EOTO Post #2

Five Eyes

    The Five Eyes is a coalition of countries that came together to be proactive in matters of protecting from foreign threats. Another name for the organization is the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group. Essentially, it's an intelligence alliance between the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK that was established post WWII in the UKUSA agreement of 1946. These countries collectively work together in pooling resources and sharing sensitive information to keep each other up to date on what's going on around the world. 

    Later on the Five Eyes became the Nine Eyes when they added in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, and Norway. After that they continued to open their group up to become the Fourteen Eyes expanded now with the addition of countries: Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and Sweden. The rules for these additions to the original Five Eyes are not entirely clear, but from what is understood, surveillance is not entirely out of the question. 

The group is a non-political intelligence team that provides oversight, review, and security for the countries involved. The council members exchange their views on subjects of mutual interest or concern, as well as comparing the best practices for review and oversight methodology. They explore their different vantages of mutual interest, and encourage transparency to the largest extent possible with each other. 

    This has sparked a global debate on privacy of citizens and the boundaries of which national security should abide by. The main purpose of this organization is to provide a framework for the sharing of intelligence data among the core countries. 

    It's important for citizens to understand exactly what it is that they're gathering under the term "signals intelligence." The goal is to collect two different things one being communications intelligence, so intercepting voice communications and text communications; the other being electronic intelligence, signals from radars or surface-to-air missile systems. 

    This surveillance is mainly aimed at protecting against geopolitical adversaries such as China, Russia, and Iran, etc. but this doesn't mean other countries are excluded from this overhead watch. In a documentary by Eric Snowden, it was actually proven that the US is paying the UK's GCHQ to spy on citizens and then sharing the information with NSA because the UKUSA Agreement offers a work around to the otherwise illegal action of wiretapping citizens.

    The entire idea of the Five Eyes is a double-edged sword because it represents the power to uphold national security and tackle global threats (great for our security), yet puts our privacy and individual rights at risk at the same time. It's extremely worrying that our digital footprints could be accessed and read / listened to without our knowledge and consent at any point. The argument the government has for this is that if you are a law-abiding citizen, then you should have nothing to worry about and the government looking in on what you're up to shouldn't be too big of a deal. 

    It's important to note though, that phone-line tapping became legal after 9/11 in the US under the Patriot Act, there's been many attempts at striking down this invasion of privacy, but Congress has allowed for this surveillance to continue. Different ways citizens can protect themselves from the Five Eyes lurking on their personal devices is using VPNs, and being mindful about what websites your visiting while online. 

Blog Post #6

Diffusion Theory of Innovation: Instant Messaging

    Instant Messaging through the lens of the Diffusion Theory of Innovation is extremely interesting, has instant messaging had a slow start to getting created, but once it was up and running the whole world get in on the action. 

    I think Instant Messaging caught on so quick, simply because it was a new and exciting way to communicate with people that didn't involve calls. I know email was obviously around prior, and helped to progress the creation of Instant Messaging but it wasn't a preferred way for people to communicate about casual business. Now, users had a way of communicating that was for one instant, two relatively easy to do, and had means of sticking around. 

    Some people might've been late adopters because of lack of knowledge, mistrust in the technology (privacy wise), age, and access. Nowadays, I don't really think there's anyone living in the modern world that doesn't use instant messaging. Not only through the basic applications, but also through all the app variations. It's such a wide spread, everyday used method of communication that unless you have no cell-service or don't believe in technology as a whole, you are most likely using IM to talk to your friends, family, co-workers, etc on a daily basis. 

    I would say the downsides to IM are that people are having less face-to-face interactions to talk about the little things, users are becoming too comfortable behind screens, and overall communication has become less personal. On some applications, such as Snapchat, I know there are definitely some downsides as people are under a false sense of comfort that their messages delete after 24 hours. This might seem true as they disappear from your device, but all messages are always backed up onto company servers, nothing on the internet ever truly disappears.  

    A lot of people, especially parents urge their children to not partake in IM applications unless they are the normal iMessage app. I remember when I was in elementary school I would talk to my best friend via emails, then as I got older I was able to text my friends, eighth grade I got instagram (my first ever form of social media), somewhere in high school I got a tiktok, senior year I got on facebook, then only my freshmen year of college did I get on Snapchat; and honestly, I think it saved me from a whirlwind of internet trauma. 

    I think using IM intentionally and learning the dangers of the internet prior to getting on these platforms is what changes the experience for people using them. My parents were both heavily involved in cybersecurity so my entire life I've been very educated ad aware of whats going on online. But that doesn't mean I didn't partake in those outlets, quite the opposite because I was exposed to technology at such a young age and understood the difference between what's really private and what's fake private I can enjoy my time on the internet and sleep soundly at night that there won't be anything online to come to the surface in 20 years. 

Blog Post #5

EOTO Reaction #1

    On our first EOTO presentation day, a classmate gave a very informative presentation on the radio and how it impacted different sects of society. I thought it was very well-done and made me think about the radio in a way I hadn't quite done so before. 

    The basic history he went over was that in 1899 Guglielmo Marconi created the first version of the radio. He began his research and experimentation in 1894, following the work of James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz. His beginning transmissions had the range of about 1.5 miles, which was enough for Marconi to announce the potential of this new communication method.

    Then in 1906 Reginald Fessenden discovered the first long distance broadcast. He was a pioneer in the radio world when he achieved the first ever music and voice long distance broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1906. He was interested in transmitting continuous sound (specifically human voice) versus Marconi who just wanted to send messages out. His idea was to superimpose an electrical signal, which oscillates at the frequencies of sound waves, upon a radio wave of constant frequency, which modulates the amplitude of the radio wave into the shape of the sound wave. Today this is what we call AM radio or Amplitude Modulation. 

    This was all followed by what brought us to our version of the radio in 1933 with the first FM broadcast by Edwin Armstrong. After securing four different patents on advanced circuit systems, Armstrong was able to solve the last basic problems with the radio, bringing us from transmitters to receivers. His new system changed how radios work because instead of varying the amplitude, or power of radio his method varied the waves' frequency. This became known as Frequency Modulation, or how we call it today FM Radio. 

    I think what made this presentation especially interesting to me though was learning about how the invention of the radio impacted politics in the US. For example post World War II, Winston Churchill's famous speech being broadcasted across radio stations, or FDR's fireside chats. I was shocked to learn that the first presidential debate on radio was in 1948, and that it was the republican primary of all things. The impact the radio has had on not only communication is clear, as it's been able to grow the news, sporting events, music, and political communications to new levels.