Light/Breezes

Light/Breezes
SUNRISE AT DEATH VALLEY-Photo by Tom Cochrun

Thursday, June 16, 2011

CYBER vs. REAL-BEWARE

WHEN DOES ONE CROSS A LINE
THE AGE OF INFO WARS
***A RECENT SLATE FRONT PAGE***

Editor of Lez Get Real outs himself as a retired military man from Ohio.
Same group that hacked PBS claiming Tupac is alive takes on the government.

This front page from SLATE struck me as a reminder of the precarious nature of our communication and information systems. Even the CIA's web site has been hacked.

Credibility and security are at risk.  They will continue to be so, it seems, for as long as we build our social structure around cyber communication. There are no safeguards. 

As we do with blogs, I followed a link from the 
SLATE piece to a well articulated set of thoughts from Brian Spears.

THIS POST-A NOTE TO MY FELLOW WHITE MALES MAKES SOME OUTSTANDING POINTS. LINK HERE


What Brian wrote prompted me to write a response.  


"Fiction is just that.  Journalism is an approximation of truth 
build on a foundation of facts. The blogsophere is 
full of both and hybrids. Credibility remains the
currency of journalism.  Notice or self expression
may well be the fuel of bloggers.  These are mostly divergent
cultures, but they aggregate n this cyber gumbo that
we inhabit.
Years ago I posed a question to a network executive for 
whom I was developing a project:  at what point do the
ethics of the cyber world begin to alter our sense of justice
in the "real world?"  Random mayhem in gaming, serial 
killing, explicit violence, explicit sexuality and false persona
in the cyber world are permitted.  At what point does a social
tolerance of such a recreational behavior begin to sew genuine
social consequences?  It was an odd question to post to a network
executive who went on to preside over what we call "reality"
television.
The post points the effect.  Anthony Wiener is living through
another repercussion.  One may feel a cloak of protection or
privacy while feeding the blogosphere with any manner of
fantasy, lunacy or "creativity."  It is not illegal to do so, yet.
Whether it is right or wrong is for someone else to reason.  It does
however have consequence and indeed could be more serious or
even lethal than a lone writer, wrapped in their own reality may
have the intelligence or common sense to realize." 

The old adage is true-Buyer beware, especially in this age of  information wars. We would add to that the modern admonition-  
Read with care.


"You should read only what is truly good or what is frankly bad." Gertrude Stein-quoted by Hemingway in A MOVEABLE FEAST


There are efforts underway on the security front.


LINK HERE TO READ OF A NOVEL APPROACH TO NET SECURITY BEING DEVELOPED BY A GROUP OF NEW YORK STUDENTS.



DAY BOOK
ARCHIVE SHOTS






See you down the trail.



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