This week I listened to a podcast called Note to self and the subject that they talked about this week was seeing ourselves inside the Black Mirror episodes that we’ve been watching this semester. As I listened to this even from the start of the podcast it was very interesting. In the beginning they talked about how in the one episode you can talk to your loved ones after they died and that we actually have this technology today. For example there’s this mother of three named Ginger and she has terminal cancer, but she going to be using a new service that lets her communicate with her kids on her behalf after she likely dies in the future. When I heard this in the podcast I was so freaked out that we actually had this technology. I am actually really interested in how many people might actually use it to help them cope with a loss too. It can be a very helpful product. But I definitely don’t want to see the full life models like in the episode, that would be very very creepy.

Then on the podcast they talked to the creators go the episodes and got there take on how they make them and its actually very interesting. They basically think about a topic and say oh what id this happened or what if this happened. Both writers come at it at a more laughable view of just how ridiculous some of the topics are but at the end if the one writer is laughing at the consequences of the episode and another is truly terrified, then they know they did a good job with it. And I completely agree. For most of the episodes im literally like oh my gosh this is so ridiculous, but then you get into it and are like oh man the consequences man. S I understand where they come from while writing these types of episodes.

After that they talked about and I found absolutely insane that the one ratings episode is actually happening in China!!! I found this absolutely insane. Im not sure to what extent its being done or how this system particularly works, but its happening.

They then went on to talk about more real world implications from the black mirror episodes. They said that all of the episodes are basically a worst case scenario foreach in particular topic that they choose. One of the things that Note to Self has been telling its viewers to do is actually put a sticky note over your camera on your laptop. As weird as that sounds, in the episode called “Shut up and dance”, a kid was filmed after visiting a website that had some kind of virus that attached itself to his computer and the person could literally see everything on the laptops camera. This actually could happen in the real world and should make people do this with their computers too. I think im actually going to start doing this just to play it safe.

What other episodes do you think can come into the real world?

Weekly news: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/02/us/politics/trump-covid.html

The movie, Snowden, was about Edward Snowden who put his life on the line to expose the CIA having full access to everyone’s data and devices in secret. This film exposed that there was and is a lot of information being hidden from the public eye/civilians. It came to a point where the government was holding a press conference about the global threats of data and the Senate Intelligence Committee was asked by Senator Wyden, “What I wanted to see if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question, does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?” and the answer was “No, it does not… Not wittingly. There are cases where they could inadvertently, perhaps, uh, collect, but not wittingly”. If the government can blatantly lie to the Senator knowing that Americans are watching through their media channels goes to show that this isn’t the first time the American people have been lied to. There is more being hidden for politicians’ agendas to rule over people and keep them unaware of the inhumane actions through the spread of lies through media platforms. Snowden did his research after this conference was held on the Heat Map to see how much data was actually being collected per country. It was shown that the United States of America was collecting more than 3 billion emails and calls, not including the telecom while Russia was collecting around half (1.5 billion) as the amount of the USA. This is extremely scary because although Snowden put his life on the line to commit to sharing this information to the public, does it mean that the data collection has ceased in any way. I feel as though due to the increase of technology use and need there have been more advanced ways to stalk people globally to get the information that the government believes they are rightfully granted access to. I understand the threat of 9/11 in reasoning about why the stalking of civilians and potential terrorists began, however, that opened the door that I don’t think the government would want to shut it down because they crave the information of everyone and everything.

Everyone has a digital print and can be very vocal through social media apps and phone messages. Although, I personally don’t have anything to personally hide from the government criminal wise, I still would not want the government to be hearing and watching my next moves through my data, messages or camera. The last part that stood out to me in the movie was when Snowden was explaining the Nuremberg trials and how the government would find ways to shut down jobs if they felt it were becoming criminal. Snowden explained, “But then the next trial was just the judges and lawyers and policemen and guards and ordinary people just doing their jobs, following orders. That’s where we got the Nuremberg principles which then the UN made it to international law, just in case ordinary jobs become criminal again”. This was an explanation to a fellow CIA member who didn’t believe that his work was criminal because he was simply working for the government saying that it was just war. This mentality is what most people who work in the government believe such as CIA agents, policemen and politicians. Believing that since they work for the government they have power against people. I don’t know how we Americans can completely change the government for positive, but someday there will be change.

Do you believe that we can overthrow the government and change the amendments set for us to follow by?

Here is a weekly news article.. Video games as a child improves memory? https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/the-recovery-room-october-2#3

In today’s day and age everything you do is under the microscope. Last week we went over the concept of cancel culture and what you post online can be subject of ridicule by your peers and fans. This week we dove into the concept on everything you do online can be dug up by hackers or allegedly the us government. It is not only online, that is mostly businesses that track your spending habits to know what kind of ads to give you. Where the government becomes involved, they start tracking your phone calls and listening to what has been said. This is all in order to try and stop terror attacks before they happen, but at what cost to the American people?

This week the big topic on the syllabus was the movie Snowden. This movie was really tied into what I was talking about earlier, but the thing is this is a real story. This movie hit home way more to methane the Black Mirror episodes because of how real it seemed. The Black Mirror episodes were all just things in the dystopian future that probably won’t happen, at least for a while to us, but this literally happened. In Snowden long story short, Edward Snowden is a ex army soldier who looks for a job with the CIA and eventually works with the NSA also. During that time, a few years after 9/11, they are big on the surveillance of the American people to help aid in stopping the next 9/11. It goes without saying that this is a big infringement on our rights as citizens and makes me personally feel unsafe in that regard.

The movie takes into an interesting turn when we find out how many hackers we have to hack into other countries’ infrastructure to survey them and see what they are planning to do to the United States, or other allied countries. We find out that these bases are spread out all over the world pretty much spying on the countries, which I am actually a fan of in some regards because it makes me feel safe, without having them literally spying on the American people. Snowden does not feel right with what he is doing, so he smuggles the info out of his work and sneaks over to Russia where he leaks the information for the world to see.

I do not want to focus so much on if what he did was treason or not, I am more trying to figure out what they are doing to us and what they are doing with our information. If you just take a browse of the wikipedia of the list of data breaches or take at the look of articles about the 5 biggest data breaches, first you see that yahoo really needs to hire a new security team, and second you see the scary about of info hackers can get just from one breach. In the ABC article “The Capital One data breach is alarming, but these are the 5 worst corporate hacks”, it is stated that “The hackers also obtained the security questions and backup email addresses used to reset lost passwords, which are key to hacking into government computers.” Personally that really makes me nervous because I don’t want any of my information with strangers across the globe trying to make money off of me. This is a problem that I think we are really working hard to fix, and I think most of the big companies are really making good strides to prevent this.

My question to you is, do you think that Snowden did the right thing in telling us about this information?

check out this article about President Trump getting COVID.https://nypost.com/2020/10/02/donald-trump-joins-list-of-world-leaders-to-test-positive-for-covid-19/

The material given for this week’s blog covers a new topic of the modern world or we can say a new problem. The readings and the movie “Snowden” both are on the same topic i.e. the data breach and hacking which can be considered one of the biggest threat to people of the world from technology.

Starting from the article “The Messy Media Ethics Behind the Sony Hack”, the author has said right about the fact that the gray area where most of the information resides in between the private and public or between prurient and illuminating might not be the exception but the new normal. Hacking the private information no matter what the reason is should be considered unethical and immoral act disregard of the reason that why such an action is being taken by the government or by the journalist at first place. In this article the author said that “The stance that journalists and academics take on these documents has the potential to guide our nation’s understanding of how we treat the compromise of the 21st century’s most valuable commodity, for both individuals and corporations: privacy.” And I totally agree with this point that our privacy is on threat in any case.

The other articles have mentioned the list of the hackings that have been made in the recent years and the data of the general public like their name, Id card numbers, debit and credit card numbers, date of births all have been stolen and then these very sensitive information is used by the hackers in order to earn money in the black market.

Coming towards the movie of the week i.e. “Snowden”, I have found the movie quite interesting, the character of Edward has played the role of whistleblower and leaked the highly classified information from the NSA when he was an employee there. He choose to take this step in order to expose his government in front of the general public and to let the people know that the things they consider private are not private because the government is always spying on them. In order to take such a big step he had to compromise his whole life, his career and his girlfriend. He moved to Hong Kong and from there he planned this whole thing.

 I feel like “the modern battlefield is everywhere” whether Snowden remain successful to open the eyes of the general public or not but in this modern world we cannot deny this truth anymore that we are constantly being seen by the agencies and every single act of ours is being captured either we like or dislike it. Why are we facing all these problems is only because of the advancements in the technology. It is only because of the advancements that now our most private activities or deeds are not private anymore. My question to all of you is

Are you okay with this change?

Does the movie attract your attention? Did you like or dislike the concept?

Keeping in mind this week’s topic, I have chosen this article in order to let you guys know that on what levels these breaches have reached so far and what are the consequences that people have to bear from it.

Link: https://auth0.com/blog/the-11-biggest-data-breaches-of-2020-so-far/

Edward Snowden is the whistleblower responsible for leaking classified information from the NSA.  He is currently living in exile in Russia.  In the movie Snowden, he revealed that the government is essentially spying and has access to everything from emails, phone contacts, texts, and digital media to our banking information, credit card to spying on family members if you are suspected of anything suspicious.  The NSA uses a global surveillance apparatus, has global partner companies in global surveillance, harvests email and instant messaging contacts and can pretty much get any information if they feel it is beneficial to them.  The NSA uses XKeyscore, an analytical tool that allows for collection of almost anything done on the internet.

We are essentially living under surveillance.  Edward Snowden felt that our private information should not be privy to the government to spy at will.  He thought that the decision should be made public for the American people to decide.  In his interview, he is asked why he came forward and his response is, “the state power is against the people’s ability to meaningfully oppose that power.”  He didn’t like that he was the one sitting there furthering this intrusive behavior.  At one point he pointed out that he could watch drone strike videos in real time; surveillance drones following someone’s house for an hour. 

Originally, the NSA tightened up on security measures using the Patriot Act in response to the 9/11 attacks which allowed them to access records and information.  Now, the NSA is getting intelligence wherever it can.  In the You-Tube video MSNBC interview, 11^th Hour with Brian Williams Exclusive, Snowden says, “What they are selling is us.  Stealing our power and making it work for them.”  This is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it.  Even after seeing Snowden I don’t think I can fully wrap me head around the sobering fact that the NSA, CIA, may be looking into our every day lives.  What are they doing with all of our data? They are collecting all of our information.  Snowden says you don’t have to have done anything wrong.  That they are collecting data and can come back later and use that information against you in the future and if you have done something that is suspicious in nature, they can use that information against you. 

The War of the 21^st century is Cyberwar.  The modern battlefield is the war of information.  Some of our largest telecommunications providers are betraying their customers.  The NSA can recreate your exact steps and essentially know what it is you do in everyday life.  Snowden introduces the term “linkibility” which means that you take one piece of data and link it to other data.  He spoke about metadata agridata, which means that they can link your metro card, your debit card, your bank account.  Snowden is more willing to risk imprisonment than the curtailment of his intellectual freedom.  He accepts that he will live in fear of coming forward and says he is willing to risk it all because people need to be aware of what is happening and have the ability to decide.

I feel that Edward Snowden was brave in coming forward given the risk that he is taking.  I don’t think it was an easy decision. Being privileged to the vast amount of people’s information on a daily basis, I can see how this would have affected his conscious.   I can understand why he feels justified in his decision and understand that just because he has the ability to do these things doesn’t make it right.  I feel that he could be considered a patriot because he is protecting the American people and their right to choose to protect their own information.  If he didn’t come forward, the public would not be aware. 

Question:  In what possible ways will cybersecurity be increased in order to protect our information in the future?

Works Cited:

-2016, Snowden. IMDB

-Full Interview: Edward Snowden On Trump, Privacy, And Threats To Democracy | The 11th Hour | MSNBC

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=edward+snowden+brian+williams+full+interview+

-NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden: ‘I don’t want to live in a society that does these sort of things’

News Article:

If you were to ever take just one movie recommendation from me, I would suggest that you definitely go check out Oliver Stone’s 2016 Drama/Thriller Snowden. The film does a great job telling the story of Edward Snowden, who I would go as far as to say is in some way a hero. Although there are many who share this common opinion with me, there are obviously people who oppose this view and that’s understandable. My objective is not to persuade people to change their minds about Edward Snowden but to explain why I believe he can be considered a hero. In order to understand why some people would oppose my view, it’s important to get an understanding of the situation. Although I believe the film does great telling the story, if you are interested, doing some research is never a bad idea.

Edward Snowden is a man who bravely made a choice that I don’t think too many of us would have made and that is to expose the NSA and their surveillance activities amongst other things. But the choice was not that easy to make considering that it meant he could get into a lot of trouble but regardless, he was an intelligent man and even understanding the implications of his actions, still chose to do what he felt was right and in the best interest of the public. Lately, I’ve noticed that in the internet community there’s this meme that is usually video shot from the point of view of your phone’s front camera and you see someone doing something and it’ll say something along the lines of “What my assigned FBI agent sees”. These memes if i’m not mistaken originated because of internet conspiracies and Edward Snowden. The reason I say that is because this idea that the government was watching you was a big deal when I was growing up through high school, I had classmates who would put tape on their computers and always say that the government could hear us through our phones and spy on us. It was all fun and games till in 2013, Snowden exposed the NSA and their Surveillance activities on it’s enemies but also its citizens. This was a huge deal and it basically made him an enemy to the states. He risked it all so that the people would know what was happening because he believed that not only was it morally wrong but also believed people should have the right to know. 

Some people believe Snowden is not a hero but a traitor to the United States and that he should be brought back to the States and prosecuted. It’s easy to understand why people would feel this way but I believe they are naive to think he wanted to do this for money or fame. Had Snowden not done what he did, where would we be now? Would we have known about the surveillance yet had he not blown the whistle? 

I remember when I first heard of the Snowden leaks. I thought it was crazy that he did it because I understood that anyone who would do something like that would not be able to live their lives comfortably or the same ever again. I also worried that no one would care and that he would have gotten through all that risk just to be ignored. The film does very well showing what it was like for Snowden to do his job while knowing that the NSA was spying on everyone and you can see how it’s got him paranoid and it starts to bleed into his health and his relationship with his wife. 

Although I do believe Snowden is a hero for what he did, I don’t think he went about it the right way? Maybe I’m understanding it incorrectly but from what we know, Snowden did not want to leak the files because he didn’t believe he would do it in the best way possible and that journalists were the people who should publish the files. I think that’s interesting because it worked out for him and it went the way they wanted it to go, but I still think that maybe getting  journalists involved wasn’t the way to go. Getting more people involved could have brought more room for risk and the files were not just any ordinary files that were easy to understand. Snowden had placed his trust that the journalists he was working with would be able to correctly tell the story.

Edward Snowden knew that because of his actions he would have to leave the United States before they could arrest him so he had a plan to go to Ecuador. On his journey to Ecuador, things took a turn and since then Snowden finds himself currently in Moscow. In all his interviews, Snowden expresses that he misses the United States because to him it is his home, but knows he won’t be able to return. 

In late November 2014, Sony pictures amusement was hacked by a gathering considering itself the watchmen of harmony. The programmers, who are generally accepted to be working in probably some limit with north Korea, took immense measures of data off of Sony’s organization. They released the data to columnists, who expounded on humiliating things Sony representatives had said to one another.

At that point the programmers, utilizing one of their close everyday dispatches through the site Pastebin, took steps to submit demonstrations of psychological warfare against cinemas, requesting that Sony drop the arranged arrival of the meeting, a parody around two Americans who kill North Korean pioneer Kim Jong-un.

At first, Sony responded by racking the film. Pundits, including president Obama, cautioned that yielding despite psychological oppressor dangers would set a terrible point of reference. At that point the studio turned around itself, delivering the film in select theaters and on the web.

Us government says it has solid proof that North Korea was answerable for the assault, however, the North Korean system has denied it. Security specialists have scrutinized the feeble proof the FBI has delivered up until this point, yet the public security office announced it has more grounded proof that it hasn’t delivered for security reasons. The assault could have broad results for the film business as well as for American international strategy and the fate of fighting.

In the spring of 2015, the entirety of the hacked messages was delivered to the web everywhere by WikiLeaks.

The story is genuinely intricate, particularly in the manner in which Stone and Fitzgerald have decided to handle it. They offer a tad of “the beginning of Edward,” yet it’s not some time before Snowden is, will we say, perceiving how the hotdog gets made. For those watchers who have not seen “Citizenfour” or read huge numbers of the articles expounded on Snowden, the waist of Stone’s film could demonstrate extraordinarily stunning and may constrain a pattern of individuals putting bits of tape over their PC camera. That secret tasks run by our legislature can turn on your PC camera without you realizing it is just one of the disclosures here. Also, as Snowden keeps on getting further into the bunny opening of security intrusion, Gordon-Levitt’s presentation turns out to be more outstanding. From the start, it seems like something of an impression (albeit a great one, for the record), however, the film works in the way that Gordon-Levitt catches the tangled inward unrest of Snowden as the story advances. He has a momentous capacity to do what so numerous different entertainers can’t: take a look at a PC screen and take in its data as though he’s seeing it unexpectedly. He grounds an intricate story by giving it an exceptionally human, responsive component in its middle.

Stone’s film vacillates with the relationship dramatization including Snowden and Shailene Woodley’s Lindsay Mills. The two entertainers give a valiant effort to cause these scenes to the interface, yet a few minutes feel like they emerged from another film and the pair don’t exactly have the correct science to make them viable. Less relationship show, and maybe going sequential from front to back as opposed to utilizing flashback structure, may have helped the rhythm.

References

Anne Helen Petersen (2014), “The Messy Media Ethics Behind The Sony Hacks”

Available at: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/annehelenpetersen/complicated-sony-ethics

[Accessed at: 1 October 2020]

Brian Tallerico (2016), “Snowden”

Available at: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/snowden-2016

[Accessed at: 1 October 2020]

I found some news about President Trump And First Lady Test Positive For The Coronavirus, and The White House physician says they are well in this time.

https://www.npr.org/sections/latest-updates-trump-covid-19-results/2020/10/02/919385151/president-trump-and-first-lady-test-positive-for-covid-19

For this week’s class, we read five articles, listen to one podcast, browsed one website, and watched one movie. Our main focus of the week was on the movie Snowden. I have watched this movie once before but completely forgot about it. The story follows a man named Edward Snowden who is a brilliantly smart person. He is first shown in the military, but takes leave due to an injury. He then gets a job in the CIA, in which he finds information he is disgusted by. He quits his position at the Department for National Security. He now knows that all forms of digital communication, not only from foreign governments and terrorist organizations, but from ordinary Americans, who are being monitored by a virtual mountain of data. He becomes a traitor to others, a hero to others and a fugitive from the law when Snowden decides to leak this sensitive information.

Throughout this movie we see Snowden progressively find out when our government is doing and he gets disgusted by it. The government has information on everyone, not only what they post publicly but privately too. “The truth sinks in that no matter what justification you’re selling yourself, this is not about terrorism. Terrorism is the excuse. This is about economic and social control. And the only thing you’re really protecting is the supremacy of your government.” This quote from Snowden shows how fed up he was getting at the government. People have a right to know they are being monitored daily and that everything they post can be seen. Most people do not knwo they are being watched and if more people find out it would cause a panic in some. Some people use the excuse, “I have nothing to hide.” well, do you really want someone you don’t know judging you for the photos you take, the texts you write, or your social media postings? 

There have been debates as to if Snowden is a hero or a whistle-blower, in my opinion he is both. He is a whistle-blower for exposing national secrets that have no right to be secrets. He helped inform thousands about the shady work in the government. He is a hero, as if not for him would we know any of this? Would the government ever come out and tell us? No, why would they tell their citizens that they are under constant watch, no matter who you are or what you do. It is scary to realize everything I post or keep on my phone is accessible to the government, while I don’t hide any terrorist plots I personally like my privacy. The government is taking away that privacy, by unknowing people just simply using their phones it is taken away. “I think this is the greatest freedom that I have gained, the fact that I don’t have to worry about what happens tomorrow, because I’m happy with what I’ve done today.” Can you be happy knowing all your movements are tracked? Most of us have our phones with us all-day and night, and the government sees all of it. How will you sleep knowing this? Maybe turning off your phone once in a while is worth it. What are your thoughts? What stuck out the most to you during this movie?

Weekly news:

Snowden was a well-filmed movie and if you told me that the actor Lakeith Stanfield was in it, I would have watched it sooner. The movie “Snowden” tells of Edward Snowden’s journey to expose the United States government. He was in the military fighting the war against Iraq but due to an injury, he had to leave. That is when Snowden decided to work for the CIA. While working for the CIA, Snowden learned so much information about the United State government and he felt the need to expose it. He leaves his job at the National Security Agency and decides to leak this classified information. In order to do so, he had to leave the life he had. He had to leave his girlfriend and the United States. He goes to Hong Kong and stations himself in a hotel. He gets journalists that he trust and gets them to write the story that would be published in the United States exposing the government. In the movie, Snowden said “This is not about terrorism. Terrorism is an excuse. This is about economic control and social control and the only thing your really protecting is the supremacy of your government.” I agree with that line because the government is in a position to protect us and in the process that is spying on citizens is illegal. As the government that holds millions of people accountable for their actions should not be doing something as illegal as spying on people when they think they are in private. That use terrorism as an excuse to justify the illegal action they are doing.

Watching this movie help me confirm that the government is watching us because it all could have been fake news but knowing that someone can confirm it and seen it happen with their own eyes is proof. The only proof I had was new articles which could have been fake news to keep people on their toes, but this man Edward Snowden sacrificed his safety and well being to tell ME and citizens and the world that we don’t have privacy like we thought we did and that it is possible for the government to track us even when we don’t know that we are being tracked. Snowden said “The people being able to question our government and to hold it accountable. That’s the principle that the United States was founded on.” and that is messed up that is was happening behind our backs. The scene with the Muslim women talking off her burka was a great way to show the extreme of how invasive the government is being. Edward Snowden is a hero even though he is considered a whistleblower. He opens many people’s eyes to how we will never have privacy with our phones or with cameras around. I like how we could see how he really looks at he end.

Weekly news: Killer cop raising money to protect himself

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/30/us/breonna-taylor-officer-retire-fundraiser-trnd/index.html