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Never mind social media, how about social hacking?
One of the basic tools of any good hacker has always been the ability to utilize the concept of social engineering as made famous by people like Kevin Mitnick and the Badir Brothers. The idea being -– according to Wikipedia — that “All social engineering techniques are based on specific attributes of human decision-making known as cognitive biases. These biases, sometimes called "bugs in the human hardware," are exploited in various combinations to create criminal attack techniques.”
While this type of ploy has been used to gain access to computer systems for various reasons, it also raises an interesting idea of it being used to get people to willingly do things on the Web that they might not think of doing on their own. Its possible that this is just another form of the mob mentality that we see in things like flash mobs, but isn't this just another form of social hacking?
Long before things like social networks and social media were the hot buzzwords used to spark VC feeding frenzies, Web forums and newsgroups were the main social communication tool. People would scour Web forums to spread news about people or products, good or bad. The overall effect of this type of promotion was usually limited, but it was still possible to get people riled up over something on a much larger scale.
Then along came blogs and the ability to instantly publish or comment about a person or a product. It provided a much easier way to galvanize people into acting, even if only verbally. To this mix now come things like Twitter, FriendFeed, Facebook, or any number of instant social tools that can broadcast your message instantly around the world to a potentially unlimited number of people. The effect being that within minutes you can galvanize an immense number of people into a single action.
One of the best of the classic online flash mobs can be seen anytime anyone says something negative about Apple products. The moment someone posts something like this, whether on a Web forum or a blog, you can be sure that in very short order the site will be inundated with Apple’s faithful arguing against whatever has been said. This varies from intelligent discussion to hateful things being said about the person who wrote the post.
Bring this forward to today and we see, as Svetlana Gladkova at Profy.com points out in a post, just how easy it could be to cause a major news group to pull down a service because of a social hack.
CNN editors expected to receive opinions from the site’s main target audience (which definitely is not in Russia) but what it received instead were mainly votes from Russia with the first answer getting 92% of votes (or over 329 thousand of people).
How did this happen? Very simple actually. The information about the CNN poll quickly made it to the Russian blogosphere (it is impossible to determine where it all started because of the huge number of posts on the topic) and bloggers started encouraging their readers to go to CNN and vote for the first option. The news was quickly disseminated over an enormous number of the Russian blogs and the results were predictable: 92% supported the official point of view of Russia.
The reality is that even with the simple social media tools that we have today it would be incredibly easy to use them to organize people unknowingly to attack the Web presence of a person or brand. Just as we can see daily on services like Twitter, where people are being directed to charities or new products, this group mentality could potentially be used as in the CNN story to cause damage. Why use things like botnets when you can just as easily obtain the same results by using social media - and it’s legal to boot.
Is it really that large of a step before incidents like the one that happened with CNN become part of the norm? Are we really beyond being used in such a way without even realizing that we have been a part of a social hack attack? Would you even realize it if you had been socially hacked? One of the basic tools of any good hacker has always been the ability to utilize the concept of social engineering as made famous by p... more -
Emperor - Chapter 10
Myth, Magic & Medicine:
A Look at the Sociology of Cannabis Use Throughout World History
Contrary to popular perception,” marijuana” is not a phenomenon rooted in the 1960s.
Cannabis hemp is part of our global heritage and was the backbone of our most stable and longest surviving cultures.
Recent psycho-pharmacological studies have discovered that THC has its own unique receptor sites in the brain, indicating man and marijuana have a pre-cultural relationship—indeed, human culture could very well prove to be the blossom of our symbiosis with cannabis. (See Appendix) Myth, Magic & Medicine: A Look at the Sociology of Cannabis Use Throughout World History ... more -
'Imitative obesity': fat friends can make you fat
Since people are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them, having fat friends can cause you to put on weight too, researchers suggest.
An international study based on data on 27,000 people across Europe dubbed the phenomenon "imitative obesity" - or "keeping up with the Joneses" on calories.
Researchers suggest choices about appearance - on which decisions such as job offers or being deemed attracted - are based are determined by the choices others around you make. So, if people around you are fat, it is ok for you to be fat too.
Professor Andrew Oswald at the University of Warwick said: "Consumption of calories has gone up but that does not tell us why people are eating more. Some have argued that obesity has been produced by cheaper food, but if fatness is a response to greater purchasing power, why do we routinely observe that rich people are thinner than poor people?"
He said: "A lot of research into obesity, which has emphasised sedentary lifestyles or human biology or fast-food, has missed the key point. Rising obesity needs to be thought of as a sociological phenomenon not a physiological one. People are influenced by relative comparisons, and norms have changed and are still changing." Since people are subconsciously influenced by the weight of those around them, having fat friends can cause you to put on weight too, ... more -
Too much choice makes one stupid?
Have you ever tried to find a movie amongst your best friend's monster collection and not been satisfied? Or stared at a restaurant menu with so many choices you can't decide? If so, you're not alone. Barry Schwartz makes a good argument of how our expanding smorgasbord of choices in western culture may actually limit us...
Could this really be affecting our culture and nation? Have you ever tried to find a movie amongst your best friend's monster collection and not been satisfied? Or stared at a restaura... more -
Agressive womens are more likely to have sons.
Women who are dominant and agressive are more likely to give birth to sons than daughters accrdring to a new study. The link could explain socialoogical phenomena such as 'the war time effect' when disproportionate amounts of boys are born at the end of periods of hardship such as wars. Women who are dominant and agressive are more likely to give birth to sons than daughters accrdring to a new study. The link could exp... more
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Straight Outta Hunters Point 2 | A Kevin Epps Film
Mastamind Productions presents A Kevin Epps Film.
This is the movie trailer to the highly anticipated film "Straight Outta Hunters Point 2" Mastamind Productions presents A Kevin Epps Film. ... more -
Are Millennials selfish or healthy?
What do you guys think, are the kids just graduating college and entering the work force totally self-absorbed, selfish babies? Should we do what they say in the video and coddle them and expect calls from their parents about their performance reviews? Do WE have to change how business operates to fit the way they are? Should they just suck it up and get with the program? If they don't will they just be poor or will we change so that we have a work force?
This is a confusing one that has me really thinking. What do you guys think, are the kids just graduating college and entering the work force totally self-absorbed, selfish babies? Shoul... more -
Living in a Bubble
In the middle of Florida is a town so perfect, it feels like it's been ripped from a Hollywood screenplay. Resident's affectionately call this place the "bubble" but to outsiders, it's known as Celebration. Celebration, Florida has a unique history and it's redefining the way one looks at small town America. Take a trip inside the bubble with Current TV. In the middle of Florida is a town so perfect, it feels like it's been ripped from a Hollywood screenplay. Resident's affect... more
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West Oakland, California - A War Zone
"You can see somebody get killed, but you ain't gonna tell nobody," she said. "You ain't about to be next. Don't even ask me."
- San Francisco Chronicle "You can see somebody get killed, but you ain't gonna tell nobody," she said. "You ain't about to be next. Do... more -
Digital News and Media Evolution
The Digital News Affairs Conference in Brussels featured more than 50 speakers from the media world's leading editorial, marketing and business teams. The subject of this year's event was 'How to survive the digital news age' - a discussion of how news organisations need to change the way they work in order to maintain market share and influence in a rapidly changing media landscape. Monocle's Culture Editor Robert Bound talked to some of the leading lights to get their sides of the argument in the cross-platform media debate. The Digital News Affairs Conference in Brussels featured more than 50 speakers from the media world's leading editorial, marketin... more
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Kids Suffer Psychological Effects from EVIL Conditioning Corporate Marketers!!!
"It sounds ominous, and it is... The more involved children are in being consumers, the more [likely they are to be] dissatisfied with life," including having low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, a more distant relationship with their parents, and psychosomatic symptoms, says Boston College sociologist Juliet B. Schor. In her just-released book, "Born to Buy" (Scribner), she details the psychological effects of consumerism on 300 Boston-area 10- to 13-year-olds, the first study of its kind on this age group.
"In a similar study on teens, psychologist Tim Kasser of Knox College in Illinois says students who place a high value on materialism are more likely to have conduct disorders and to engage in risky behaviors such as drinking, smoking, and sex, at early ages...
"In this [shallow consumerism fed to kids by unscrupulous marketers] value system, what gets crowded out is creativity, sharing, kindness, altruism, and compassion," says Linn. She also has a new book for parents, "Consuming Kids, The Hostile Takeover of Childhood" (The New Press).
"As marketers tune in more to childhood development, they're doing a better job of pulling our children in...
"In the face of so much marketing savvy, Linn says, we need to think about the commercial landscape as a huge industry that is working 24/7 to undermine parents and children. "It's a safety issue, like any other safety issue," she says.
"Setting limits is one way to protect children. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no TV under age 2 and no TV in any child's bedroom. For older children, limit it to no more than two hours a day, preferably for all screen-time combined.
"Ultimately, the best antidote is to create a home life where children see more of your values reflected than of consumer values. "As bizarre as it sounds, anchor your family by cooking tasty meals and eating dinner together," says Schor. "It serves as a bulwark, [making] the siren call of the culture not so powerful for them.
"In addition: Instill a social conscience....Avoid logo products, even for babies. When you're looking for day care and preschool, find ones that don't put children in front of TV or videos, and that avoid branded toys. With preteens and teens, talk about the social cost to products. "Marketers can't make much money off a teen with a social conscience who knows that Nike sneakers are made by a [foreign] worker who earned $1 an hour and couldn't go to the bathroom for six hours," Kesser says.
"And if the day comes when your daughter wants Slumber Party In A Box? "Let her know how she is being manipulated," he says. "When middle-school kids realize that some marketer wants them to start a fad so the marketer can make money, they don't feel special anymore. They feel angry.
"Contact Barbara Meltz at meltz@globe.com and join her at noon on the second Wednesday of every month for her online parenting chat at Boston.com. " "It sounds ominous, and it is... The more involved children are in being consumers, the more [likely they are to be] dissatisfied... more -
Creating a Non Violent World - Is it Really Possible?
Introduction—Confronting the Ideological Beast
America is desperately searching for heroes! If this were not true we would not see the incredible success of blockbuster action movies featuring mostly males with superhuman powers who fight for the underdogs by battling greed, injustice, and corruption of power. We have all seen time and again, story after story, encounters between the forces of good and the forces of evil; and we are constantly being challenged to take a side and fight. The emphasis of popular culture in mass media is a perpetuation of violence as the primary solution to the problem of enforcing the American Dream—“The Myth” (Hedges); like Superman fighting for “truth, justice, and the American way of life.” This portrayal of violence as a necessary judicial tool works inevitably to subjugate the most vulnerable people of our planet, namely women and children. It accomplishes this by portraying unrealistic ideologies and distorting and exaggerating differences among race, class, gender, age, sexuality, and especially religion. The media uses images that “shock and awe” our sensibilities—causing us to constantly react—deflecting our attention away from resistance and away from collective empowerment. “One of the most obvious signs of widespread acceptance of violence is the amount of it that routinely appears in media.” (Wood 314) Violence has become a pervasive part of our reality causing us to react with fear—a state in which we can be easily controlled and manipulated.
The media is a multinational enterprise—an “Eminent Domain”—which is the luxury of a privileged few who influence our popular culture and control the mechanism through which the mythologies of popular culture are transfixed. Its primary existence serves to preserve their control of global socio-economics in posterity by bombarding us with so much violence that we scarcely have time to be aware of the fact that we are being manipulated. However, there are those subtle geniuses who emerge from the frontlines and through personal experience have concluded that the status quo is a never ending merry-go-round leading to the annihilation of both sides. In other words, they have come to realize that hero fixation is a sickness that symbiotically—Ying Yang, 69—enforces victimization. These geniuses work behind the scenes influencing the media content, often changing its’ focus or challenging accepted norms. Although there are many people who are actively participating in efforts to transform the socio-economic landscape on many different fronts whether through academia, media, or politics, the most effective means to communicate ideas is through writing. Introduction—Confronting the Ideological Beast ... more -
New study: 1 in 5 men in touch with feminine side
A Cambridge University study found 17% of men have "female brains", while 14% of women have a "masculine brain".
The study found the sex of a brain is decided in the womb and depends, among other factors, on hormone levels.
The team believes it may help explain why some men - such as David Beckham - have several key "female" traits such as keen fashion sense.
What do you guys feel about this? Does this have rammifications in today's moral arguments? And for fun, who are some other celebrities that this brings to mind? Andy Dick anyone? A Cambridge University study found 17% of men have "female brains", while 14% of women have a "masculine brain". ... more -
Great Firewall of China Faces Online Rebels - New York Times
How the people of China are becoming aware of the invisible censorship that is taking place right above their heads (i.e. The Great Firewall). How the people of China are becoming aware of the invisible censorship that is taking place right above their heads (i.e. The Great Fi... more
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The art of "Principled Negotiation" - check it out, you might learn a th...
We made this slide show as part of a project for our class on Human Relations. This segment is on the "art of principled negotiation".
It is a negotiating technique that more of our government officials should use when dealing with all the sorts of issues they deal with. Heck it might even work on terrorists, too.
Give it a look see and tell me what you think.
Special thanks to Purple Planet for the use of their music.
JD Jaramillo (New Millenium Productions, Eugene, OR) 1999
New Millenium Productions is now Affordable Media Productions as of 2005. We made this slide show as part of a project for our class on Human Relations. This segment is on the "art of principled negotiat... more -
Who are the Wobblies? The first Underdogs to Fight the Fat Cats!
I went to the see the film in a theater at the college I attended. It was an assignment for a writing class on film as literature and it was called the "Fat Cats and Underdogs" Series. Below is an excerpt from my essay I wrote about the film, sort of like a film review. Check it out if you like. The video above is a clip from the film on Youtube. If you ever get the chance to see this film it will make you cry. Not only for them then, but for us now. Because the Fat Cats are at it again. A little history repeating.
?The Wobblies?Setting the Record Straight About Syndicalism?
This documentary evoked a complex array of emotional and intellectual reactions in me. I left the theater feeling like the world hasn?t changed much in the last 100 years in some very basic and fundamental ways. The same distinction between the haves and the have-nots still prevails as the fundamental order. In fact, I think that the situation is much worse because the stakes are much higher. Now governments and multinational corporations have the power through technology to destroy the entire planet in their quest for greater power, riches, and control. This country was founded on certain principles that the Wobblies believed in namely free speech, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. However, the Wobblies are presented as criminals in the opening sequence of this documentary, because that is how they were perceived by the general public due to efforts by the media to vilify them through the use of political cartoons and slogans. Although the Wobblies struggles didn?t necessarily result in their own immediate happiness (many of the individuals interviewed recounted how they were inhumanely treated by people in positions of power), it paved the way for future generations to better pursue the American dream of equality. The IWW and the Wobblies represented an important movement in American history?the labor movement. What shocked me most of all, in the films portrayal of historical events, was how quickly the Bill of Rights could be dismissed by our government and that the Wobblies could be treated with such disregard in the political, social, and economic climate of the time. It seems clear to me that the intention of this documentary is to construct sympathy for the ideas represented by the IWW and to clarify long held misconceptions about this noble organization. The main question this documentary challenged me to consider is whether or not the dream of equality is attainable now, or ever given how firmly entrenched the ruling class has become.
Jon Jaramillo 1999 I went to the see the film in a theater at the college I attended. It was an assignment for a writing class on film as literature and ... more -
Is your family any better than mine? Gender, Class, Ethnicity & Family Inequal...
The complex diversity of human ethnicity is a testament to human adaptability and resilience. Our libraries and schools are now filled with volumes written about unique and independent social systems that have coexisted for millennia throughout the planet. There are countless examples to choose from that run the gamut of human kin group possibilities?some egalitarian, some totalitarian. There is not one set standard, from an anthropological or sociological point of view that is constant with regard to marriage, or what constitutes a kin group. There are many complex individual psychological processes at work that cause people to bond and form into groups and the most commonly recognized and studied unit is the family. However, for many people at different times in human history, family has meant different things. What most anthropologists and sociologists do agree on is that in every society each individual has a role to play in the social construction of reality. However the situation that the public at large deals with on a daily basis is how to clearly identify individual roles and how to mediate conflicts arising from everyone?s individual pursuit of happiness; where these conflicts are most evident are in the arenas of gender, class, and ethnicity.
Quote from essay by Jon Jaramillo aka Jubal The complex diversity of human ethnicity is a testament to human adaptability and resilience. Our libraries and schools are now filled... more -
Flat Screen TV and Adverts ON YOUR CLOTHES!!!
Have you tried to find clothing lately without brand names or designs all over them? Just simple, well-made clothing? Just wait: Now we're going to have OLEDs manufactured into/onto your clothing and accessories! Imagine the branding possibilities! And WE will probably not be able to sell ad space. (Actually, I'm sort of wow-ed by the possibility of seeing "Abercrombie & Fitch" displayed in one square inch.... Have you tried to find clothing lately without brand names or designs all over them? Just simple, well-made clothing? Just wait: Now w... more
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Sociology
