if they did not succeed, companies would lose their data unless they met ransom demands.

The global efforts came less than a day after malicious software, transmitted via email and stolen from the National Security Agency, targeted vulnerabilities in computer systems in almost 100 countries in one of the largest “ransomware” attacks on record.”

May 11 2017

Surprise! Americans want Net Neutrality

Diana cyber law, Internet, politics net neutrality 0

Really, this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone.

A recently conducted survey found:

“…while politics may be as divided as ever in our country, consumers share a strong bipartisan consensus that the government should let the internet flourish without imposing burdensome regulations.”

You can read more about it here.

May 11 2017

Faking them out

Diana Internet, politics, security politics, security 0

The New York Times reports that the newly elected French President’s staff created fake accounts to mislead Russian Hackers.

“The National Security Agency in Washington picked up the signs. So did Emmanuel Macron’s bare-bones technology team. And mindful of what happened in the American presidential campaign, the team created dozens of false email accounts, complete with phony documents, to confuse the attackers.”

March 29 2017

Tetris Therapy

Diana gaming, research 0

Ars Technica reports on research that tested the use of playing a game of Tetris to reduce addiction.

“The researchers again hypothesized that the game’s ability to seize visual and spatial processing in the brain is key to the health benefits. In this case, addiction and cravings are often driven by visual fantasies of having that drink, drug, or what-have-you, the authors explained.”

March 29 2017

Biocomputers

Diana research 0

Science reports on how bioengineers have turned cells into biocomputers.

“Computer hardware is getting a softer side. A research team has come up with a way of genetically engineering the DNA of mammalian cells to carry out complex computations, in effect turning the cells into biocomputers. The group hasn’t put those modified cells to work in useful ways yet, but down the road researchers hope the new programming techniques will help improve everything from cancer therapy to on-demand tissues that can replace worn-out body parts.”

March 24 2017

Privacy for Sale

Diana cyber law, Internet, politics Internet, politics 0

Your privacy is being attacked yet again as the bill passes to allow the sale of your browsing history.

Check out the Senate roll call list and the House list to see where your representatives stood on the issue.

March 21 2017

Cyber Stalking with a Twist

Diana cyber law, Internet cyber bullying 0

Another cyberstalking case in Texas, this one has a twist.

“On Monday, a Texas grand jury charged a Maryland man with “aggravated assault with a deadly weapon” after authorities say he tweeted an animated flashing GIF designed to trigger Newsweek journalist Kurt Eichenwald’s epilepsy last year, “immediately” causing him to have a seizure.”

October 21 2016

Intercepting Traveler’s Tweets

Diana cyber anthropology, cyber law twitter 0

“SOON, FOREIGN VISITORS to the United States will be expected to tell U.S. authorities about their social media accounts.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection wants to start collecting ‘information associated with your online presence’ from travelers from countries eligible for a visa waiver, including much of Europe and a handful of other countries. Earlier this summer, the agency proposed including a field on certain customs forms for ‘provider/platform’ and ‘social media identifier,’ making headlines in the international press. If approved by the Office of Management and Budget, the change could take effect as soon as December.

Privacy groups in recent weeks have pushed back against the idea, saying it could chill online expression and gives DHS and CBP overbroad authority to determine what kind of online activity constitutes a ‘risk to the United States’ or ‘nefarious activity.'”

As a cyber anthropologist who, at times, uses social media for research – I find this highly disturbing. Twitter is turning into /b where nothing anyone says can really be taken seriously these days. This is ill-conceived and lacks critical understanding of the platform and the culture surrounding it.

September 14 2016

Authority to Hack

Diana cyber law, politics, security government, politics, privacy, security 0

Opinion article on Wired concerning the expansion of government surveillance.

“That’s why it’s so concerning that the Justice Department is planning a vast expansion of government hacking. Under a new set of rules, the FBI would have the authority to secretly use malware to hack into thousands or hundreds of thousands of computers that belong to innocent third parties and even crime victims. The unintended consequences could be staggering.”

August 19 2016

NASA sets its research free!

Diana research research 0

Go forth and access it all here!

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Diana Harrelson Hubbard

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