The Internet Police by Nate Anderson

The Internet Police: How Crime Went Online, and the Cops Followed, Nate Anderson. New York: Norton, W.W. & Company, Ince., 2013. e-book, 269 pps.

     The Internet Police starts off with a recounting of Ryan Lackey and HavenCo living in a rusty old ocean fort called Sealand. [At one time, Sealand was listed as a micro-nation but I do not know how accurate that description was. It appears from this book that it never was up for squatters' rights]. Stories about John Perry Barlow, stolen laptops, a hacking stalker, e-mail bomb threats, various and sundry F.B.I. spy programs, Smilin' Bob ads on television and the promise of larger penises with pills, the viciousness of RIAA prosecution, spam, and the darknet.

sapphoq reviews says: For those who have an inadequate grasp on why the rest of us are so angry at the United States government and the actions of Big Hollywood, The Internet Police is as good a place as any to start. Notably lacking was information about Anonymous, the phone phreaks, and a resolution to the conflicts.
     Nate Anderson is correct that if the Internet winds up with a set of laws, those laws will be designed to placate the countries with the most money and biggest mouths-- the United States for sure, and probably the U.K., and maybe Germany-- and a certain amount of random chaos will be lost. This I think is rather unfortunate because we need makers and creators and hackers in order for society to thrive.
     The assumption that anonymity on the internet is "bad" is an unfortunate one that some percentage of the population continue to believe. I've seen vicious attacks on Fake Book where [it is assumed] that [cough, cough] folks who hang there are doing so under their wallet names and wallet info.
     Until the United States dismantles or revamps the N.S.A., I cannot condone any call for Internet i.d. numbers or registration before using a computer on-line. I don't trust the gatherers of information and at this point I certainly do not trust my government. 
     In spite of my personal misgivings, The Internet Police is an interesting read. Recommended.

Ghost Whisperer "Slam" Season 3, Episode 11

The other night, I had the "opportunity" to watch the show Ghost Whisperer staring Jennifer Love Hewitt.  For reasons that escape me, Skeptic-of-the-Highest-Order housemate has become quite taken with the show.  Consequently, the other night was not my first "opportunity" to watch Ghost Whisperer.

Jennifer Love Hewitt stars as a woman who sees and speaks with dead people.  Live people wind up within her vicinity and they invariably have trouble with a ghostie.  The typical pattern of the show is that first she has to convince the live person or the dead person or both to allow her to help.  The live people are usually a bit put out by the woman who talks with spooks.  They become converts with a bit of "artful" persuasion and dialogue that sounds like a pamphlet for the local Spiritualist Church (albeit without the seances).  Sometimes the dead people are adamant that they are not going anywhere.  That changes of course by the end of the show.   Ghost Whisperer always concludes with the ghost being enchanted by and being absorbed by "the Light" of the new-agers.

The particular episode I watched the other night was called "Slam" [after "slambook"].  It was episode 11 of season 3.  "Slam" was notable because Jennifer Love Hewitt's character Melinda Gordon goes into a monologue about how anonymity on the internet turns everyone into big meanie poop-heads.  The speech is stilted and artificial.  One more reason to hate Big Hollywood as well as the push for everyone to give up their wallet info to the Watchers of the Web.  Hallelujah-- not.

"Slam" purported to be an online slam-book for kids in the local high school.  Even the popular kids were subject to written abuse left anonymously via entries under their names.  Of course, some vicious entries were left on pages and a kid died.  Since anyone could write anything on anyone else's page without leaving their own real names, golly gee willikers people die and stuff, m'kay?

I know that people have committed suicide based on what other people have said about them on-line.  That is not the issue I have with this particular episode of Ghost Whisperer.  The problem is that the issue of quasi-security vs. privacy is complex and multi-factorial.  In some countries, to expose one's identity is fraught with danger.  Social media has become one way in which radicals and dissidents can connect and fight for change.  Being an out atheist in Pakistan did not have the greatest outcome for one atheist in particular recently.  Sending e-mail to American relatives from a Vietnamese cybercafe has always been risky business.  Not to mention people who have had to escape domestic violence situations-- it's bad enough that our laws do not adequately protect them from battering partners and ex-partners.  For the producers to write in such blatant propaganda into Ghost Whisperer smacked of Big Hollywood advocating for Big Data.  NSA anyone?  Hello hello.

sapphoq reviews says:  The blanket statement that we should just hand over our wallet info and become part of Big Data in the name of quasi-security is not something that should have been interjected into a show about a woman who talks to dead people.  Recently, a popular business magazine published a piece on how business owners should jump on the Big Data bandwagon.  Since the NSA is so interested in our trivialities and what we say online, why shouldn't the savvy sellers of merchandise and commodities everywhere profit from the sudden move towards transparency on the part of everyone in order to benefit the shadowy Big Government?  Monsanto continues to poison the wheat and The Patriot Act has ensured that we as a country will continue to be insane and misinformed puppets.  Ghost Whisperer is not a show that I would recommend to anyone with two brain cells left to rub together.