mdst_110 / 2007_fall / week_14


yo, how do we tag this?



agenda

keywords

church committee, cookie, data mining, dignity, dog poop girl, essentialism, fourth amendment of the us constitution, fifth amendment of the us constitution, freedom of information act of 1966, griswold v. connecticut 381 u.s. 479 (1965), lawrence v. texas 539 u.s. 558 (2003), maven, metadata, panopticon, peer review, privacy, privacy act of 1974, propaedia, radio-frequency identification (rfid), roe v. wade 410 u.s. 113 (1973), semantic web, social advertising, star wars kid, surveillance, tag, tag cloud, telephone tapping, universal declaration of human rights, universal product code (upc), usa patriot act, watergate scandal


questions from lecture

1. what's the big deal about privacy? to what extent should we be on guard re: the distribution of information about us?
2. do you think you are more likely to be harmed or helped by the collection and distribution of information about you?
3. how uncomfortable do you feel about being "subject to capture" in various private and public settings?
4. to what extent do you find social advertising methods such as facebook's "beacon" program to be an infringement of privacy, if at all? does such an innovation really represent an encroachment on our privacy beyond what we already volunteer to social networking sites?
5. is digital surveillance less complete, as complete, or more complete than the type of surveillance afforded by the panopticon?
6. why isn't the universal declaration of human rights operative in u.s.?
7. how actively do you think intelligence authorities utilize mechanisms like facebook? what interests do state and private investors have on infringing on our privacy?
8. siva said that "the government compiling information about us is not always a bad thing." do you agree with this statement and the governments invasion of privacy for the good of the community?
9. poor dog poop girl or bad dog poop girl? was the treatment she received justified?
10. of the three groups of people watching us (the government, private firms, and the public), which has the most profound effect on our everyday lives?
11. which is the more effective form of control: the centralized and all-seeing eye of the panopticon, or the invisible non-opticon?
12. what about wtc 7?

questions from readings

david weinberger, everything is miscellaneous

1. is it true that information wants to be miscellaneous? (7)
2. weinberger argues that "the solution to the overabundance of information is more information" (13). do you agree?
3. "order oftern hides more than it reveals" (88), claims weinberger. are there cases where it can be easier to find something if it's disordered?
4. are you an alphabeticist or an anti-alphabeticist? (32) a lumper or a splitter? (71)
5. does the digital world make browsing and "discovering what you want" easier or harder?
6. "wikipedia does everything in its power to avoid being an authority, yet that only seems to increase its authority--a paradox that indicates an important change in the nature of authority itself" (142). how to elaborate on and explain this change?
7. how does weinberger's argument about the future of information as miscellaneous relate to the arguments made by anderson in the long tail and benkler in the wealth of networks?
8. do you think that the disordering of information results in a more commercially-driven consumer society?
9. what does this hour-long talk by weinberger add to your understanding of his book?