Final Topic: Overall Group Blog Discussion

post your reflections on the comment section below..

Who Owns the Internet?

The Internet.

The Internet is a cooperative, public and self-sustaining facility available to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. It tears down boundaries everywhere. For many Internet users, Internet or sometimes called simply "the Net" is the fastest and easiest way to gather information and communicate with others.

The Internet was first known as the ARPANet, conceived by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. government in 1969. The initial aim was to create a network that would allow users of a research computer at one university to be able to "talk to" research computers at other universities. The internet is basicly a worlwide system of computer networks. It is a network of networks in which users at any accesssible computer can get information from any other computer.

Who's Regulates The Net?

Almost ANYTHING can be found on the Internet and all of this are available at our fingertips. So the question that most Internet users will ask is, WHO OWNS IT?

No one actually owns the Internet, and no single person or organization controls the Internet in its entirety. There are many governments, corporations, organizations, schools, private citizens and service providers that all own pieces of the infrastructure, but there is no one body that owns it all.

There are, however, organizations that standardize and regulates what happens on the Internet and assign IP addresses and domain names, such as the ICANN, InterNIC, the Internet Architecture Board, National Science Foundation and the Internet Engineering Task Force.

Internet Censorship? Yay or Nay?

Since the existence of the internet, there have been countless attempts to censor it. Most users believe that the Internet should be a place where all information is allowed to flow freely and available to everyone. However, most countries and governments do not share this belief. I, as an Internet user, support this, but not entirely. Why? These are the reasons.

Internet censorship falls into three categories; security, social norms and the most controversial, politics.

Out of all these categories, I do not support censorship for political reasons. This is always considered problematic in countries where rulers are trying to hold on to power in which they do not have free and fair elections. The censorship is usually to make sure that information that could be a threat to the ruling powers does not get seen by the people. This is really a burden to minority groups that are trying to free the people from government oppression.

The next category is to protect social norms. This type of censorship gets support from all over the world including me, like laws against child pornography or hate speech. For some countries, sites that are seen to promote homosexuality are often censored because they differ from the predominant religion.

The third category is for security reasons. Sites that belong to terrorist groups and extremists are blocked. Making sure that sensitive yet dangerous information is not made available to public. Clearly, this type of information can be a threat to national security and the safety of the people as well.

The Internet is an open sea and obviously that most forms of censorship can fall into more than one category. Let's hope that these censorships are not abused by the authorities.

Written by,
Muhammad Muzzammil Bin Jamaludin
1121115343

Existence of Internet Censorship

Should Internet Censorship Exist?

Internet censorship has been around quite a time already, but suddenly they are getting aggressive such as north korea where they cut off connection from other country (Internet). For myself, internet have been an excellent information provider not only that, i can interact with the people outside my country and know what happen to certain interest that i really into. Example, for me right now i really into animation because currently  study about it. Currently i know what happen with animation industry and what currently they are doing for me it's a great information. What happen if there is no internet, even if there is book, they still can't get update as fast as we use the internet. For me there is 2 type of censorship i already note one.

i didn't say Internet Censorship is a bad thing, there still good happen where certain country blocked porn or something inappropriate for people to know/watch. Malaysia, country that i live in, Currently they blocked all porn websites and sharing file websites. Which is good, i know as a student we can't afford to buy expensive software but there is trial version for student.

Who's Regulates the Internet ?

I think there is 2 organization that regulate, there's government organization and other organization such The internet society, internet architecture board, ICANN. org and WorldWideWeb Consortium and also this is the information about Country that use Internet Censorship from http://www.liveatpc.com/black-holes-of-the-internet

1. Belarus – The government has a total monopoly over telecommunications and does not hesistate to block opposition websites if it feels the need.

2. Burma/Myanmar – Touted to have the most repressive policies in the world. Filters opposition websites, Internet cafes take screenshots of computers every 5 minutes to monitor activity. Internet telephony and GTalk were blocked.

3. China – People are arrested and jailed for expressing themselves too freely. Bloggers are required to register with the government.

4. Cuba – Less than two percent of the population are online. Citizens can only connect via public access points like Internet cafes or school Internet clubs. Illegally connecting to the Internet could result in five years jail.

5. Egypt – Pressured citizens to keep in line, without actually blocking anything. Pressure became too great and things got out of hand in the form of a revolution.

6. Iran – Filters “immoral” websites, usually porn, politics and religion. Iran also banned broadband connections, the excuse given was that they did not want to strain the aging telecommunications network.

7. North Korea – Only certain officials have internet access. That is all.

8. Saudi Arabia – Doesn’t even bother hiding its censorship. Clearly tells users that certain websites are banned. Usually porn is blocked, but they also target opposition, israeli sites and LGBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transsexual, a catchcall term for gay rights). Tried to block blogs as a whole but gave up.

9. Syria – Cyber-dissidents are systematically tortured. Bans access to opposition sites and site dealing with the Kurdish minority.

10. Tunisia – All internet cafes are state controlled. Security forces harass bloggers and editors to self-censor.

11. Turkmenistan – The North Korea of central Asia.

12. Uzbekistan – Blocks access to most independent websites dealing with Uzbekistan, which are usually hosted on servers in Russia, and to NGO websites that criticise its human rights violations.

13. Vietnam – Arrests cyber-dissidents, but is softening its control due to international pressure.

For me i accept internet censorship in my country because i still can use internet for my current interest.

Has The Internet Crossed The Line!!??

In modern times, the internet has been the most useful technology which is really mostly helps us not in our daily lives but to our personal and live developments too. As we know that the internet has helps us to achieve in several ways so that our lives would become much easier. For much example is that we as student uses the internet to find reliable sources for educational purposes, but there are some people who's using it for creating damage control, or should i say disaster!

Who's Regulates The Internet?

As far we know that there isn't a government or organization country that regulates the internet, thus the laws are still been written to protect the intellectual properties. Still, there are some internet regulation buddies that has been work in behind the scenes in order to maintain the internet keep everything running smoothly.

Here some of the organization or groups that been working and maintaining the internet.Some of the groups such like W3C, one of the five global groups that been worked together with full time shift that they develop the web standards. For such a big problem on the internet, The Internet Society, which is the organization group for the Internet infrastructure standards, has been providing a leadership in which they need to deal some serious issues for the future of the Internet. Others would be the Internet Architecture Board that they responsible for towards the internet standars and oversight.In order to determine the behavior of the web browsers and the web servers, the standards called the Internet Engineering Task Force has been created. For such organization which are InterNic, they're providing the Internet domain name and also the registration services for the public information while ICANN.org, the technical coordination body internet, in which they connect, in other words " reaching " to another peopleon the internet through by typing the address using the computer.

Internet Censorship : Should It Be There ?

In this situation, almost everyone, which would be the Internet user are very furious regarding in the Internet Censorship Issues. In generally, Internet Censorship motivation would be protecting people from unsuitable content to authoritarian attempts to control nation's access. But due to the coward act, which basically done by the government are put their people in danger from knowing the truth.

One of the issue that everybody complaining about the Internet Censorship is for those who support the politics, in which they thought that internet censorship is desire to prevent citizen from the critic the government and get the hands on the updates about the political issues. With heavily censorship such as from country which are been banned the internet, which are China, North Korea, Iran and Syria, are calling for changing for the opposition.  This can lead to chaos envirounment and also posting a defamatory which could be so dangerous if the member from any group had to take it serious.

The other one of the issue for the censorship would be the bunch of group user who's like to download materials from the internet. This leads distributing or receiving the pirated copyright such as we know already that would be music, software, movie that related to the issues.

For me, the censorship of the internet is wrong. Because of this, it can be very disturbing for the adult medium and through this, owners of the internet servers should have know of the possible information that people might found in this medium. This type of issue has reaches the Internet vast areas, and it didn't start and end in some place. This would be very difficulty for every country, in which the Internet came together to set up rules in certain material.

Still, The Internet censorship has it own pro & cons. From my opinion, I would to say Yes, regarding the question that been given, as there a lot of unprotected false info and lacking of internet censorship. For such example that some website that containing porn can demoralized and degenerated our leader, in which this is some restrict lacking that need to improvised so that with the internet censorship, it helps possible to preventing some unecessory content from spreading through such country like Malaysia. That would be all for my opinion and I'm hoped that this content can be prevented.

Cheers!

- Mohamad Fauzi Bin Md Khalid - 1121116914

Internet Censorship: Is It Public "Enemy" or "Justice"

Assalamualaikum.

(source image:http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-r8uQVC4A2dc/Tt2u3-JdgWI/AAAAAAAAADg/TLG5OlfLsGY/s1600/internet-concept.jpg)

As we know internet this day are very useful instrument. Why I say that way is because this day everything we done mostly connected to the internet. Some of us may use internet as a source of intelligence and education purpose, yet there a lot of people out there use the internet for creating chaos or simply just wasting their time. In Malaysia most of people here mainly use internet for entertainment and lifestyle. According to theSundaily  in Dec 2011 the top Malaysian "Zeitgeist"( German for "the spirit of time") are either Facebook,Angry birds and Maharaja Lawak. (source info: http://www.thesundaily.my/news/231625). That's was just a rough explanation about the internet use by Malaysian. 

Internet : Regulated by Who?

Do we ever guess or considerate among us who maintaining and regulating our internet?. Mostly the answer will be "NO".  There is some internet regulation bodies that work hardly for the sake of our entertainment and to make sure the internet running smoothly. Here are some group of organization who regulate our internet:

a) The Internet Society : Contributing leadership skill to confront future mass internet problem and is home to the Internet infrastructure standard. 

b) The Internet Architectural Board : In charge of internet oversight and standard.

c) Internet Engineering Task Force : Open international community consist of people that designs,operates and do some research to the network. 

d) ICANN.org : A technical coordination body for the Internet.

e) PFIR - People for Internet responsibility : A troop of people who concerned regarding the growth of internet for present and future.

So know we know who running the internet from the behind the scenes. I hope that we can acknowledge them for their hardship to make our internet better.

Internet Censorship: WHY?

First of all let us view the video about internet censorship that I found on YouTube. This video for me are quite interesting.  

Generally internet censorship is an act of suppression of the publishing or accessing to the info on the internet. This cowardly act mostly done by some government to put their citizen at bay from knowing the truth about something. From my point of view, I think the internet censorship had it's pros and cons. The benefit of the internet censorship is that some government can control how their citizen behaved and getting information. Example :

         (source image :http://leverageacademy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/China-Censorship.jpg)

With law like that most of the citizen cannot copy or illegally download material from internet. Thus, they need to buy original one. This way the government can generate their economy much better. The downside of internet censorship is prevention from truth and good news. This is due to some of country use the internet censorship to feed their citizen with fraud information and hiding the truth about their government. So for my answer regarding am I agree or not on this matter will be "YES". In Malaysia there is a lot of unprotected false info and lacking of internet censorship. This matter if not unsolved and taken care will be a plague to the nation. Some of the website including porn that can demoralized and degenerated our future leader. This is due lack of restriction on this kind of website from the government. So with the internet censorship, at least we can help to prevent the plague from spreading to our beloved country. That's all from my perspective and I hope this kind of plague can be avoided. 

(source image: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q0t3fvan0cw/T-hNZynWX_I/AAAAAAAAFDM/TPTf5U3tmgU/s640/merdeka1.jpg)

Happy 55th Independence Malaysia

Authored by : Adli Faisal Bin Ahmad Zamri

                       1121116336

Is the Internet really has no boundaries?

   The Internet is one of the main sources for the contribution of innovation, creativity and economic growth in a country.  It provided you the information without boundaries and connected you to many people around the world.  It can be a very useful network if you really know use it wisely, however, it also can be a very scary device when you use it in the wrong way.  It depend on us how we want to make use of it for our good benefits.

Our Internet is under Regulation of who?

   For the time being there are no any specific organization, country or government that are fully regulates the Internet.  As far we know, the Internet is the largest medium of communication and merely has no boundaries. It proved that all the internet protocols are not owned by anybody, instead it can be implemented by anyone.

   However, there are some groups or organizations that were established to keep the internet running smoothly and keep in maintain in the stable positions. The Internet Service Provider are responsible to monitoring and regulating the content.

   To name a few organizations that are working behind the scenes to maintain all the internet services, there a one known as The Internet Society. The main purpose of this society is to provided leadership in any internet issues including policy, governance, technology and development in order to protect the future of internet. 

   World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) also is one of the five leading global organizations where the Member organizations, full-time staff and public work together to develop Web standards.  Beside that, we have the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which acted as a technical coordination body for the Internet.  Another internet regulation body is InterNIC that provides public information regarding the Internet domain name registration services.  There are many other Internet Regulation entities were established such as The Architecture Board (IAB), Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and People for Internet Responsibility (PFIR).

   Despite the existence of these Internet Regulating organizations, it doesn't mean that they are controlling the content in the Internet hundred percent.  Unfortunately, there are organization that existed in some countries to regulates and provided Internet Censorship for some reasons.  For example, China has filtered the web access for any political content.

   Although, there are no official entity that regulates the internet, however laws have been written to protect intellectual properties.  These laws prevent user from using the Internet to distribute or receive pirated copyrighted or trademarked works.

Internet Censorship.  It is Relevant?

   Almost all the Internet user are complaining about the Internet Censorship and many of us will easily become angry regarding this issues.  I agree with the Internet Censorship BUT only in some aspects, not totally the whole Internet content because I believed that even the Internet is the largest source of information and communication, but it also have to be an limitation towards somethings.  Nothing in this world has absolute freedom, every freedom have it own restriction, if everything in this world are freedom without boundaries then human can do anything with their lust.

    From my point of view, mostly those who are really angry about  the Internet Censorship are split into two category.  The first one are those who are really into the politics, with the internet censorship they though that the regulation are only to prevent citizen's from critic the government and get latest update about current political issues.  Yes, of course it is true in some country such as China, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Vietnam have already banned the Internet and only few people can access but with the heavily censorship, mostly website that critic the government, call for changing and related to the opposition.  This is a very nonhuman action towards the freedom of speech and hinder the educational process.  This kind of Internet censorship should not be happening in any country in this world.  However, like I said earlier, nothing in this world have an absolute freedom including the freedom of speech.  I agree if the government filter a bit only the content that related to dissemination of defamatory and seditious content or materials.  Sometimes people make mistakes in their excitement involved in politic or maybe their really angry and exceed the limit of consciousness.  This will lead them to posting a seditious or defamatory content which can be dangerous if the audience from regardless of any party take it to serious and can lead to chaotic conditions in the future.  This kind of censorship I think it should be have because to ensure the better future of our country.

  The second category of people who are strongly oppose this censorship is a group of people who are really love to download entertainment materials from the internet.  This is also know as distributing or receiving the pirated copyrighted such as music, video, films, software and anything related to copyright issues.  As a student and also came from a moderate-income family, I understand that most of us don't even have money to buy the original software that will cost hundreds Ringgit or an original DVD and music album, the money that we have can be use to any other important things.  However, if we only think about our self, about our situation, it means that we are selfish and does not try to understand other people situation.  Can you imagine? You spend thousands, hundreds thousand or maybe millions for the production cost then suddenly people stole it from you, what do you feels?  The production cost for let say a music album for an artist can be cost at from as low as RM 15,000 to RM60,000 per album.  Its included how much songs in the album, producer fees, Printing Album cover, studio rent per hour (usually RM80 per hour but recording sessions can be more than 10 hours per day)), Mixing and Mastering and many more, it does not include the promotional cost (you can check on the details of production cost in here: http://www.oops-asia.com/eForumMaster.cfm?&menuid=65&&action=detail&RoomID=14).  Can you feel pity for them for what you did?  For me, of cause I feel sad because I can get any entertainment but I can't say anything because they have the right to censored their masterpiece.  There are always an alternative ways to get all the entertainment.

  Beside the two cases above, I agree the censorship for certain websites for example that are related to pornographic.  It is to ensure that internet are safe for children, not just the children that should be avoid the pornographic content, it is also not good for the adult because it will lead to sex violence, harassment, and rape.  YES, there are number of filtered software out there, even today website browser have the function of filtering the websites, but how many website that web can filter when there are thousands websites that have this content today?  That is why the Internet Censorship is needed in this way.  Here I provided you the good example why the internet censorship is important.  This article is in Malay but the point is how teenagers today misuse the internet facilities to satisfied themselves. 15 years old boy record his sex scene and use it to threaten his girlfriend.

   Well, nevertheless, this is just my opinion anyway, I know many of you out there will be against my thought but I just write it for us to think the consequences.  It up to you to agree or not.

Thanks. 

-Nur Syazwan Arasy 1121115385-

Are Facebook a "Threat" or an "Enhance" person Social Link

Assalamualaikum.

As we all know, this era most of the people in this planet know the famous social media that been called "Facebook". Before I go deeper about the topic given to me, I would like to talk briefly about Facebook for those who still doesn't know this booming social media. Facebook was develop by Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004. Initially Facebook are only for  Harvard student but this social networking just keep growing  until it became a big hit in late August 2008. Now days, Facebook has more then 900 active user and still growing. To coop with this large crowd and keep the user entertain, Facebook released a lot of feature and application.

One of recently controversial feature are the Facial Recognition Features  developed by Facebook. I'm was unaware of this new features until one of my lecturer post this article : http://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2011/08/08/facebooks-privacy-issues-are-even-deeper-than-we-knew/ . 

The Facial Recognition is a system that allowed the user to identified people by simply uploading picture and the Facebook will cross references in their database to find the person in the picture. Therefore all the information about the person in the picture will be revealed to others to view. This system make some people information vulnerable and unprotected by the user of the Facebook.

Most of the vulnerable person mainly woman, teenage girl and little girl due to ease of access information.  This make them a victim to raping and human trafficking. But this features are not completed yet. this is due to some bug in the feature that had need to be fixed before the featured reach it true potential. This what I find on YouTube while trying to understanding what is the facial recognition. http://youtu.be/NexhJG8C250

Would I still stay on the Facebook after knowing this?, well my answer will be YES. This is due to a lot of my friend and my families use Facebook for sharing information and connecting with new one. For me Facebook is one of my way to post my artwork and promote myself as an animator. Therefore for the time being, I will still used Facebook for communicating and sharing information. 

Manuring By: Adli Faisal Bin Ahmad Zamri - 1121116336