Sunday, February 27, 2011

I attended the Canadian Internet Forum's founding meeting.

Many of the well known Canadian Internet scholars were at this the first meeting of the Canadian Internet Forum (hash tag (#CIRAif). It was sponsored by the Canadian Internet Registry Authority. I spoke of the plain political stances represented in the issues that were coming out of this forum. Each statement of an issue or concern by Canadians could be matched by planks in our major political parties platforms.

I also spoke of the disconnect between high tech firms claiming that there is a labour shortage and the number of unemployed persons who know programming or have taken at least one course in computer programming in school. I also meantioned that I was teaching someone at work to program and he was doing a fine job in his middle age. Proving hopefully what I was saying about this labour market disconnect.

I also citicized the idea of pushing for school reform as outsiders to the educational system. I tend to think that Internet literacy is not too different from classical literacy, as in the end these are all reading and writing skills. Making the digital world out as a different skill set is a false strawman argument.

Motivation to learn was also questioned when I spoke outside the meeting room over coffee with another person who had commented on education and her access to university lectures online. She really believed that all classrooms should be online and that if one missed a class one should be able to attend via the web. I told her to read The University of Google.

The book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It was recommended.

I mentioned in introducing my self as I began to make my comments that, I am a volunteer with Computers for Communities and another ITC community group that Computers for Commmunities recently partnered with, iSisters also made some comments at the fcrum.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Continuing to read about Australian hackers on an Amazon Kindle

I read the second chapter now in
Dreyfus, Suelette. Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier Kindle 1st ed. (No location: Digital Download: Amazon, 2010).
This chapter covered the Bulletin Board System BBS where the author claims Australian hackers came together. Also this chapter covers various activities of these early hackers before laws were made against hacking.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

I have been reading a book about the Australian computer underground.

I want to focus studies as there is just so much out there to read. I went back to an old focal point of computer crime. I read the first chapter in
Dreyfus, Suelette. Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier Kindle 1st ed. (No location: Digital Download: Amazon, 2010).
This chapter covered the case of a worm in Digital Equipment Computers used by NASA and other US government computers. Suelette claims this was the second worm in existance and also claims it was made by an Australian hacker and further that this hacker has never been identified. The politics of the music group Midnight Oil is covered, as it is claimed their politics of environmentalism is also involved in all this hacking from Australia.

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

I am still reading in privacy studies and surveillance.

These studies I am doing are unrelated to my work in my nine to five job. They are related to my continuing knowledge of intellectual terrain. I am also reading John Stuart Mill on Auguste Comte to solidify my sociological thinkers/theory foundational knowledge.