Senate passes intellectual property bill

The senate recently passed a bill regarding the protection of intellectual property. In the article the importance of intellectual property is stressed and the content of the bill is described. "The bill also would authorize funding for federal and local law enforcement to fight intellectual property theft and expand the scope of things that could be seized in a criminal case." This quote from the article that I read brought up one large question. What kind of "things" will be able to be seized in criminal cases other than what is already being seized presently? This seems to grant enforcement agencies a lot more breathing room when investigating potential violations, which may or may not be a good thing in itself. It goes without saying that this increased power so to speak allows more room for abuse. What aspect of these investigations could possibly be abused by these agencies remains to be seen.

Hackers break into Sarah Palin's E-mail account

"It wasn't immediately clear how hackers broke into Palin's Yahoo! account, but it would have been possible to trick the service into revealing her password knowing personal details about Palin that include her birthdate and ZIP code. A hacker also might have sent a forged e-mail to her account tricking her into revealing her own password." This quote perfectly describes how foggy the idea of "privacy" really is in this country. No matter what precautions or safeguards are taken, there always seems to be ways around these very safeguards. This idea becomes that much more important when it involves a candidate in the Presidential race. What if these emails contained information that could potentially damage Mccain and Palin's campaign? And in the same sense, what if these emails were hacked out of Obama's account? Obviously the race would be tainted and in a sense history would be tainted as well as this invasion could of changed the outcome for both sides.

Another quote in this article perfectly sums up this idea of invasion of privacy within this country: "Todd Palin was the winner of the grueling Iron Dog snowmobile race, and "fek9wnr" also is Todd Palin's vehicle license tag in Alaska."

YouTube Bans Terrorism Training Videos

As the title suggests, the article that I read, which was from the BNA internet news, dealt with the problem You Tube has been having regarding "Terrorism training videos". These videos involve things such as instruction as to how to make bombs out of everyday household items. While it is understandable that You Tube doesn't want this kind of content on their site, I found it very interesting how You Tube goes about deciding which videos to take off. "YouTube has not identified specific videos on its site that led to the change, nor said exactly how it will choose those that are purged." As you can see, this explanation leaves a lot of room for Youtube to more or less pick and choose what they want on their site.
I realize that Youtube has every right to decide what they want posted on their site. The reason I find this especially interesting though is the popularity of the site itself. With thousands of hits a day, Youtube is more than capable of influencing what people think about certain issues whether it be conscience or subconscious by simply picking and choosing what videos are posted. The question that this brings up though is whether or not Youtube has the ability to arbitrarily not allow videos onto their site indirectly on the basis of issues such as race and ethnicity.

"Picture your name here"

The article that I'm choosing to blog about has an effect on that majority of the students throughout the UMass campus. This article dealt with Facebook and one's ability to tag another person in a picture. More specifically, this article brings up the fact that there is no way to stop someone from initially tagging another person in a picture (other than that person untagging themself). This article brings up privacy issues and the lack of protection that facebook provides to each individual. On one side, individuals have the right to express themself freely. On the other side, people have a right to protect their character. Anyone who has looked at an album on facebook has probably seen an individual's character called into question via a picture. This clearly creates a conflict in which the question is whether or not an individual should be allowed to post a picture on Facebook that could possibly constitute as defamation of character. The simple solution to this question would be for people simply not to put themselves in situations where embarassing/potentially damaging pictures could be taken. Obviously, the solution is not that simple (especially when alchohol is involved).