• The Media’s Double Standard on Privacy and Cambridge Analytica

  “In the fawning media coverage of the Obama campaign’s technological prowess, it did not occur to observers at the time to call this a startling invasion of privacy. And it wasn’t, or at a very minimum, the privacy risks were arguably outweighed by the benefits. A tool like this could be the future of politics: door-to-door canvassing for the digital age, and a welcome antidote to impersonal broadcast TV ads or a welcome upgrade from getting a phone call from a stranger telling you to vote.”

  Tags: ITGS, facebook, cambridge analytica, politics and government, media, data mining

  • – By dr tech

• Google Grapples With `Horrifying’ Reaction to Uncanny AI Tech

  “Eck said machine learning, a powerful form of AI, will be integrated into how humans communicate with each other. He raised the idea of “assistive writing” in the future with Google Docs, the company’s online word processing software. This may be based on Google’s upcoming Smart Compose technology that suggests words and phrases based on what’s being typed. Teachers used to worry about whether students used Wikipedia for their homework. Now they may wonder what part of the work the students wrote themselves, Eck said.”

  Tags: ITGS, ai, machine learning, duplex, google, ethics, turing test

  • – By dr tech

• 5 Ways Your Technology Is Destroying You (and What to Do About It)

  “But, being pro-technology doesn’t mean that I have to pretend there is no danger.

  Most people are unaware of the ways their technology is holding them back. The good news is that once you become aware, it’s not too difficult to start getting things back on track. It’s possible use technology while keeping yourself protected from its detrimental effects.”

  Tags: ITGS, technology, people and machines

  • – By dr tech

• Tim Berners-Lee launches campaign to save the web from abuse

  Tags: ITGS, policies, politics and government, ethics, protocols

• Amazon’s Clever Machines Are Moving From the Warehouse to Headquarters

  “About two years ago the retail team lost another key task: negotiating with major brands and manufacturers the terms of popular sales on the site called “Lightning Deals.” Common during the holidays as well as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, they help move lots of inventory in a short period.

  Now, instead of calling their vendor manager at Amazon, the makers of handbags, smartphone accessories and other products simply logged into an Amazon portal that would determine if Amazon liked the deal being offered and the quantity it was willing to buy. No small talk. No give and take. Thousands of Amazon man hours spent forecasting demand, planning marketing strategies and negotiating deals was now handled by software, a major leap in efficiency.”

  Tags: ITGS, ai, amazon, negotiation, machine learning, automation

  • – By dr tech

• Jobs of the future: Top 5 skills that won’t be replaced by AI

  Tags: ITGS, ai, skills, employment, people and machines

Posted from Diigo. The rest of ITGSonline group favorite links are here.

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Hi again, long time no see!

I’m back with more content from our favourite book Liars and Outliers by Bruce Schneier. At the moment I am halfway through the book and oh boy does he still marvel me with his stupendous feats of analysis. Schneier continues to uncover how we human beings live together so harmoniously – which frankly is super interesting. Personally, I find it quite astounding that most of us don’t think about how vital different “pressures” fuel our civilization; even my parents said they never thought about it. Some of you might say “well we just communicate and trust each other “. It’s not as simple as that…

I will be summarising these “pressures” in this blog!

1. Societal Pressures.

This is where society has expectations and influences us to act more in the group interest rather than in our competing individual interest. Essentially we are forced to cooperate and trust each other. Societal pressures are quite similar to peer pressure but are not as obvious.

Here’s a societal dilemma: Society of Baboons, Gazelle Hunting

In this situation, the baboons would want the best outcome for themselves, so they all work together to hunt and get as much meat as possible. If they conform to their competing interest or corresponding defection, this would be a disadvantage to themselves, but to another baboon too. So with societal pressures, this influences the baboons to work cooperatively and also monitor each other’s behaviours to ensure no one gets hurt and everyone gets a fair share.

Here’s another societal dilemma: Society as a Whole, Stealing

Society implements other societal pressures to encourage people to act in the group interest:

• Moral: People feel good about being honest and bad about stealing. “Thou shalt not steal”
• Reputational: Society shuns people who have a reputation for being thieves.
• Institutional: Stealing is illegal, and society punishes thieves.
• Security: Door locks, burglar alarms, and so on.

I found that this relates to ITGS in the instance of black-hat hacking or identity theft as our group interest is to enjoy and surf the internet safely; out group norm is to not hack or get hacked; our competing interest is to get access to all information on the web; and our corresponding defection is to hack. Society has more pressures that influences us to not hack.

• Moral:We feel accessing personal or unauthorised information is indecorous
• Reputational: We do not want to be regarded as untrustworthy and as a hacker
• Institutional: Black-hat hacking and identity theft if illegal
• Security: 2 step authentication, passwords, biometric security systems, levels of security, etc.

More info on these pressures in the rest of the blog.

2. Moving on to Moral Pressures.

All of us have our own morals – what we feel is morally right and what we feel is morally wrong. Morality is contextual and highly subjective: my friend may think embryonic stem cell therapy is morally correct as he feels killing an embryo is not destroying life as the embryo has no nervous system, however I think is it morally wrong as killing an embryo is killing a potential human being. Is it morally correct to hack? Is it morally correct to steal?

Another context is voting: Democracy requires people to vote, and if no one votes then democracy wouldn’t work. The group norm would be to vote and the competing interest is to do what you want to do on election day. To encourage people to act in the group interest, society implements moral pressure. People tend to feel good and satisfied when they vote and bad then they don’t, because they care about their welfare and that of their fellow citizens. Moreover, governments enforce the importance of voting through slogans and campaigns, reminding citizens to vote for “the right” political group. Voting centres provide stickers saying “I voted” which also encourages people to vote and feel satisfied.

Beliefs that voting is the right things to do, and that murdering someone is wrong, are examples of moral pressure.

The example of hacking and identity theft can be applied here too:

• Moral: We feel accessing personal or unauthorised information is indecorous

3. Reputational Pressure

Who wants to be known as “the thief” or “the hacker”. Most importantly in commerce, no merchant would want to be known as having cheated customers; merchants want to have the best reputation for being trustworthy. Merchants would want more customers to visit them and therefore take their reputation very seriously. They want to please customers to ensure that customers use the word of mouth to encourage more people to promote their shop.

Interestingly, reputational pressure works best within a group of people who know each other: a group of friends or colleagues, compared to a bunch of strangers on a bus. Dunbar’s number of 150 means a single individual can really only remember the faces and names of 150 other individuals, therefore only affecting those individuals and not a whole society. Nonetheless with the explosion of the internet, reputation for celebrities or multi-national corporations such as McDonalds – reputations can extremely benefit them or completely ruin them. Unfortunately the internet brings with it what we call confidence tricksters who are people that spend a lot of time manipulating reputation signals. Celebrities may “buy” followers for social media and some even get hired hands to write fake comments on their posts. This would be unfair to the rest of the social media users.

Furthermore, sometimes people trust the company more than the quality of product. For example, McDonalds’ Cheeseburger may be be missing a slice of cheese, or a layer of ketchup; yet consumers still trust McDonalds as they have a good reputation of being a trustworthy company and delivering the expected product. Thus, reputational pressure can be misleading.

4. Finally, Institutional Pressure

Laws, fines, and rules. Institutional Pressure is a very vital societal pressure as it is the only official and formal societal pressure. Informal societal pressures are just not enough for a successful human society, which is why we need institutional pressure.

Societal Dilemma: Mall hours

To encourage people to act in the group interest, society implements the institutional pressure:

Institutional: The group fines stores that close during common hours.

Institutional Pressure helps with voting too. To encourage as much people to vote, some governments make it mandatory to vote. Unfortunately some governments do not have explicit voting laws, but have laws that raise the cost of not voting in other ways. In Greece, it’s harder for non-voters to get a passport or driver’s license. Non-voters in Singapore get removed from electoral rolls and must provide a reason when reapplying. Quit harsh in my opinion, but it has to be done.

Moreover linking it to ITGS, governments need laws to prevent hacking and piracy, using firewalls to do so too. Copyright laws and patents also ensure everyone has equal credit and rightful intellectual property.

———–

That’s it from me! Apologies for the long blog. Hope you enjoyed reading it!

• 1 Comment

In Information Doesn’t Want to be Free, Doctorow’s Second Law states that “Fame won’t make you rich, but you can’t get paid without it”. Doctorow states that in order to be famous, the person has to be lucky, talented and a drive to succeed. But fame does not equal money as you can spend money faster than you can earn. However, in the Arts industry, you do need some fame in order to get some extra money and the road to get famous is through the internet.

However, Doctorow starts off with a negative point, the Streisand effect. The Streisand effect is the phenomenon when something negative about you, a celebrity, on the internet has more views after you make a lot of noise about it. This is named after Barbra Streisand when she made a fuss over a picture of her house was featured in a negative light. With fame, comes people who like to stir up controversy. However, there are people called Internet “reputation managers” who charge money for controversy to go away but as Doctorow says, they “are ripoff artists”. The internet is a copying machine that downloads five copies for a person on their computer to view. With this, what hope do “reputation managers” and even the Arts industry have? I believe that once anything is on the internet, it stays there till the end of time, so anything hidden in the past can come back to bite and can hurt your reputation.

He continues on the topic of the internet and points out that it is an audience machine. This is because entertainments like movies, television shows and radio shows can be accessed through the internet rather than through its normal channels. This means that they can reach out to more potential people and make more money. Even though you won’t be able to predict the amount of money by using the internet but the audience can decide whether you get paid until they have seen it. He states that it is difficult to interest audiences in your works but you can increase the audience capacity by making your product cheaper.

Doctorow tells us that the way to get more audience is through conversation, not content on the internet. In the world, the word of mouth is the most important tool to get people to get interested in things and the internet is made of the word of mouth. Communication between people passes information that can be vital to the survival of a person or company. The internet is made of websites that are used for conversation such as Facebook and Twitter, and by talking about a movie or song, it increases the audience capacity.

There are 6 things that an artist can do to get paid:

• By selling a physical copy of the art
• By selling advertisements
• By selling merchandise
• By selling commissions
• By selling tickets
• By asking for donations

This overview is Doctorow’s guide for creative businesses to succeed in the digital age. Even though they have been used in the era before the internet came about, these methods have successfully been used in the 21st century and convert audience appreciation into money.

In conclusion, I believe that Doctorow’s Second Law is true. Fame can be gained by anyone and the money you gain can be tremendous but by using more than what you have, the money that you might have earned has gone to waste. The internet is a very good way for the entertainment industry to earn money but it is also a double edged sword, such as the Streisand effectm, which could ruin a person’s career. As a person thinking of going into the entertainment industry, what Doctorow says conforms to what experts, who have been in the industry for many years, have said. This day and age are very different from 10 years ago and people have to use the internet to attract the audience to their art.

• 2 Comments

• Stop Saying Privacy Is Dead – Member Feature Stories – Medium

  “As privacy scholar Josh Fairfield says, while some dismiss privacy concerns by saying they have nothing to hide, we shouldn’t accept that argument from anyone wearing clothes. Or anyone who closes the bathroom door, locks her home or car, or uses password-protected accounts. Or anyone who benefits from rules and norms that protect secrecy and confidentiality, prohibit government overreach, and give us recourse if others intrude upon our seclusion, publicly disclose embarrassing private facts, depict us in a false light, or appropriate our image or likeness. “

  Tags: privacy and anonymity, ITGS

  • – By dr tech

• To regulate AI we need new laws, not just a code of ethics | Paul Chadwick | Opinion | The Guardian

  “Nemitz identifies four bases of digital power which create and then reinforce its unhealthy concentration in too few hands: lots of money, which means influence; control of “infrastructures of public discourse”; collection of personal data and profiling of people; and domination of investment in AI, most of it a “black box” not open to public scrutiny.

  The key question is which of the challenges of AI “can be safely and with good conscience left to ethics” and which need law. Nemitz sees much that needs law.”

  Tags: ITGS, ethics, law, ai, privacy

  • – By dr tech

• Computer Stories: AI Is Beginning to Assist Novelists

  “His software is not labeled anything as grand as artificial intelligence. It’s machine learning, facilitating and extending his own words, his own imagination. At one level, it merely helps him do what fledgling writers have always done?—?immerse themselves in the works of those they want to emulate. Hunter Thompson, for instance, strived to write in the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald, so he retyped “The Great Gatsby” several times as a shortcut to that objective.”

  Tags: ai, people and machines, ITGS, machine learning, creativity

  • – By dr tech

• 50 ways to leave your lover, but four to sniff browser history • The Register

  “”History sniffing” promises a nose full of dust or, you’re talking about web browsers, a whiff of the websites you’ve visited.

  And that may be enough to compromise your privacy and expose data that allows miscreants to target you more effectively with tailored attacks. For example, a phishing gambit that attempts to simulate your bank login page has a better chance of success if it presents the web page for a bank where you actually have an account.”

  Tags: ITGS, browser, history, privacy and anonymity

  • – By dr tech

• Data Mining Has Revealed Previously Unknown Russian Twitter Troll Campaigns

  “That’s interesting work suggesting that Russian troll activity was significantly more ambitious on an international scale than previously thought. It also suggests a way of spotting this kind of meddling as it is happening by looking for the kind of forensic fingerprint the team identified.

  Of course, finding trolls is a cat-and-mouse game. For the organizations responsible for Russian troll activity, it ought to be a straightforward matter to change the pattern of activity in a way that does not create the same signature.”

  Tags: ITGS, politics and government, twitter, data mining, authenticity, russian, campaigns

  • – By dr tech

Posted from Diigo. The rest of ITGSonline group favorite links are here.

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• Who should AI kill in a driverless car crash? It depends who you ask | Technology | The Guardian

  Tags: ITGS, ai, ethics, autonomous, people and machines

Posted from Diigo. The rest of ITGSonline group favorite links are here.

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Hello Internet!

Back again with another TRUSTworthy blog from your weekly blogger whyhello. After rafting through the rapid waters of the third chapter and almost falling through a portal of never-ending questions in the fourth,  the book “Liars and Outliers” by Bruce Schneier continuously contorts my brain in ways I could never have imagined. It has really made me ponder on how human beings could have lived for such a long time by using trust – a simple, yet very significant word (probably why Schneier wrote a whole book on it!).

In the third chapter, Schneier describes the metaphorical model (Hawk-Dove game) created by John Maynard Smith and George R. Price in 1971 to illustrate conflicts between animals of the same species. This model can also be profoundly used to depict real life. In this model, the Doves are the cooperators and the Hawks are the defectors. Schneier then elaborates on different situations where for example: 50% Doves and 50% Hawks, more Doves than Hawks, more Hawks than Doves, one Hawk and the rest doves and vice versa; also if the Doves can identify a Hawk the situation would have fewer Hawks. You get the idea. From this he concludes that in neither situation will one is guaranteed to dominate. Of course the best scenario would be where the whole population consists of Doves, but if only the game started out that way. Despite all this, one Doves and become Hawks and Hawks can become doves, the whole scenario changes – resulting in a society like ours.

It was extremely intriguing watching Schneier present situations from different ends of the spectrum and seeing what the ultimate outcome would be. However, in almost all the scenarios it almost seems that the Hawks would be the minority. This brings me onto my next point on how to control the number of Hawks and Doves in our world.

In order to have a successful and thriving human society, we would all have to combine these prosocial traits together: cooperation, altruism, kindness, trustworthiness, and fairness. Yes they may seem like a lot of things but as human beings we have evolved so much that these behavioural traits have come as second-nature. Yet indeed we would express these traits more comfortably with people who are related to us (kin helping kin), thus we would definitely be more altruistic with family members compared to friend and strangers. However, society does not function that way; we now have expanded our trust to a wider region, simply trusting more and more people besides our family members. Why? Because as human beings, we have learnt that the more people we know and trust would mean there would be higher chances where that person can help us. It also works the other way around and it turns out both of parties gain from each other – mutual gain. This all comes down to trust.

Just to finish off I have one last point to add.

In this day and age, trust has become a bit of blur, being both a necessity and a threat; this is due to the explosion of the internet and social media. Identity theft has led to a misuse of trust, profile pictures acting as illusions as people are being dishonest on the web. Luckily, us humans have developed over time societal pressures, means of which we as a society can impose “taxes” to deter and discourage Hawks. Not only have we developed formal societal pressures such as security systems, governments, courts and judges; but the informal societal pressures include morals and reputation. A very prominent example would be Sexual Infidelity as once a partner has been caught being dishonest, word will spread like wild-fire and everyone would identify that person as being dishonest – and of course who wants to be known as the dishonest person. No-one.

I personally find celebrities the most affected by societal pressures nowadays. Due to the instantaneity of the internet, netizens have the upmost right to speak their mind and tend to not hold back their comments about a certain celebrity who makes a mistake which can become very extreme at times. Personally I find this unfair that a specific person gets attacked by so many people just because they are a celebrity, but hey, I think societal pressures have really kept us human beings on track, thus influencing other to not do the same!

See you in the next blog post!

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In the continuation of Doctorow’s First Law, in Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, Doctorow talks about how the digital lock is only for the benefit of the publisher of the content, not the creator.

In the first title, “Understanding General-Purpose Computers”, Doctorow talks about how the general-purpose computer came about in history through the advancements by Alan Turing and John von Neumann. A general-purpose computer is a computer that is able to “compute” any program when given time and memory such as:

• Desktops
• Notebooks
• Smartphones
• Tablets

Since a general-purpose computer can run any program, it is able to run a program that is able to break a digital lock. However, the use of spyware in a general-purpose computer can stop the computer from breaking these locks. The spyware can hide themselves and their work from the users and the operating systems, it also watches what the user is doing on the computer. Hence, even though the general-purpose computer can run any program, spyware will be there observing it.

“Rootkits Everywhere”, explains that spyware and anti-copying are under the strategy of a “rootkit”. Once a rootkit has infiltrated the operating system, it cannot be detected and it can also conceal malicious software that is associated with it. Doctorow uses the example of a rootkit that Sony used to delete any attempts to copy the CD that it was hidden in. However, this soon allowed virus writers to hide viruses under the rootkit which then attacked the computers without being detected. Thus, the use of rootkits in computers can lead to others taking advantage of it to use it for their own benefit, such as virus writers in the case of the Sony rootkit.

The next title, “Appliances”, explains that companies have been installing general-purpose computers in appliances, e.g. home broadband routers and refrigerators. These appliances would have the same hardware as other models but different software uploaded in them. However, the companies make the software treat the customers as if they were threats. This is through the use of spyware and other countermeasures that is installed in the products so that the user cannot inspect the software of the product. Although, if you managed to see the inner workings, you are not allowed to share the information.

Doctorow uses HP as an example that he uses to show how companies use the software to take control of the product. They also do not allow the users to see how the software of the printers work, if not the user will try to make the printer accept third-party ink cartridges that are cheaper. However, HP devoted most of it’s security to preventing third-party cartridges rather other types of security. This allowed a student called Ang Cui to take over the entire network of HP by letting a printer in the headquarters to print his document. Therefore, this shows that companies use rootkits to prevent users from hijacking their system to the user’s benefit but does not protect other parts of the product.

“Worse Than Nothing”, states the impact of digital locks on the users. Doctorow says that “Digital locks turn paying customers into pirates”. This is because if the product is not in the format that the user wants, they have to break the digital lock to change the format. As “Locking users out doesn’t reduce down-loads, it reduces sales”. When Apple took away NBC’s material from iTunes, downloads, the download rates for those shows stayed higher before the blackout as:

• Without the right format, users resorted to piracy
• They started pirating other content as well in addition to the original one
• The users then developed a habit of downloading illegally

That is why creators should not sell their products with digital locks, if not your product will spend eternity in someone elses hands.

In conclusion, Doctorow’s First Law explains the disadvantages of digital locks on the creator of the product. In my opinion, I agree with Doctorow that digital locks are a waste of space, they only make matters worse for the creator as if the product is not in the user’s best format, they can break the digital lock and use it. The digital locks make the product have higher download rates. Although companies may use rootkits to protect the software from being copied, it is a violation of the user’s privacy as the spyware is watching every move on the computer.

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Mark Prensky’s article, “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, he talks about how people born into the digital age, after the year 2000, called digital natives find being educated to people born before the age, before the year 2000, called digital immigrants boring. He explains that teachers who are Digital Immigrants cannot teach digital natives the same method they have been teaching other Digital Immigrants through the years, assuming that the digital natives react the same way as to others before them. Prensky uses the example of professors going to his company asking them to create a program that would appeal to students to learn how to use a software. He suggests that “Legacy” content such as Classical Philosophy and History can be taught in a method that appeals to them.

I am against the argument that people should be referred to as digital native and digital immigrants as teachers can change the way they teach, students should learn to adapt to different ways of learning and teachers can be tech savvy or learn to be as efficient as millennials.

First and foremost, teachers in the 21^st century have the ability to change their teaching styles. They can change their style of lecturing to using Kahoot to teach the students. A teacher can observe which method works for the students and adapt to what they feel comfortable with. They may use a different method for each topic. The use of a quiz website such as Kahoot puts a competitive nature into education and can help the student recall information easier. Teachers may be able to use games to stimulate their minds that work in parallel to the method that they use. Thus, teachers can use a number of methods that can help students learn and do not have to be boring.

Secondly, students living in the 21^st century have to adapt to the different types of teaching methods that the teachers use. The teacher may only know how to teach a subject in one way that may seem not effective, however by adapting to it, students can benefit from it. For instance, universities would have lectures that may be boring but by learning to adapt to it by taking down notes and reorganising it later would help the student understand it. This would later help them with other methods that may seem strange to them. Therefore, there are different methods that teachers use and the student has to adapt to each type.

Finally, the teacher can be or learn to be as technically informed as for their students. People have been adapting throughout history to survive this harsh world. This is called the Red Queen Effect. It states that organisms have been adapting, evolving and proliferating in order to survive. This is what humans have been doing for centuries, so teachers should be able to adapt to the fast-paced society that we live in. Even if they cannot keep up, teachers are able to ask for help from others and can catch up with their students. For instance, computer science teachers have a vast knowledge on how computers work and have myriad resources to use to teach students. Hence, the Red Queen Effect is true for teachers as they have adapted and evolved to the new world and are able to use technology for the benefit of their students.

I believe that the school that I am currently it supports the idea that we should not be defined by the terms of digital natives or digital immigrants. This is because, I have observed that teachers in this school have different types of teaching methods, whether it may be using a PowerPoint, Kahoot, or lecturing. These teaching methods have been refined over the many years that they have been teaching but it may not work with everyone. Additionally, the school provides many different types of technological hardware and software. For example, the school gives laptops to all teachers as the school believes that with the technology they are able to teach students to a greater detail because they are technologically informed about the use of the laptop. As I have mentioned in the first point, the teachers have the skill to use the laptop and other resources to adapt to different types of learning styles that the students use.

My brother considers himself a digital native. He agreed with the definition of digital natives and digital immigrants that Marc Prensky sets out.

The social/ethical issues discussed in this topic are people and machines and the digital divide and equality of access. I chose people and machines as it is about the interaction between people and technology whether it may be teachers or students. The digital divide and equality of access were chosen as it can be said that digital immigrants have a lack of interest towards new technology, thus widening the digital divide between the teacher and the student.

In my opinion, after considering all the points I have stated, I still believe that we should not be defined as digital natives and immigrants. This is because, Marc Prensky himself is a digital immigrant, as he grew up without knowledge of technology. Yet, he is able to keep up with technology and program games that appeal to the millennials and their 21^st-century learning style. My conviction is that people in their late 70s and older should be considered the real digital immigrants. These are the people that do not understand how the technology works and how it impacts people in the 21^st century. What is more, digital native teachers would only start teaching in a few years, but who says that what they have experienced would be beneficial to the students that they will be teaching and that the training they have received would adapt to “Future Content”. In conclusion, I believe that people should not be defined by the terms digital natives and digital immigrants as people can adapt to technology differently and can be more knowledgeable about than others younger than them

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In the article “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants” by Marc Prensky, he first establishes his terms ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Digital Immigrants’. A Digital Native is someone who has spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age; whilst a Digital Immigrant is someone who was not born into the digital world but have, at some later point in their lives, become fascinated by and adopted or most aspects of the new technology. He then proceeds to discuss how the minds of Digital Natives have physically changed to think and process information fundamentally differently which affects thinking patterns. Prensky thus describes this change like a singularity, proposing its significance in human history. He also suggests that today’s students are no longer the people our education system was designed to teach. This is due to Digital Natives being used to parallel processing, multi-tasking and receiving information really fast. They also prefer random access, function best when networked and thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. Finally, they prefer games to “serious work”. As a result of this change, Prensky recommends that Digital Immigrant teachers must reconsider and adopt a better methodology to teach the content to Digital Natives.

In this blog, I will be for his argument that the people in our world today can be classified into Digital Natives and Immigrants, that the minds of Digital Natives have changed and that the education system will have to be reformed and developed to suit Digital Natives.

First and foremost, Prensky’s definitions of Digital Natives and Immigrants is true as technology has significantly changed since the beginning of the 20^th Century. Beginning with floppy disks, Discmans, DVDs and cellphones; then with the onslaught of the flash drive, the iPod, smartphones and tablets and even streaming videos from the web; technology has never had a leap this big since the proliferation of digital computers and recording. A new, smaller and faster storage medium, MP3 player and personal device has made digital information more accessible than ever. Along with all this, huge internet companies like Youtube (2005), Facebook (2004), Amazon (1994) and Twitter (2006) have all been part of the brain-changing process of Digital Natives.

Secondly, Digital Immigrants would have had all this technology been introduced to them a fair amount after they were born, forcing them to change the way they think to learn to use it and apply it in their life. Digital Natives however are born into the world of technology and their minds are already accustomed to this new concept straight after birth – leading to a redesigned brain.

Thirdly, due to the absence of technology in the lives Digital Immigrants, they had been forced to limited physical resources such as teachers, textbooks, books, parents and their friends – resulting in a completely opposite mindset of a Digital Natives’. Nowadays, the World Wide Web is a very crucial system which has a wealth of information to be shared. Social media platforms enable and encourage international mindedness and opens up Digital Natives to a wider perspective, yet again altering their minds to learn in a completely new way to Digital Immigrants.

In my school I think it has definitely moved to a more modern Digital-Native-like mindset as technology is being and integrated more into our learning. In terms of hardware there are IT suites with iMacs for each student in the class (plus even more Macbook Airs for portability); Flat screen TVs have been placed on walls around the school and finally all classrooms have a smart board accompanied by a stereo sound system. Software has also been used to enhance our learning such as the use of programs such as Quizlet and Kahoot equipped with games and puzzles to help retain information, and most importantly the main school system Firefly which asserts the Prensky’s points of instantaneity and random access – where teachers can share resources and make it easier to see when tasks are due. This concept of an online diary can be a substitute for a physical one, which Digital Natives may prefer.

I asked my parents what they thought of Prensky’s terms and definitions and as expected was informed that they agree with it and find that they fit the category of a Digital Immigrant. Next, I asked my sister for her opinions and that was quite fascinating. She said that due to the year she was born (1996), she would be a Digital Native, but she also discussed how she does not think these terms would fit in other 3^rd world countries as technology would have been introduced much later on compared to 1^st world countries – thus the terms are also affected by socioeconomic status. Moreover, she also spoke about how the influence of social media affects what type of Digital Native you are, so if you were born before social media kicked off or before.

In this article, the social/ethical issues that have been raised are: Policies, Globalisation, People and machines, Equality of Access and Standards.

In my opinion, I think Prensky has introduced a very important and significant opinion which most people would agree to. The terms Digital Native and Digital Immigrant can be applicable to most people in 1^st world countries but I think it would not for 3^rd world countries. This is because the time when technology was introduced to them was different compared to other more developed countries, so their definition of a Digital Natives and Immigrants would be different. On the other hand, I do also believe that schools have had a good start in incorporating the use of technology in teaching, but I would hope that in the future my school would further integrate its use. For certain professions I believe the conventional way of learning seems to be the most efficient, but most professions could have a little more mixture with technology. For the time being I am happy learning from both the “old” way and “new” way as it bests suits me and my learning.

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• The terrifying, hidden reality of Ridiculously Complicated Algorithms

  ““Weapons of math destruction” is how the writer Cathy O’Neil describes the nasty and pernicious kinds of algorithms that are not subject to the same challenges that human decision-makers are. Parole algorithms (not Jure’s) can bias decisions on the basis of income or (indirectly) ethnicity. Recruitment algorithms can reject candidates on the basis of mistaken identity. In some circumstances, such as policing, they might create feedback loops, sending police into areas with more crime, which causes more crime to be detected.”

  Tags: ITGS, algorithm, complex, functions, control, policiesandstandards

  • – By dr tech

• Deepfakes: The face-swapping software – BBC News

  Tags: ITGS, deepfake, video, authenticity, peopleandmachines

• See How Technology is Changing Traditional Teenage Dating in Cambodia | Short Film Showcase – YouTube

  Tags: ITGS, peopleandmachines, smartphones, dating, globalisation

• Instagram is supposed to be friendly. So why is it making people so miserable? | Technology | The Guardian

  “But, for a growing number of users – and mental health experts – the very positivity of Instagram is precisely the problem. The site encourages its users to present an upbeat, attractive image that others may find at best misleading and at worse harmful. If Facebook demonstrates that everyone is boring and Twitter proves that everyone is awful, Instagram makes you worry that everyone is perfect – except you.”

  Tags: ITGS, instagram, social media, people and machines, health, addictive

  • – By dr tech

• Cloud computing and DRM: a match made in hell / Boing Boing

  “In a world of cloud computing, everything we do is governed by tens of thousands of words of legal fine-print (including the fine print that warned Mr da Silva that his movies might stop working if he changed the region associated with his Itunes account) that no one (including Mr da Silva, and you, and me) has ever, ever read (famously so!).”

  Tags: ITGS, DRM, cloud, policiesandstandards, globalisation

  • – By dr tech

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