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| | | Ever since a couple years ago, I’ve started to notice that I was being listened to. This frightening revelation happened during a picnic with a few friends in Central Park, where we randomly brought up KitKat? , a well-known chocolate-covered wafer brand. Despite its popularity, I have, in fact, only had KitKat? once in my entire life. The next moment, I picked up my phone and opened Instagram, there it is, an advertisement for KitKat? . I was stunned. So were my friends. We had heard that our phones and apps could be listening to us, but none of us has taken this more seriously than a mere conspiracy theory. After all, how could anyone with good conscience conduct such as act? | |
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< | I’ve begun to notice more. Each time creepier than the last. TV commercials started to call me by my name. They even know the name of my dog. That feeling that someone (not necessarily a real person) is listening and analyzing every word I have said, that someone keeps a log of whatever content I have browsed, and that someone knows exactly where I live or even where I am scares me. What scares me even more is to have learned in class that all these persons could be sharing information with one another, or even could be of the same identity –the giant corporations in Silicon Valley. | >
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It would be good to be critical of this supposed evidence. Had you watched The Great Hack as assigned, you would have seen this very point discussed by David Carroll in his classroom.
I’ve begun to notice more. Each time creepier than the last. TV commercials started to call me by my name. They even know the name of my dog.
Evidence rather than assertion is necessary with respect to "TV commercials."
That feeling that someone (not necessarily a real person) is listening and analyzing every word I have said, that someone keeps a log of whatever content I have browsed, and that someone knows exactly where I live or even where I am scares me. What scares me even more is to have learned in class that all these persons could be sharing information with one another, or even could be of the same identity –the giant corporations in Silicon Valley. | | | Inquisition | | | Beyond using our personal information for advertising, the tech giants also control what we see. I didn’t quite understand how this was possible initially, until Professor Moglen pointed out to us that browsers would deter users from entering his twiki site. He posed a mind-boggling question: Do we really trust the browser more than our professor these days? Contemplating for an answer, I have realized that I have long taken for granted the idea that the browsers I use knows what’s best for me. How startling it is to know that at the end of the day, they were all “advertisement companies?” | |
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< | After some research, I found that the browsers have been performing such acts for a long time, screening away content using machine learning. However, such filters can easily make mistakes and be controlled by other big corporations or governments. In 2017, the CEO of Cloudfare, a company that serves as an internet gatekeeper for over nine million visitors, terminated service to a Neo-Nazi website. Without discussing whether the content of the website is worth promoting or not, Cloudfare CEO’s mere ability to conduct such act makes me fearful of the future of our internet. In his email to the employees, he confessed that it was “an arbitrary decision,” that he “woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet.” If this shows the extent of power that internet gatekeepers retain in their hands, my perception of the world, construed using the information gained online, might be completely skewed. | >
> | After some research, I found that the browsers have been performing such acts for a long time, screening away content using machine learning.
"Some research" should have yielded some citations.
However, such filters can easily make mistakes and be controlled by other big corporations or governments. In 2017, the CEO of Cloudfare, a company that serves as an internet gatekeeper for over nine million visitors, terminated service to a Neo-Nazi website. Without discussing whether the content of the website is worth promoting or not, Cloudfare CEO’s mere ability to conduct such act makes me fearful of the future of our internet. In his email to the employees, he confessed that it was “an arbitrary decision,” that he “woke up this morning in a bad mood and decided to kick them off the internet.” If this shows the extent of power that internet gatekeepers retain in their hands, my perception of the world, construed using the information gained online, might be completely skewed.
A citation would have helped. With a little checking, you might not have misspelled "Cloudflare," and perhaps even have been able to assess more critically whether Cloudflare is actually disabling people from reading a website, or is performing an action more analogous to ending a security contract and withdrawing its guards.
| | | Looking Forward | | | The difference between a decentralized web and the internet today is the elimination of middlemen/gatekeepers. In the internet we use today, if I want to reach something on the web, I would need to go through multiple middlemen, including domain name server, server hosting company and other third parties. Today, more and more data are moved to the cloud, hosted by giant corporations, giving them unlimited control as middlemen. This centralization process makes the internet more fragile and less free because it’s easy to abuse such power. Decentralized web envisioned a people-powered version of the internet where the centralized middlemen are removed. Imagine our internet today is the centralized Library of Moglenville. In this library, books are prone to be stolen and lost, administrators can control what books are in the library, and readers need an ID card to check out books. In a decentralized library, books copies will be made and stored in neighbors’ homes without interference of administrators, and you can lend books with anonymity. As such, controls from big corporations would be hard to enforce on a decentralized web, where there are no hosting companies, because the websites are served by the myriads of visitors themselves. I’m motivated to learn more about how to build such a decentralized web. Perhaps one day, I can build my own email and a home security system. For you, my readers, start by preventing your friends and family from buying devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo. | |
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Perhaps a little further research would have explained the idea that the web was originally decentralized. That the engineering you are discussing concerns the "redecentralization" of the web. You might even have encountered my FreedomBox project.
Overall, I think it is clear that the best way to improve the draft is to put more of the effort of learning into the writing. Convey less your personal emotions and more the material you have read. The research should not remain off-stage. Then in a third draft we can begin to find out how to express more clearly your own ideas raised off the research.
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You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable.
To restrict access to your paper simply delete the "#" character on the next two lines: |
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