Reflection on Writing my first paper in ENG 200

(during September 2005)

I had a hard time starting the dam paper. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to write about. I can tell you that I had information on the issue of Internet fraud, already. I didn’t really feel motivated to start writing the paper. The teacher got mad at me because we needed an outline and thesis by Wednesday. I said to my self, sugar! (But) I talked to him about it, after class. I had a hard time with how I was going to structure the paper, but after talking to Will, I had a focus of what I wanted to do, considering that I didn’t follow my outline exactly as planed. Well, when I started thinking about the paper, I had too much on my mind about my personal problems that I was having with identity theft. During the first week of school I already lost my social security card, two weeks later, someone had stolen my cell phone on the city bus. When I talked to Will, he reminded me of what I wanted to write about in the first place, and I felt that was my motivation to start writing the paper. During the time that I was looking for information on Internet fraud, I would find more stuff about scams and people trying to get personal information from our computers. I had a lot of decisions to make on, if I wanted to include back ground information about hackers, the different types of frauds that are out there, but time was limited and I had already included a lot of important information. I didn’t talk about how to keep yourself safe in cyberspace, but what I did, was that I told my readers if they wanted help go to a specific web site or article that could help them, to make the paper more interactive, and not passive. I don’t know if that was a good idea, but I feel that I never finished, because I had not set a conclusion on the information that I talked about, on help to bring something across to the reader that would help them figure out the problems that I mentioned in the paper!

Letter to Will

Gene F. Brady Jr.
ENG 200 01L
8/31/05

Dear Will,

I’m not all that enthusiastic on the idea of cyberspace. Learning about the bad things that happen there, like losing your identity, people trying people’s checking account numbers, and funding for terrorism on the net! I think cyberspace an easier way to do crime, like asking a stranger to me you somewhere and the next day there’s a report on “A Girl Miss Near Park” or something like that. Also, it’s easy for kids today to look up pornographic pictures or get a hold of pornographic pictures without paying for it, and nasty people, putting child pornography on the net. Crimes are happening and no one is stopping these kinds events from happening. Recently, I was a victim of identity fraud three weeks ago because of an offer that was offered to me through the Internet. Someone or some “company” got a hold of my credit number and kept charging me for what I previously bought on the web. Its ailing, on how people can get into your computer from event another country or state, and ruin your life.

Based on my personal desires, I want to be a harder worker than I am. I believe in some of the past English classes that I have taken, I could have worked a lot harder. I’m a person of great integrity. Strong minded, sometimes not in the likely sense when I get mad or faced with an unlikely situation that’s not favoring of. I don’t get mad very often, but when I do, I tend to blow up. I can confess that I have an obsession for things being orderly. I have this crazy idea, that everything has an order to it, like putting dishes in the dishwasher in which they can fit; packing boxes into a car or van so that everything can fit. I don’t believe in wasting space. I believe that everything has a place. I hate being rushed into doing things, and being late on handing in a paper, paying someone money, or going somewhere in a car. I like that saying, “It’s better to be safe, than sorry!” I want to learn to become a better writer, and I want to improve on my strengths and weaknesses.

Some of the strengths and weaknesses that I have as a writer tend to put restrain on my capability as a writer. By looking back on some of the classes I took for English, I knew that I had problems with my grammar and structure, and I don’t really do much to improve on it. I was embarrassed to look over some of the work I’ve done. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t even ask the teacher for extra help. There was something else that was weighting me down, my reading disability.

I hated the fact that I had that labeled upon me. I didn’t want to believe it. Living with a problem that I didn’t believe in. I thought to myself, “I was fine in middle school, getting A’s in writer’s lab and language arts.” Everyone I thought, in the way, was kind of putting me down. My parents made me take classes in high school that I didn’t want to take, one’s with helpers. I thought it was bullshit. I know that they were there to help me, but I wanted to feel normal, I wanted to be in a regular class, with regular kids. It was hard for me to accept my disability.

During my first three semesters in college, my parent’s thought the extra help with the DRO would help me, but I felt that it didn’t. The weekly meetings with the DRO Specialist once a week, the time spent was worth nothing, because all I was getting from them was negative feedback. It’s hard when someone tells you to your face, that you have to this or that, or you’re not going to amount to nothing. I know that no one wanted to be cut down by anyone. I regret my lack of effort towards the people in my life that wanted to help me. I know now that, what happen to me, happened for a reason. I felt like that experience made me stronger to want to try harder. I think the best thing that someone said to me in college is, “Just keep on writing Gene, that’s the only way your going to get better.” I believe I was at my last one-on-one meeting with my poetry-writing teacher Jeff Mock, during the spring of 2003.

It wasn’t until my 2003 fall semester, when I really started getting into reading. I really didn’t have a big interest in reading novels, ones with more then 300 plus pages. That all change with I got into English 217, the political imagination, with professor Cynthia Stretch. During the semester, the first two novels that the class had to read were, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood and Kiss of the Spiderwoman, by Manuel A. Puig. At first, I wasn’t all excited about reading novels, but when I started reading those particular books I was hooked. I fell in love with the novel Kiss of the Spiderwoman, by Manuel A. Puig. When I started getting deeper into the stories, reading that particular book, Kiss of the Spiderwoman, the words started to take me in like if I was in a movie. I could see what the characters in the book could see, by each small, tiny description that Manuel A. Puig laid out for me. I could start to feel the emotions, the drama, and their pain that the characters were experiencing. I felt like I was there with them, going through their agony and struggles. Reading became my newfound obsession. I wanted to keep on reading, because I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I felt, in-a-way for the first time, that the character’s struggles became my own. Reading started to become fun!

Whatever I get myself into, I want the experience to be worth wile like the time spent during my years in college with my friends and advocators. I respect and honor the aspects of what’s contained in the syllabus. As a teacher, you explained what you wanted and what you aspect out of the class very skillfully. It’s not the longest English syllabus that I had seen, but it offers a great deal of important information that this class needs to know to get through this semester. I know that this paper exceeds over three pages, but I wanted to speak to you from my heart. I want to be more serious about writing, and think this class will help me find my self-intellect. I’m definitely interested in what this class has to offer, and excited to know what we can learn from this experience this semester. I’m a person that wants to work hard to achieve goals in life, and I thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Gene F. Brady Jr.

Becoming Aware of the Interactive World of Cyberspace

(Unfinished Essay)

From reading literature works from Benjamin Woolly, Sherry Turkle, and John Perry Barlow, I learn that we should question the ideas around us, or acknowledge them.
To spell the butter on the meaning of cyberspace, I looked towards Benjamin Woolley’s rationale on what he believes cyberspace to be. He tells us that cyberspace means the study of control, in which he says, “-‘cyber,’ meaning steersman, coming from ‘cybernetics,” study of control mechanisms.” (Woolley, Cyberspace) Woolley expresses the ideas from Marshall McLuhan, in which he says, “One interpretation of cyberspace is that it concerns the annihilation of space.” McLuhan’s idea of the Western world and how it imploded, I believe that in a sense, pornography become revolutionary towards how it invaded the Internet.

In McLuhan’s observation on how technology is an extension of our bodies and John Perry Barlows idea as cyberspace being a new frontier, Woolley tells us that, “Perhaps cyberspace, then is-literally-where the money is. Perhaps it is also the place where events increasingly happen, where our lives and fates are increasingly determined; a place that has a very direct impact on our material circumstances-…” (Woolley, Cyberspace) Maybe if Woolley is right, based on the idea that cyberspace is where the money is, maybe that’s why pornography is becoming so successful. On the other hand, maybe cyberspace is not where the money is, but where pornography can be easily accessed. (16) Benjamin Woolley says that, “The power of this real comes from its connectedness.” (16) That idea of cyberspace being a connective globe community with millions of people talking, interacting, making business transactions, and a place where business keep their personal information. (11-15) Woolley even expresses the idea of comparing a biological virus with a computer virus, in which they both deals with codes and strands of information like a virus. (12)

I had my own problem at home with people trying to break into my Compaq home computer, time and again. I had to change my American On-line password about three times because someone some how got into my AOL account number. My family also had to buy a new computer, because the one that we had, a lot of the programs on the disk top were not functioning right. Every time, I would go on the computer it would freeze, because the space on the disk top seem to be limited. I don’t know what cause it, or how it happened, maybe it was one of those pop-up windows that said that our computer was infected, when it wasn’t? I asked myself, why would people do this? Is it because other people have access to our home computer like Benjamin Woolley explains?

From the article “Staying Safe in Cyberspace,” by Lawrence R. Rogers, Senior Member of the Technical Staff, of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, 2003, says that, “Your home computer is a popular target for intruders, because they want what you may have stored there: credit card numbers, bank account information, personal background information, and anything else they can find. With such information, intruders can take your money, even steal your identity. But it is not just money-related information they may be after. Intruders also want your computer's resources, meaning your hard disk space, your fast processor, and your Internet connection. They use these resources to attack other computers on the Internet. In fact, the more computers an intruder uses, the harder it is for law enforcement investigators to figure out where the attack is coming from. If intruders can't be found, they can't be stopped, and they can't be prosecuted…Intruders go after home computers because typically they are easy targets. When connected to high-speed Internet connections that are always turned on, these computers are all the easier for intruders to find and attack.” (http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1103/ijge/gj07.htm)

Rogers tells us how intruders break into our computer in saying, “In some cases, they send you e-mail with a virus. Reading that e-mail activates the virus, creating an opening that lets intruders see what is inside your computer. In other cases, they take advantage of a flaw or weakness in one of your computer's programs -- a vulnerability -- to gain access. Once inside, they often install new programs that let them continue to use your computer -- even after you have plugged the holes they used to get into your computer in the first place. These so-called backdoors are usually cleverly disguised to blend in with the other programs running on your computer.” (http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/ 1103 /ijge/gj07.htm)

From “Identity Crisis,” Sherry Turkle mentions that, “Our need for a practical philosophy of self-knowledge has never been greater as we struggle to make meaning from our lives on the screen.” (91). Turkle tells us as we become more involved in cyberspace with our personal personas, we will learn how to adjust ourselves in life, through cyberspace. Can I believe this to be true? If we can adjust ourselves in our real life, then maybe we can do it in cyberspace! The reason I think people wanted to become members of various Internet websites, chat rooms, and web-shop websites like eBay and Amazon.com, is because I believe that people want to find a place of comfort. But how can we be sure that the website we go to is a safe one?

Sherry Turkle tells us truthfully from “Identity in the Age of the Internet,” that, “...for many of us, cyberspace is now a part of the routines of everyday life.”(5) I see myself spending more time on the Internet, then talking on the phone or reading a book. In the cyber age, it seems that a lot of what I do depends on the use of computers. I know from my personal knowledge, that some of my family members including myself buy things from the Internet like cloths, music, shoes, concert tickets, and set up traveling reservations. We also use the Internet to pay bills, send e-mails, do homework for class, and do research about a specific subject like learn about the city of Rome. We can even talk to our girl friends or buddies on-line without having to pick up a phone.

“From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” by Dennis Baron, an English professor at University of Illinois, he tells us that “Technology raise the specter of digital fraud, and the latest literacy technology is now faced with the task of developing new methods of authentication to ensure confidence and trust in its audience.” (28). Denis Baron points out that, “The average reader is not equipped to detect many kinds of document falsification, and a lot of text is still accepted on trust. A writer’s reputation, or that of a publisher, predisposes readers to accept certain texts as authoritative, and to reject others. Provenance, in the world of conventional documents, is everything. We have learned to trust writing that leaves a paper trail.” (29). I wanted to mention this because I believe a lot of information that pertains to information in Cyberspace can be misleading or phony like pop-up ads, On-line Auctions, and Business opportunities sent by e-mail. We should know what kind of Internet frauds are out there in cyberspace, but how are we suppose to know if we’re not computer literate?

From my personal experience, I found out that nothing is free in cyberspace; I had to find that out the hard way. As of August and September of 2005, I became a victim of identity theft and Internet fraud. I responded to a pop-up banner that was offering something for free. I was stupid enough to buying something free in which I gave them my debt card number, home address, telephone number, name, and e-mail address. I signed-up for a free two-disc Spanish learning set that I wanted because I was taking a Spanish class. There was only a shipping fee that was only $6.95. I only paid once, and in span of two months the company charged me two additional payments of $59.95. The first additional payment was made on August 12, 2005. I told my bank that I didn’t make that transaction, and I had to pay and overture fee in which I went over the amount that I had in my checking account. I was so fucking pissed off; I felt that I just wanted to kill someone! My step-mom wrote back to the company and I received a refund from Advantagelanguage.com on the 24th of August. On the 15th of September, that dam company billed me again for the same amount of $59.95, in which I had refund a month early. As of Saturday, September 24th, 2005, I had to close my checking account so the company would stop charging money from my account.

In another incident dealing with the problem of being a victim of a scammed, I reported my problem to the Federal Trade Commission, in which their complaint service “provider,” Automated Transaction Corporation, billed me for improperly charges. They told me in the billing statement that I had to pay for Entertainment Services that I didn’t even know that I used or signed-up for, for $149.64. In an article I found about the Automated Transaction Corporation, “Deceptive Billers Agree to Settle FTC Charges” that the company was billing costumers for services they had not requested, authorized, or received. I had to find out the hard way, in which I thought they could help me, but almost falling victim to the company’s deceptive billing practices, I had the right not to pay (in which I didn’t). In the bill, the company wanted me personally, to pay the bill by credit card or check. They didn’t want me to pay cash! If I did, the company can get a hold of my checking account number and charge me for something that I might not want to pay for. I thought that the Federal Trade Commission could help me, but I didn’t read the article close enough about “The Rising Tide of Internet Fraud,” posted by the US Attorney’s Bulletin, by Jonathan Rush. The Federal Trade Commission was one of the company’s that was receiving Internet complaints about their web services, and I clearly didn’t catch that right away.

In trying to contact the Automated Transaction Corporation by phone, I didn’t get a quick response by them. I called about three times, and all I got was, just people putting me on hold. I felt that the phone service was trying to avoid me, in everyway. I even tried to call the help number on one of the company’s so-called “billing process” Websites. I called (954) 453-9000 that was on the screen as a contact service help number, and the phone operating messaging service told me that the number I called was no longer in service. I was shocked, and fucking pissed off. I even tried to contact the IFCC, the Internet Federal Complaint Center, but they e-mailed me and said that they have too many complaints, and they couldn’t help me.

There was also the problem that I had with logging-in at home, trying to get into certain websites. My step-mom was complaining about that she couldn’t do any of her banking on-line, she couldn’t get into her EBay accounts, and other accounts that she had set up on-line. The incident left me in a state of anxiety, in which both incidents with trying to log on at home and informing the Automated Transaction Corporation. My step-mom thought I did something to the computer, in which I didn’t. I thought that it must have been the Automated Transaction Corporation had to do something with it. I still don’t know if that issue is resolved at home. It’s hard for me, to learn the hard way about becoming a victim of Internet fraud or becoming aware of the possibilities that I had to deal with. I have been having constant worry about someone having my personal information and using it against me. You have to know what going on in cyberspace, by learning more about the Internet and how to you a computer safely and effectively.

From a recent news article that I found on the Internet, “Beware of Disaster Scams,” on Scam-Busters.org, in which they are warning people about the Hurricane Katrina scams that have been sent out to fool people as a charity relief scam. There is also now, as of September 24th from the Search Engine Journal, there is a Hurricane Rita scam out there, Loren Baker reports. Baker highlights that the Washington Post told people that, “…spam and scam artists are registering Hurricane Rita oriented sites and domain names to prepare for e-mail and web based scam operations.” (http://www.searchenginejournal .com/index.php?p=2246) I found on the Internet about Internet fraud, called “Internet Fraud Watch Facts,” Holly Anderson tells us that, “more that 60 percent of Internet fraud victims pay by checks, cash, or money orders, and 19 percent pay by credit card. Other means of payment include telepone bills, bank account debits, and wire transfers.” (http://www.natlconsumersleague.org/ ifwfact2.htm)

From the Vancouver Post article by Gillian Shaw, “Phone spam a security risk”, Shaw talks about David Pais, Chief financial officer of an Eyeball Networks, in telling us, “Everybody gets spam even though they use anti-spam software…” As a result, this article states that scammers and fraud companies can tap into private telephones and get access personal account numbers. There is already the problem of pop-up porn ads, credit card ads, and investment ads that people been trying to avoid. Phone spam is also affecting security risk for Internet users, in which Gillian Shaw, The Vancouver Sun, says that, “SPIT, for Spam over Internet Telephony, is the latest worry security experts are warning about as the increasing adoption of VoIP1 phones creates a new avenue for porn peddlers and fraud artists to infiltrate homes and offices.” I think people should know this because the article states that VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is the most used telecommunication out there.

I had to find out what VoIP was, so I typed it up in Google and I came to the Federal Communications Commission website. What I found was that VoIP was “Internet Voice, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is a technology that allows you to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line. Some services using VoIP may only allow you to call other people using the same service, but others may allow you to call anyone who has a telephone number - including local, long distance, mobile, and international numbers. Also, while some services only work over your computer or a special VoIP phone, other services allow you to use a traditional phone through an adaptor. (http://www.fcc.gov/viop/) I never had a high speed Internet connection, but that doesn’t mean my computer is safe from getting hacked or tapped into.

We as Internet users need to know where the threat of Internet fraud is coming from. From “The Rising Tide of Internet Fraud,” Jonathan Rusch, Special Counsel for Fraud Prevention in the Fraud Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C, mentions numerous types of Internet fraud like Equipment Software, Pyramids/Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), Business Opportunities Franchises, Work-at-Home Plans, Credit Card Issuing, and Prizes/Sweepstakes frauds. With each description of each kind of fraud, Rusch mentions federal accounts of fraud and criminal actions that lead criminal into pleading guilty. The most common Internet fraud out there that I found from the article is On-line auctions. In online auctions, criminals can take advantage of multiple e-mail addresses and false identities to place fake bids to raise the bid. Rusch also says that criminals also provide false background information and a false sense of security. If this happens, false providers can take your billing information, like your credit card number and use that against you by setting up new credit accounts for themselves. To read this article and get an insight of the other kinds of frauds, please visit to read the article for your self. If you want an insight and explanation of what an Investment fraud or pyramid fraud are in which Jonathan Rusch doesn’t clearly talk about, please go to to learn more.

Most of the information that I found in “The Rising Tide of Internet Fraud,” was provided by the International Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC) – a join project of the FBI and the National White Collar Crime Center. From the IC3 2004 Internet Fraud – Crime Report, prepared by the National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation gives an insight of the total complaints received and referred by the IC3 yearly, providing information on fraudulent and non-fraudulent complaints primarily related to the Internet, showing statistics on percentage of the different types complaints reported, by type, monetary loss, gender, state, country, and age. To check out this important statistical informational report, please go to <> to see what the highest complaint referred by the IC3 was for 2004.

From the Internet article, “Internet Auction Fraud Among FTC’s Top 10 Consumer Complaints for 2004,” it said that Internet auction fraud was the highest in complaints according to the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report in 2004, as complaints grow from 83,161 to 98,653, between 2003 and 2004. Of the complaints reported in 2004, 246,570 were identity theft, and 388,603 were fraud complaints. Credit card fraud was the most common form of the reported identity theft. There are also various complaints and confessions from on-line buyers and sellers from eBay, that I read myself on Crimes-of-Persuasion.com. Hears one incident that I thought was very profound. “I was sold a stolen vehicle on eBay. I wired the money to the seller instead of using my credit card because the seller said he didn't want to make the transaction through his business. When I received the bill of sale on the vehicle, the bill of sale was from his business. I'm sure this was done because he didn't want a "charge back" made to his account through Visa, knowing that the vehicle was stolen. How do I go about filing wire fraud charges against the seller? The FBI doesn't seem to want to get involved because the sale was under $5,000. How do I go about prosecuting and getting my money back? This person owns two businesses in Alabama and doesn't feel he is responsible for returning my money. Please give me any links or other help that you can provide. EBay was helping me I thought, but now they won't respond to my e-mails. Thank You, John Lowry. 03/17/02.” If you want to read some of the complaints for yourself, please go to .

Becoming aware of Internet fraud in the interactive world of cyberspace is up to you. How you use your information on the internet, is up to you, but who you give it to, is very important. I think it’s important that you should have an idea on what’s going on out there in cyberspace. I want you as a computer Literate, to use the information that I provided you to the fullest extend. I found some helpful Internet websites that can help you to know more about Internet fraud. I recommend that you read “Foundations: Why Hackers Want You,” by William Van Winkle at , to get an insight of why hackers might want our computer information and to find out ways to stay safe in cyberspace. If you want to know how to protect yourself from spam, please go to Yahoo.com at . To find important information about preventing yourself from Internet auction fraud, credit card fraud, investment fraud, Nigerian Letter Scam/419 Scam, business fraud, identity theft, cyber stalking, go to the IC3 annul report at . I also recommend you to read “Staying Safe in Cyberspace,” by Lawrence R. Rogers, to learn how to keep your computer safe by knowing about E-mail security at . I hope the information that I provide you, will help secure you and your computer from any Internet scams, frauds, and scandals. If you want to talk to me about my personal thoughts and beliefs about the issue of Internet fraud, please contact me at: , and surely I will respond to you concern about issue you have with Internet fraud.

(Needs to be revised and rewritten)


Work Cited:
Anderson, Holly. “Internet Fraud Watch Facts.” National Consumers League. 10
February 1998. 26 Sept. 2005. http://www.natlconsumersleague.org/ifwfact2.htm

Baker, Loren. “Hurricane Rita Internet Scams.” Search Engine Journal. 24 Sept. 2005.
26 Sept. 2005. http://www.searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=2246

Baron, Denis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology.” (15 - 33)
Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st. Century Technologies. Gail Hawisher and
Cynthia Selfe, Editors. Logan, UT. Utah State University Press. 1999.

“Deceptive Billers Agree to Settle FTC Charges.” Federal Trade Commission.
31 January 2002. 20 Sept. 2005. http://ww.ftc.gov/opa/2002/01/atc.htm

Grant, Susan. “NCL Internet Fraud Testimony: Fraudulent Schemes on the Internet
Remarks to the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations.” National
Consumers League. 10 February 1998. 9 Sept. 2005. http://www.nclnet.org/advocacy/fraud/testimony_fraud_schemes_02101998.htm


“Internet Auction Fraud and Western Union Payment for Undelivered Goods Scams.”
Crimes of Persuasion.com. 26 Sept. 2005. http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Delivered/internet_auctions.htm

“Investment Scams: Introduction.” Tutorials. 2005. Investopedia.com.
03 Oct. 2005. http://www.investopedia.com/university/scams/

Lanford, Jim, and Audri Lanford. “Protect Yourself from Internet Scams.”
ScamBusters.com. Wednesday, 14 Sept. 2005. 14 Sept. 2005
http://www.scambusters.org/

National White Collar Crime Center and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“IC3 2004 Internet Fraud – Crime Report.” 1 January 2004 - 31 December 2004.
National White Collar Crime Center. 2005. Information provided by the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. 20 Sept. 2005. http://www1.ifccfbi.gov/strategy/2004_IC3Report.pdf

“Protecting Yourself From Spam: Avoiding Spam.” Tutorials. 2005. Yahoo.com
14 Sept. 2005. http://help.yahoo.com/us/tutorials/mail/mail/otherspam1.html

Raymond, Eric Steven. “How to Become a Hacker.” Hacker History and Culture.
Revision 29 Jun 2005. Thyrsus Enterprises. 14 Sept. 2005. http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

Rogers, Lawrence R. “Staying Safe in Cyberspace.” Global Issues. November 2003. The
Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. 14 Sept. 2005.
http://usinfo.state.gov/journals/itgic/1103/ijge/gj07.htm

Rusch, Jonathan. “The Rising Tide of Internet Fraud.” U.S. Attorney’s Bulletin. May
2001. Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal
Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. 14 Sept. 2005.
http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/usamay2001_1.htm

Shaw, Gillian. “Phone spam a security risk: The cellphone industry is working to tackle
What could be a massive problem before it takes root?” The Vancouver Sun. 26 September. 2005. 26 Sept. 2005. http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?id=3df3410c-4231-4253-a56b-43b33639b7f1

Steiner, Ina. “Internet Auction Fraud Among FTC’s Top 10 Consumer Complaints for
2004.” AuctionBytes.com. February 02, 2005. 26 Sept. 2005.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m02/i02/s03

Swartz, Jon, and Sandra Block. “Underground market for stolen IDs thrives.” Money:
USA TODAY.com. 2 March 2005. 14 Sept. 2005. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-03-02-datathieves-usat_x.htm.

Turkle, Sherry. “Identity Crisis.” Cyberreader. Ed. Victor Vitanza. Needham Hights: A
Viacom Company, 1999. 78 - 94.

Turkle, Sherry. “Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.” New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. 5 - 11.

Van Winkle, William. “Foundations: Why Hackers Want You.” LiveSecurity Service.
2005. WatchGuard Technologies, Inc. 19 Sept. 2005. http://www.watchguard.com/infocenter/editorial/1719.asp.

Woolley, Benjamin. “Cyberspace.” Cyberreader. Ed. Victor Vitanza. Needham Hights: A
Viacom Company. 1999, 7 - 19.

My English 200 Journal: On writing

Journal: ENG 200 02L, Fall 2005, at SCSU.
My English 200 Journal: On writing
By Gene F. Brady Jr., 12/05/2005

-My Thoughts on Blogging:
The idea of blogging I found to be very helpful on writing out thoughts. To me, Blogging is like your own personal journal where you can write personal thoughts, share them, and talk about your ideas and beliefs. I found that blogging also helps you to keep track of you thoughts or ideas when you wrote them and posted them. I love the idea in which people can post a comment on your blog about how they thought how cool our blog was. I think blogging will change the way we write papers, talk to our friends, and also build new relationships towards other people towards having similar interest.

While looking at different blogs that people put up, it seems that people can write about the most basic things like throwing up, to talk about political debates, computer games, movies, hobbies, personal interest, education, and sex. It seem that computers are becoming more of a side companion to computer users. Helping us to talk to friends and other people in a ideal community based setting. Between the different blog providers, Blogger.com for me was very easy to use. For others blogging provider, I heard that they are easy too! My sister has a blog, and she said it was easy, and said that she like the blog provider that she had.

From a review I wrote on "Reflecting on "US youths use internet to create," from BBC NEWS, I tell people that, "I think the idea of web blogging is cool, the idea of sharing thoughts on music, pictures, artwork, and stories! My sister showed me her web blog, and she had a lot of things on there dealing with pictures of her friends. I believe blogging lets us copyright our thoughts and interest faster then on a personal website or e-mail, so other people can see them quicker. Blogging is not just for personal use, but blogging also creates the link between communication through passive thinking and active learning.

That's what I believe the Internet is all about, sharing information and communicating through ideas and beliefs at rapid speed. I believe that the idea of communicating with other youths through blogging has become a new kind of trend like e-mail, but better! It's like having an e-mail in which it’s a personal webpage, and it’s really easy to edit, take stuff out, and add new stuff. Finding out that this blogging trend is being "spearheading" by girls, blogging to be seems to be similar to the days when young teenage girls use to share scrapbooks and journals with pictures with friends.

Blogging, from my personal experience, has opened a new door (in my mind) towards how we can share information or communicate easier with other bloggers towards sharing information and ideas. The idea that blogging doesn't cost anything is great, and its easy to set up without worrying about signing up for another term or paying monthly fees. Adding pictures is easy too. With a blog, it doesn't have to be about one specific topic or even be personal, and the great thing about it is that you can add something later to what you've all ready wrote down. You can save what you wrote as a draft, and then publish it later when you’re down revising it. I know when you have a personal web site; it might be hard updating or adding information frequently. With a blog, you don't have to wait long to see what you published. Time is a valuable thing, and I would have to say that, I hate waiting for things to happen.

Self-expression I believe is an important part of blogging, in which you can find other people with blogs have similar interest. The idea of crediting people, in which you can post a commit on their web blog, is a great idea. I believe Blogging is active and passive at the same time. You can write something down, and someone can commit on it later. Then, other people would have commits on what they thought or agree with you or someone else, and you can commit on their thoughts. You can also get key insights from other people that commit your blog. The idea of posting commits I believe is the best way to talk about people's ideas and beliefs and share your thoughts. I would say blogging is probably better then an e-mail and quicker then a personal web page. In a chat room, you only come upon specific areas of information. When your blogging, you learn about how one thinks and you learn what they are interested in right away.

On the idea of youths picking up this new technical enhancement towards communication, I believe more people will switch to blogging than setting up a personal web. I feel that blogging has become or is becoming a new social icon in cyberspace. Not so much toward the chat room aspect, but a more in-depth fundamental practice towards learning about self interest and education."

I believe this to be true, in which I say in my reflection on Zinnser’s “Writing on Well,” "The focus on soaking up someone else’s thoughts or beliefs on a subject or personal matter and taking that information and expanding on it. That what I want people to feel, I want them to soak up my information my thoughts, that why I'm embraced to continue blogging." (From my web blog, at http://reflectingonliterature.blogspot.com)

-The Class E-mail List:
Based on the idea of a class e-mail list, I didn't know what to expect from it. When the class first picked up on the idea, and having the teacher help us set up the class e-mail list, it was just like setting up an account. That's what it exactly was, setting up a class account at the Southern website. When everyone (that was in class at the time) was logged into are Southern e-mail list for ENG 200, our teacher wanted us to have a class discussion through our class e-mail list. The e-mail list was like a chat room, in which people can post what they need to say about our topic on the class readings. I hate the chat room aspect in trying to get your ideas across the room. There is too much going on, and trying figure out whose talking about what and who’s taking to whom. To read every post that is being posted one person or another, you just can't keep up with what's going on. From my personal prospective, the class e-mail didn't turn out to be quite effective in class, as the blogging. The set up was not that exciting, and I thought the class e-mail list seem to be just another e-mail, in the box that you really pay attention to. The class e-mail list seems very passive and not active like a blog. The downside to the class e-mail list was, it just seem boring, you can't even personalize it!

-Thoughts on making a webpage:
With all the work and final project that come around at the end of the semester, who really has time to make a personal website. I have a hard time just trying to revise to two essays, write a final analysis paper on blogging and communicating through cyberspace, get an art history research paper done, study for Spanish final exam, and get my final art projects for Graphic Design and Metal work done. The idea of making a personal web page is great, but is that more important the getting two important essays done for class? Its great for someone to look at your final papers on the personal website that you mage, but I don't want to put an unfinished product on a website that not worthy of being there. Who wanted to see a paper that's not done.

There is some much you have to consider when making a website. I believe time is a big issue on getting a web page done. With the idea of making a website, you have to worry about what your set-up is going to be like, how many pages your going to have on it, what's going to be on you website, what you want to include. Also you have to make sure that your links and pages are linked up and set up right. You also have to make sure that your work is saved properly, know how to re-open it, and make sure that you have every file (picture, html, text, and pages) in the right place. You only have time to do so much, while also looking for an internship for next semester. I thought that it was too much, that the teacher was given us. I felt that I was becoming over whelmed with stuff to do. I respect what the teacher wants from us, but I believe that the time we have to do a website was limited. I believe time is a big issue on getting a web page done. I’m not saying that I don’t want to put in the effort, considering that I think it would be cool to have my own web page.

-Blogs vs. Webpages:
After learning how to set up my pages and set up my hyperlinks to each of them, I got going in designing my web page. Still, I need to have my first two papers revised and reworked. So far, I have six pages up and link to the index home page, I took a beautiful picture to use for my title page. The picture I used was from a photographer named René Asmussen, A Swedish photographer. I also added him as a link to my web page, because I just love his work. I thought it was important to add my blog links to my home page, because I want people to see other works I did in cyberspace. I

In what I say about how blogging is quicker and easier than setting up a home page, from "My Thoughts on Blogging" blog, at Blogger.com, I still think its true. Still, I believe based on setting up a personal home page, you have limitations on what you can set up in a blog. In a personal web page, you have more room to expand your ideas based on the format and set up for your web page. You can add a set up for pictures like you can on a blog, from a webpage. The only problem is that, you have to make sure that each fill is placed in the right files, make sure all the hyper links are in place, and makes sure that you have your picture pages set up in the order you put them in. Putting pages together in a web page takes a lot of time; even knowing how your page set up is going to be like, takes a lot of time.

When you post a picture in a blog, all you have to do is load the picture on to your current 'create page' and your all set. Still, there is a problem, if you want to have your pictures posted up in a gallery like format. On Blogger.com, you first would have to set up a account with a BloggerBot, a photo gallery host, just so you can publish pictures to your site (gallery format). To have a photo gallery account to your blog, the supporting system format that you would need to have is Microsoft® Windows® 98/Me/2000/XP300MHz processor, 64 MB of RAM, 50 MB free disk space, Internet Explorer 5.0., just to down load the program. If you don't have this requirement, you would probably be out of luck. The good thing about have a photo host is, it let you send high-quality pictures instantly and securely over any speed connection, even dialup. With Hello, you can send hundreds of high quality pictures to your friends in just seconds—you can’t do that with email.

How is Hello different from a website?
Websites are great when you want to show your pictures to the whole world. But it can take hours to put a new gallery online; after you pick your favorites, edit, resize, and upload them, you still have to sit around and wait for someone to come and see them. And how would you know if anyone did?
When you use Hello to share pictures, they arrive on your friend’s screen immediately, without the hassle of uploading them to a public website. Your friends can download print quality copies of their favorite pictures to print right at home, which most “picture sharing” websites won’t let you do.

With Hello’s file sharing technology, they only have to download high quality versions of the ones they really like. Everything else comes in at a smaller size, optimized for viewing on-screen. (From https://secure.hello.com/how_it_works.php)


With a personal webpage, it would be hard to get this kind of features and technology on your personal website without having to buy supporting media software. If you want to publish a personal website, you have to publish it some how through a web provider like a: FTP, File System to publish your html site location. Like I said before based on my thoughts on blogging, blogging is easier and faster to post than a personal webpage. You don't have to deal with all the hassle of finding where to set up links and pages, you don't have to deal with setting up a web layout, knowing where to put the hyperlinks, buttons, and counters. Making a personal web pages takes a lot of work, and having the time to do that work can be limited to other important activities that you have outside of class. In conclusion on what I believe to be better, Blogs or personal websites, it depends on the demands in which you want to take and the time you have to take to get things done. While trying to set up my personal website, I lost more time on focusing on my final to essay.

Trouble with revising my first two essays:
Over the time that I spent in class, I learned a lot about my self as a writer, in which I need more time to analyze my information, then just jotting notes. With the teacher asking us to write a final journal entry, have two essays revised, and a website done within in a span of two to three weeks is a little overwhelming. While in the process of writing a second essay, I felt it was hard for me to find time to revise my first essay. I admit that I didn't give myself enough time to revisit my first essay, even I didn't have time to revisit my second essay. I believe at the time, I become so into the idea of blogging, I wrote all my reactions on the writings that were assigned one right after the other; in which I pointed out every little important detail that I thought was important to talk about.

In the process of just trying to revise and rewrite my essays, I feel that I have to rewrite and revise each essay over with the given information that I have. With the second essay, I feel that it doesn't click, the paper doesn't directly have a issue or focus. I talk about the things that are happening based on how kids are getting access to porn, but I also talk about how much porn is out there. I don't talk about porn as a good thing or a bad thing, I just put it out there with not real point given. To add up in what I need to add in my paper, I still need to add the assigned readings to my essays. I still need to talk about how Woolley, Barlow, Turkle, and other writers talk about the issues dealing with cyberspace. The personal problem that I'm dealing with, is that I feel that my papers don't add up to any conclusion. Personally, I believe that my conclusions haven't made it to my essays yet. I believe, to make my papers add up to something, in which they point out a specific question or concerns with an issue. I will need to have more time to go through what I have already written, and question the important key points and get rid of the not so important points out. Another problem that lead me away from getting into revising my essays, was my Art History research paper that was due on Monday, December 5th, 2005. I worked so hard on finding out about a certain subject, I got lost in trying to get my essays revised and rewritten.

Reflection and Looking on:
As a senior, I learned a lot from taking this class, but I still have to be motivated to get things done. As a person trying to learn how to become a better writer, I believe that I need to focus more on my writing as a writer and not as a reporter. I need to use more of my thoughts on a subject then someone else, but still have a clear view on the subject with good back up information. I believe writing doesn't come natural without knowing where you learned it. What I learn from blogging and writing the reflections on are class assigned readings, I learned to become more open about what I thought as a reader then as a writer. I didn’t feel pressured by talking about what I believe to be important, based on the readings by Benjamin Woolley, John Perry Barlow, William Gibson, Lance Ulanoff, Lowell Monke, and William Zinnser. I fell in love with their readings in which I wanted to express the importance of every idea that was important to me and towards learning. I might have focus too much of my attention to what they had to say, then focusing on getting my papers revised.


From reading the books by Manuel Puig and Margaret Atwood, reading has become a new energy of life for me, since I took Professor Cynthia A. Stretch English 217, at Southern Connecticut State University, during fall 2003. By taking Will Hochman's ENG 200 02L course at Southern Connecticut, he's helping learn so much on learning how to focus myself towards understanding how I write. I find myself reading more everyday, even when it comes down to not writing class assignments. In my free time, I learn that read can be so fascinating, reading about music guitar players and how to play something on the guitar. That kind of motivation led me into realizing that I can read, in which I thought, 'you know, reading assignments are easier than doing math homework. When I go home or go to the library, first thing I do towards doing my homework assignments is my reading. After that, I can get the other stuff done, like math, Spanish, or design projects for graphic design.

In the past few months, the confidence I built and the eagerness to learn has been fueled by the people who helped me to get where I am now. With each reflection that I write, I learn more about my self as a person through what I learned from others. William Zinnser Points out something I thought was very important tool to me. With Zinnser's idea for Words and Usage, I love how he points out that we should make habit of writing and writing. "Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written by earlier masters. Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it." (Zinnser, 35)

In my reflection on "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction," By William Zinnser, I pour my heart on what I believe in towards what he saying. I learn to focus my attention on what I believe to be the most important towards my learning. By understanding how we interpret ideas, authors like Zinnser, talks about Style. I like the idea of how Zinnser talks about other writer's writings, in which he gives us to read. He tells us his reaction, which I thought was touching. "There's a man writing about a subject I have absolutely no interest in. Yet, I enjoy this piece through the smiling beauty of the writer’s style. I like the rhythms, the unexpected but refreshing words ('deified', 'allure,' 'cackling'); the specific details like the Laced Wyandotte and the brooder house. But mainly what I like is that this is a man telling me unabashedly about a love affair with poultry that goes back to 1907. It's written with humanity and warmth, and after three paragraphs I know quite a lot about what sort of man this hen-lover is." (Zinnser, 28).

The idea of personal affection is a strong element of writing in which I feel in love with that. The idea that you can make some one understand your needs and desires through simple words can become amazing, strong, and potent. People might not like what you're talking about, but if you can get them to listen, that to me changes people’s views around.

Even through my research paper in Art history, I still have to learn how to gather information by using sources more effectively by asking question or getting educated ideas to support the ones that I want to convey. The input and ideas from the feedback from my professors, and just talking and getting to know my professors has made me more confident in my work. Reading has open my mind in which I feel I need to start saying something, if no one is up to it. I'm all about the idea of having confidence, that's one of the important things Zinnser talks about towards writing. I believe that's the only way ideas can be conveyed and approached, is by knowing what you want to get done or change. This is what led me to write an e-mail to my English professors, in which I poured my thoughts on how writing changed my. Knowledge is a powerful gift, but I'm starting to realize, how you use that gift, is the key of becoming a better learner and advocate towards writing.

Still, I believe I'm starting to become more of a spectator than a reporter, more towards the idea about talking about a fact then throwing one out there on to the page and not talking deeply about it. In my reflections towards the readings, I learn to bring in more examples from my life and experiences into the readings regarding the issues talked about in the readings. I still have a problem with focusing my ideas clearly in my essays. I feel that there is some kind of pressure to get my ideas across, when I'm writing an essay. I feel that I'm being forced to kill someone, but I feel that I'm not forced into doing anything like that when I'm writing in my blog space. I came a long way to finding my self as a writer and as a person trying to find them self through writing and writing this self-reflection. I know that I’m still having trouble with structuring my sentences as well as my thoughts.


Works Cited:

-"US youth use internet to create." BBC NEWS Friday. 4 November 2005.

-Zinnser, William. "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction." New
York. HarperCollins. 2001.
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Reflecting on "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction," By William Zinnser.

Just like Natalie Goldberg's "Writing Down the Bones," and Steve Kowit's "In the Palm of Your Hand: The Poet's Portable Workshop", two other important books base on learning to write better, Zinnser show us every important aspect of nonfiction writing to the bone. In his introduction, I like how William Zinnser describes how writing is more then a highly academic standard towards educators, and wants us to realize that writing is just communicating to others. Zinnser says that e-mails help eliminate the idea of the fear of writing. As a student myself, I worry about my writing considering that I have a hard time structuring my sentences. I'm horrible at grammar, but that doesn't stop me from writing. Between writing a paper for school and writing a blog, I feel more comfortable when I'm writing down something personal. Zinnser tells us that nothing has changed in writing, just how it’s used. He brings us into view when he tells us that he not the same person that he was 25 years ago, in which he says that basically we change. The idea that we learn to use new ideas to old ones to make our selves better, is what William Gibson talks about in his article, "God's little toys." What I think is really important, this that Zinsser says that good writing is based on craft no matter what types of technology makes writing easier.

Zinnser lays down the principles towards his writing, the first The Transaction. I like how he talks about a situation that he faced while talking to a class with another speaker who had different thoughts about writing. Zinnser says something really important that made me feel questioned, "I said that writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself." Before that paragraph while talking to Dr. Brock, Dr. Brock, the surgeon says that writings easy, in which Zinnser opposed and said that writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. This all had to do with having good writing days versus having bad writing days, but what can't writing be an art? I guess if you don't know what your writing about, then maybe you haven't picked up the craft.

I questioned about how writing is not an art, considering that many poems I write I considered as piece of writing art. I believe the thought behind The Transaction, is to start to get involved in writing by first understanding that you are and how you see things and do things in life. I forgot to note that Zinnser says at the end of Transaction, is that its important as a writer to remember that we have to know who we are. Zinnser points out that we as learners and writers should know our self, and what drives us to want to move learn. "Ultimately the product that any writer has to sell is not the subject being written about, but who he or she is. I often find my self reading with interest about a topic I never thought would interest me..." (Zinnser, 5). Zinsser talks about a transaction with him self in which he finds that warmth and humanity is the key element to understand good writing. I myself, find that I'm finding inspiration just by reading and writing. Too bad though, it doesn't seem to work for me when it comes to learning about comprehending another language like Spanish that have to take to graduate college. But, I guess, it all has to do with being motivated.

With the idea of Simplicity, Zinnser wants us as writers to start off with simple ideas, simple sentences, words, adverbs, and verbs. In Zinsser's first sentence, he tells us that "Clutter is the disease of American writing." (Zinnser, 6) He believes the best way to express an idea is to clearly make it simple, straight forward with no side roads, or hidden meanings. "How can the rest of us achieve such enviable freedom from clutter?" (Zinnser, 6). With Nonfiction writing, Zinnser is telling us there is no need for hidden massages and meaning if we're talking about real life. A lot of people tell me when I'm writing a paper or showing them a poem I wrote, that I should use simple words. My dad tells me that I should not convey words that might seem too confusing to other people. He thinks that its best to tell people what I mean, then trying to say something that might mean something else to someone else. Zinnser's notion on that is that he believes that clear thinking becomes clear writing. Zinnser's idea in which the reader might get lost in a reading, because he believes that the writer was not careful enough conveying his thoughts toward his sentence structure. Based on the ideas of readers reading a topic for the first time, Zinnser points on to us that the writer should understand that the reader (most of the time) is not an expert.

With the idea of Clutter, Zinnser points out, "Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds-the writer is always slightly behind." (Zinnser, 13). Zinsser tells us that we have to examine every word that we put on the page, and try to find those that don't serve any purpose. I believe Zinnser's right, in which I find my papers filled with clutter words I don't need. I have a hard time trying to say something simple, without talking about everything that around it, or that has to do with something else. I'm not always thinking about what I'm writing about while writing a paper. Sometimes, I tend to find my self-worrying about getting information down, without adding my personal thoughts on the subject matter. While writing my first paper in English 200, for the 2005 fall semester, I found that I had to go back and take out ideas that I didn't need and focus on talking about my reactions towards sources. I had gathered a lot of factual information on Identity theft in Cyberspace and put it in my paper, but what I didn't do well was imply the ideas and thoughts of Benjamin Woolley and Sherry Turkle. I believe I didn't bring in my thoughts about what they had to say clearly and effectively. Now with other reading we had in the class, I can add the voice of John Perry Barlow more effectively just by understanding what Zinnser says about understanding writing.

By understanding how we interpret ideas, Zinnser talks about Style. His idea of how we tend to have our own style in writing is based on the idea of how we learned to write. How we learn to write Zinnser says, is based on early school grammar and listening. Zinnser has the rational idea of how we write is based on weight of authority. Zinnser gives us an example of this through the idea of writing a paper for a teacher. Zinnser mustards us by saying that we think about the people who will read our paper, the length, the responsibility of finishing the paper, in which we tend to tighten up. The most important part of style Zinnser tells us is that we should have confidence within our selves and our believes.

With Zinnser's idea on The Audience, he tells us that we have to be our selves when comes to writing. We shouldn't be worried about what other people say, but Zinnser believes that we have to be confidence in which we are. I agree with him 100 percent. I like the idea of how Zinsser talks about other writer's writings, in which he gives us to read. He tells us his reaction, which I thought was touching. "There's a man writing about a subject I have absolutely no interest in. Yet I enjoy this piece thoroughly. I like the smile beauty of its style. I like the rhythms, the unexpected but refreshing words ('deified', 'allure,' 'cackling'); the specific details like the Laced Wyandotte and the brooder house. But mainly what I like is that this is a man telling me unabashedly about a love affair with poultry that goes back to 1907.It's written with humanity and warmth, and after three paragraphs I know quite a lot about what sort of man this hen-lover is." (Zinnser, 28). The idea of personal affection is a strong element of writing in which I fell in love with. The idea that you can make some one understand your needs and desires through simple words can become amazing, strong, and potent. People might not like what you’re talking about, but if you can get them to listen, that to me changes people’s views around.

With Zinnser's idea for Words and Usage, I love how he points out (in a strong way) that we should make habit of writing and writing. "Make a habit of reading what is being written today and what has been written by earlier masters. Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I'd say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it." (Zinnser, 35). I also like the fact that Zinnser says that, "Sloppy editing is common in newspapers, often for lack of time, and writers who use clichés often work for editors who have seen so many clichés that they no longer even recognize them." (Zinnser, 35).

Unity, one method that Zinnser talks about, is expressed as a problem solving method towards writing. Zinnser says "Unity is the anchor of good writing." (Zinnser, 50) He tells us it keeps the reader satisfied and keeps the reader from getting lost. Zinnser gives us a clear explanation on ways we can keep our writing unified by knowing about the unity of pronoun, tenses, and moods. I like how Zinnser expresses the idea of mood in which he talks about casual voice. He tell us that if we are writing for a magazine like The New Yorker, we have to keep a casual voice while presenting information to the reader. Zinnser hits on the idea of how information can control us, in which we can talk about a topic and just give general information without putting our own thoughts into it.

For example, when I was writing my first paper for ENG 200, on Internet fraud in Cyberspace, all I was thinking about was finding good facts to put on the paper. I didn't think much about what I thought about the information I found, I just put it there on the paper. I also didn't think about what other people would say about fraud in cyberspace. John Perry Barlow was a perfect source of information on talking about crime in cyberspace, in is article "Crime and Puzzlement." He had a conflict of his own dealing with the idea of identity theft in which he got a hold of the person who was trying to steal his identity. He found out the an eighteen year old was up to the crime, and was puzzled to why. Dealing with my own problems dealing with identity theft, I could have used Barlow as a help source towards talking about how easy it can be to get a hold of someone's personal identity through cyberspace. My teacher talked to me about my first paper and said that it sounds like a report not a research paper. I had a lot of good information, but I didn't really talk about my reactions towards the ideas of what other people said or thought, and I didn't back up my statements on what I believe. I just used information (facts), to say why something’s bad, or something has to be done about something. I definitely could have used John Perry Barlow to help back me up, instead of me controlling my material, I let the material control me.

My professor told me, I have to put my own voice in the paper, I have to tell the reader who I am and what I want to address. I like how Zinnser points out to the idea of all writers, towards addressing the reader on a final last word. He tells us, "Most nonfiction writers have a definitiveness complex. They feel that they are under some obligation-to the subject, to their honor, to the gods of writing-to make their article the last word. It's a commendable impulse, but there is no last word."(Zinnser, 52). My papers seem to be all over the place before I ever start really shaping the up. I believe that I will have to follow Zinnser closer on what he says about writing. "Therefore think small. Decide what corner of your subject you're going to bit off, and be content to cover it well and stop." (Zinnser, 52) Also on page 52, Zinnser tells us about writing that there is not specific plan to go by, all we have to go by is our instincts, and the it's just a matter of making repairs. Zinnser tells us that the most important paragraph is usually the leading and the ending paragraphs. The leading paragraph must provide hard details to get the reader connected to what the writer is talking about, and every other paragraph should strengthen the one that preceded it. Just by reading what Zinnser has to say about the aspects of writing, tells me, if I listen to what he says, maybe I'll become a better writer. I think we all want to become better writers, and Zinnser gives us fine example of what he's what to show us, by letting us look at other passages from other writers on how they express certain aspects of writing.

Not a lot of people might know this, but the ending of a article is the most important aspect of writing a paper. Zinnser points this out on page 64. I like Zinnser notion of writing, in which he says, "For the nonfiction writer, the simplest way of putting this into a rule is: when you're ready to stop, stop." (Zinnser, 66). He tells us, "The positive reason for ending well is that a good last sentence-or last paragraph-is a joy in itself. It gives the reader a lift, and it lingers when the article is over. (Zinnser, 65). I found in my writing, it's hard for me to find an ending, because most of the time, I can't seem to focus my ideas towards one part of my subject. For example, when I was writing about Identity theft in cyberspace, I wanted to write about my experience with being a victim. I wanted to help other understand what to look out for based on giving people their personal information. I wanted to point out the different types of frauds that were out there in cyberspace. I saw in my paper that I was jumping in and out of different aspects of cyberspace, based on what I want to talk about. I think, over all, I was not confident in my writing and didn't know when to add something, or leave something out. At other times, it seem that I started to lose focus on what I'm specifically talking about in which I found myself getting lost in my own paper. I had a lot of good information, but it seem that it wasn't leading me to any where specific. I wasn't asking or bring up important questions dealing with attributing the ideas of such writers as Benjamin Woolley, Sherry Turkle, John Perry Barlow, and Dennis Baron, on what they had to say about the issues dealing with cyberspace.

By learning the Bits and Pieces of writing, Zinnser shows us what important in a piece of writing. I found out that adverbs are unnecessary most of the time while writing. Zinnser testifies that, "Again and again in careless writing, strong verbs are weakened by redundant adverbs." (Zinnser, 69) I learned that adjectives are also unnecessary, in which they can also weaken the adjective of a noun or pronoun. Zinnser is simply saying, if your going to describe some one or something, be direct. He doesn't want us to use "a bit," "a little," "sort of," "kind of," "rather," "quite," "very," "too," "pretty much," and "in a sense," while describing how we feel. By knowing that contractions can help a piece is important too in a piece of writing. Knowing how to use (that) and (which) in a sentence is important, in 'which' pertains to a question, and 'that' referring to an object or subject. With the rest of Bites & Pieces, Zinnser tells us the most important aspects of your writing as a writer. I agree with him, in which they sound redundant. Zinnser tells us that writing should be lean and confident, in control. Zinnser at the end "On Writing We," wants us to know what punctuations, semicolons, dashes, colon are and how to use them. We can learn a lot by knowing how to alert our readers as change our mood from the previous sentence. I'm still look over William Zinnser article "On Writing Well," and I believe we can learn a lot by using his book on learning how to write well. For those who have the need to become better writers, this is a very important book to have!

Source/Reading: Zinnser, William. "On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction." New York. HarperCollins. 2001.

What Blogging Means To Me!

The idea of blogging I found to be very helpful on writing out thoughts. To me, Blogging is like your own personal journal where you can write personal thoughts, share them, and talk about your ideas and beliefs. I found that blogging also helps you to keep track of you thoughts or ideas when you wrote them and posted them. I love the idea in which people can post a comment on your blog about how they thought how cool our blog was. I think blogging will change the way we write papers, talk to our friends, and also build new relationships towards other people towards having similar interest.

While looking at different blogs that people put up, it seems that people can write about the most basic things like throwing up, to talk about political debates, computer games, movies, hobbies, personal interest, education, and sex. It seem that computers are becoming more of a side companion to computer users. Helping us to talk to friends and other people in a
Ideal community based setting. Between the different blog providers, Blogger.com for me was very easy to use. For others blogging provider, I heard that they are easy too! My sister has a blog, and she said it was easy, and said that she like the blog provider that she had.

From a review I wrote on "Reflecting on "US youths use internet to create," from BBC NEWS, I tell people that, "I think the idea of web blogging is cool, the idea of sharing thoughts on music, pictures, artwork, and stories! My sister showed me her web blog, and she had a lot of things on there dealing with pictures of her friends. I believe blogging lets us copyright our thoughts and interest faster then on a personal website or e-mail, so other people can see them quicker. Blogging is not just for personal use, but blogging also creates the link between communication through passive thinking and active learning.

That's what I believe the Internet is all about, sharing information and communicating through ideas and beliefs at rapid speed. I believe that the idea of communicating with other youths through blogging has become a new kind of trend like e-mail, but better! It's like having an e-mail in which it’s a personal webpage, and it’s really easy to edit, take stuff out, and add new stuff. Finding out that this blogging trend is being "spearheading" by girls, blogging to be seems to be similar to the days when young teenage girls use to share scrapbooks and journals with pictures with friends.

Blogging, from my personal experience, has opened a new door (in my mind) towards how we can share information or communicate easier with other bloggers towards sharing information and ideas. The idea that blogging doesn't cost anything is great, and its easy to set up without worrying about signing up for another term or paying monthly fees. Adding pictures is easy too. With a blog, it doesn't have to be about one specific topic or even be personal, and the great thing about it is that you can add something later to what you've all ready wrote down. You can save what you wrote as a draft, and then publish it later when you’re down revising it. I know when you have a personal web site; it might be hard updating or adding information frequently. With a blog, you don't have to wait long to see what you published. Time is a valuable thing, and I would have to say that, I hate waiting for things to happen.

Self-expression I believe is an important part of blogging, in which you can find other people with blogs have similar interest. The idea of crediting people, in which you can post a commit on their web blog is a great idea. I believe Blogging is active and passive at the same time. You can write something down, and someone can commit on it later. Then, other people would have commits on what they thought or agree with you or someone else, and you can commit on their thoughts. You can also get key insights from other people that commit your blog. The idea of posting commits I believe is the best way to talk about people's ideas and beliefs and share your thoughts. I would say blogging is probably better then an e-mail and quicker then a personal web page. In a chat room, you only come upon specific areas of information. When your blogging, you learn about how one thinks and you learn what they are interested in right away.

On the idea of youths picking up this new technical enhancement towards communication, I believe more people will switch to blogging than setting up a personal web. I feel that blogging has become or is becoming a new social icon in cyberspace. Not so much toward the chat room aspect, but a more in-depth fundamental practice towards learning about self interest and education."

I believe this to be true! "The focus on soaking up someone else’s thoughts or beliefs on a subject or personal matter and taking that information and expanding on it. That what I want people to feel, I want them to soak up my information my thoughts, that why I'm embraced to continue blogging."

Reflection on "God's Little Toys," by William Gibson

Based on William Gibson's early experience with writing and literature, I believe he valued the thoughts of other writers at a young age. The thought or idea that Gibson brings to my attention, in which he loved how writing could be fragmented and taken from different sources, plays a role in which the article is written in. Making the reader read text from different source and molding them together to make something new, tells writers that writing can be an art in which information can be reused, and rethink to someone else's idea. I like the emphasis on how audiotape was one of the first kinds of media, to make new sense or new language out of old language. I like that idea of talking old ideas and making new ones by mixing an idea with another. Basically, trying to compose the idea of forming a new emphasis on two different ideas and making them work.

While learning became reading, and reading turned into exploration, as we head towards using cyberspace as a tool for communication and literature, we can say that the idea of cut and past is nothing new. Gibson talks about the ideas of famous artist like Picasso, Duchamp, and Godard, cut and paste was the inspiration to express new ideas through art. The same probably goes for cutting and pasting in cyberspace and I believe Gibson express the idea very clearly.

With the idea of remixing things, I believe its cool to revisit old ideas like Gibson mentions, and with new emphasis make it become something totally new or fashionable. Gibson, I believe, is only expressing the idea that cut and paste was something that our culture and other cultures, and even genders did over periods of time. With the styles of cloths today, I can see a lot of my friends are wearing treads from the Seventies and Sixties that also goes for music and video games. New ideas, only spawn from old ones, in which case to make old ideas better. So, without say, I can see what Gibson is talking about, how we live in a world in which almost everything, in based on something else.

Reading/Source:

-Gibson, William. "God's Little Toys." Hot Wired Magazine. July 2005. 19 Nov. 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html

A Reflection on " Locking Up the Web," by Lance Ulanoff, and "Charlotte's Webpage," by Lowell Monke.

Lance Ulanoff brings up important ideas concerning the idea if how educational research and news should be used, credited, or paid for. Reading on how publications have little choice but to look for new sources of revenue seems to follow the idea that writers, researchers, and contributors to new articles don't want to just get credited for their work. Even for that matter, maybe its the websites and newspapers that produce the information and research, they just don't want to give out information, probably they want to keep the ownership of the information that the put out.

Reflecting on the idea of independent website having anonymous information or research, why fee? Ulanoff mentions that library research is more dependable than a lot of web research, but he says that the web has became the best source of information. The trouble with online research Ulanoff says that trusted news sources are more dependable on sourcing or finding a reference, while on the other hand, second-hand information from a personal website don't have credentials. I know that you could probably find more information on the web, but using a concrete source like a library book is probably better according to Ulanoff.

I believe the issue for the lock up, on information, is to protect information and research from leaking out onto independent websites that use that information. The idea of cut and paste as William Gibson talks about in his article "God's Little Toys," refers to the idea of how vital information is towards learning education and research, in which other people are talking ideas and making it their own to create something 'new.' The idea Gibson grasps, is the idea about people using other people's ideas to making new one's, but won't that be called plagiarism?

According to Lowell Monke, in his article, "Charlotte's Webpage- Why Children Shouldn't have the world at their fingertips," he's worried about how education and information on computer is becoming vaguely misused. Students are not learning how to use a computer effectively, and they are being pushed away from the natural sense of learning from missing out on recess.
Monke says that through technology, like the TV and film, Monke says that, "Even the computer has not been able to show a consistent record of improving education."

In the article Monke quotes that, "There have been no advances over the past decade that can be confidently attributed to broader access to computers," said Stanford University professor of education Larry Cuban in 2001, summarizing the existing research on educational computing. "The link between test-score improvements and computer availability and use is even more contested." Part of the problem, Cuban pointed out, is that many computers simply go unused in the classroom. But more recent research, including a University of Munich study of 174,000 students in thirty-one countries, indicates that students who frequently use computers perform worse academically than those who use them rarely or not at all.

Maybe academically, students are not being taught how to research affectively on the web. Monke refers on what Neil Postman has observed in what he says, "What we need to consider about computers has nothing to do with its efficiency as a teaching tool. We need to know in what ways it is altering our conception of learning." Learning the concepts of connective-ness from the computer and the real world shows different sides of what's important. Monke says that," Ironically, students could best learn the lessons implicit in Charlotte's Web—the need to negotiate relationships, the importance of all members of a community, even the rats—by engaging in the recess they missed. In a school, recess is not just a break from intellectual demands or a chance to let off steam. It is also a break from a closely supervised social and physical environment.” I believe that kids should to be educated through computers, but not at such an early age. I also believe that, how we use education through means of learning through computers, students should be guided on how to use the information that the web provides affectively. considering that, we now live in a world where computers are everywhere, we still have to become connected to our childhood experiences of learning, the physical sense.


I know that more kids are using computers today at a younger age, becoming less independent in the real world and more dependent on the use of computers. As Lowell Monke, I believe it is necessary for children at that certain age, before they hit fourth grade, to have recess so the can learn social skills in an active outside learning environment. Monke engages us to understand that kids need to touch and sense things that are around them. "Children learn the fragility of flowers by touching their petals. They learn to cooperate by organizing their own games. The computer cannot simulate the physical and emotional nuances of resolving a dispute during kickball, or the creativity of inventing new rhymes to the rhythm of jumping rope. These full-bodied, often deeply heartfelt experiences educate not just the intellect but also the soul of the child. When children are free to practice on their own, they can test their inner perceptions against the world around them, develop the qualities of care, self-discipline, courage, compassion, generosity, and tolerance—and gradually figure out how to be part of both social and biological communities."

I believe in the paragraph above, proves to be a vital point in which children need real world experiences, Monke believe that electronically experiences has given children a sense of what they want to see. The idea that Monke points out on belonging, he believes that is a very important aspect of how children learn. Engagement is important too, towards the roles of real life and electronic experiences in which Monke says, "There is a profound difference between learning from the world and learning about it. Any young reader can find a surfeit of information about worms on the Internet. But the computer can only teach the student about worms, and only through abstract symbols—images and text cast on a two-dimensional screen. Contrast that with the way children come to know worms by hands-on experience—by digging in the soil, watching the worm retreat into its hole, and of course feeling it wiggle in the hand. There is the delight of discovery, the dirt under the fingernails, an initial squeamishness followed by a sense of pride at overcoming it. This is what can infuse knowledge with reverence, taking it beyond simple ingestion and manipulation of symbols. And it is reverence in learning that inspires responsibility to the world, the basis of belonging. So I had to wonder why the teacher from the Charlotte's Web video asked children to create animated computer pictures of spiders. Had she considered bringing terrariums into the room so students could watch real spiders fluidly spinning real webs? Sadly, I suspect not. "

Based on the ideas of what we can get from the computer and the real world, there is always one that cannot give us what the other one can. Sometimes we can do things on the computer, that we can't do in real life, like having the fear of talking to someone face-to-face, like Monke's example of the high school students that didn't want to confront students that spoke a different language because they seem deferent. I believe in what Monke believes, that technology forces us to become less aware of learning what's right and wrong, and I believe that it also helps us to experience new ways of learning. I feel the same way Monke feels in which children are being pushed into becoming more manipulative towards things and people, and becoming more dependent on 'rules' in a sense, the from actual real life experiences. To say that technology might limit the learning process in some areas, I believe that we need computers to open new learning constructiveness towards communication. While at the same time, its important to understand how we interpret the world thought our collectiveness through real life, more than through cyberspace.


Reading/References:

-Gibson, William. "God's Little Toys." Wired Magazine/Wired.com. July 2005. 2 Nov. 2005. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/gibson.html.

-Monke, Lowell. "Charlotte's Web." Orion Magazine/Orion.com. Sept/Oct. 2005. 2 Nov. 2005. htt://www.oriononline.org/pages/on/05-5om/Monke.html.

-Ulanoff, Lance. "Locking Up the Web." PCMAG. COM. 16 April 2003. 2 Nov. 2005. http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/0,1217,a=40463,00.asp.

Reflecting on John Perry Barlow's "Crime and Puzzlement."

The whole idea of ambiguity swindles around John Perry Barlow, as he figures out why people can take up different identities, pretend to be someone else, and take what is not theirs. Barlow even shows us, that he found the person that wanted to get his credit information and a whole lot more. Barlow talks to him to find some kind of answer to, why? I was even questioned to why he would let someone down load his credit information? The information was incorrect, but that is a danger I believe Barlow is trying to tell people. Barlow, I believe is conjuring up the idea that cyberspace allows us to do these kinds of things.

It thought it was funny, in which Barlow wanted the person to call him? To what Barlow realized, it was an 18 year old kid, that had all the intent to do what he was doing, and knew what he was doing.he idea of media hype help fueled Barlow and outsiders, of what's happening in cyberspace. Barlow knows that young adults have the tendencies to try to break into places. I like the fact, that he talks about his own account when he was 17 year old, telling us that he broken into NORAD. (Note: To find out NORAD, just search about it on Google.com) Barlow brings up some important questions to the table in what he says, "What is a place if Cyberspace is everywhere? How does one treat property that has no physical form and can be infinitely reproduced? Barlow goes on and talks about the idea on how information can't be owned.

I like the fact that the author shows claims of how people are trying to find ways to protect people's personal information, from people like Acid (the 18 yr old hacker). Barlow’s finds are interesting in which he talks about two other hackers by the 'names' of The Prophet and the Knight Lighting, that got a hold of a Bell South document. Barlow explains to us, how the hacker believe that he wasn't really doing anything wrong. Being sentenced to 30 years is a long time, for something that seemed kind of harmless. Barlow tells us that nearly all publications are now mostly electronic. I believe that would easy for anyone connected to a company computer, or information, could easily find important business documents. I believe that Barlow wants us to know how easy it is, for people to move around in cyberspace, and that means anywhere. To apples to codes, Barlow strongly points out that the hackers are the people that know software. What's important, is that Barlow says, "If we are entering into a world in which no one has a body, physical threats begin to lose their sting.

With crime that's happening in cyberspace, the threat of crime is becomes hard to overcome with new technology and software. I believe that Barlow's efforts to find ways to stop crime from happening, doesn't seem to be very strong, in which he leads us to his questionable accounts from his own experience. I believe Barlow wants to educate us on some level of how information is being exploited and try to find answers to for each of his finds. Still puzzled about how technology helps us to exploit information, I believe Barlow to be more of an educator than a crime investagator in what he's showing us. The article still leaves me confused in what he was trying to show us. Barlow talks about so many things on the playing field of how information is being used and the idea of cyberspace having and not having physical value. With the idea of a physical side to cyberspace and a non-physical side, Barlow tends to form circles with his information. Still I would have to say, John Perry Barlow, definitely examines important aspects of what's happening to information in cyberspace. Barlow also show us, what kinds of question that we should be asking about cyberspace, and how cyber property can effect the means of ownership and copyrights towards information.

Reflecting on "US youths use internet to create," from BBC NEWS

I think the idea of web blogging is cool, the idea of sharing thoughts on music, pictures, artwork, and stories! My sister showed me her web blog, and she had a lot of things on there dealing with pictures of her friends. I believe blogging lets us copyright our thoughts and interest faster then on a personal website or e-mail, so other people can see them quicker. Blogging is not just for personal use, but blogging also creates the link between communication through passive thinking and active learning. I like how Barlow focuses on soaking up someone else’s thoughts or beliefs on a subject or personal matter and taking that information and expanding on it. That what I want people to feel, I want them to soak up my information my thoughts, that why I'm embraced to continue blogging.

That's what I believe the Internet is all about, sharing information and communicating through ideas and beliefs at rapid speed. I believe that the idea of communicating with other youths through blogging has become a new kind of trend like e-mail, but better! It's like having an e-mail in which it’s a personal webpage, and it’s really easy to edit, take stuff out, and add new stuff. Finding out that this blogging trend is being "spearheading" by girls, blogging to be seems to be similar to the days when young teenage girls use to share scrapbooks and journals with pictures with friends.

From the statistical views it said that,"

-Although about half knew it was wrong to do so, more than half (51%) said they downloaded music, compared to 18% of adults.
-A third (31%) said they downloaded video so that they could watch them when they wanted.
-Boys were more likely to be the downloaders than girls, the research found.
-Roughly half said they did not care about copyright issues when it came to downloading.
-Although 30% of downloaders said they used peer-to-peer file-sharing networks to get their music,
-about 30% also said they used paid-for services such as iTunes.
-Out of those young people who do download music and video from the web, 75% of them agreed that downloading and file-sharing was so easy that it was unrealistic to expect people not to do it." (BBC NEWS)

"Today's online teens have grown up amidst the chaos of the digital copyright debate, and it shows," said Mary Madden, co-author of the report.” At a time when social norms around digital content don't always appear to conform with the letter of the law, many teens are aware of the restrictions on copyrighted material, but believe it's still permissible to share some content for free." (BBC NEWS)

Blogging, from my personal experience, has opened a new door (in my mind) towards how we can share information or communicate easier with other bloggers towards sharing information and ideas. The idea that blogging doesn't cost anything is great, and its easy to set up without worrying about signing up for another term or paying monthly fees. Adding pictures is easy too. With a blog, it doesn't have to be about one specific topic or even be personal, and the breathing about it is, you can add write something down and save it for later to publish. I know when you have a personal web site, it might be hard updating or adding information frequently. With a blog, you don't have to wait long to see what you published. Time is a valuable thing, and I would have to say that, I hate waiting for things to happen.

Self-expression I believe is an important part of blogging, in which you can find other people with blogs have similar interest. The idea of crediting people, in which you can post a commit on their web blog is a great idea. I believe Blogging is active and passive at the same time. You can write something down, and someone can commit on it later. Then, other people would have commits on what they thought or agree with you or someone else, and you can commit on their thoughts. You can also get key insights from other people that commit your blog. The idea of posting commits I believe is the best way to talk about people's ideas and beliefs and share your thoughts. I would say blogging is probably better then an e-mail and quicker then a personal web page. In a chat room, you only come upon specific areas of information. When your blogging, you learn about how one thinks and you learn what they are interested in right away.

On the idea of youths picking up this new technical enhancement towards communication, I believe more people will switch to blogging than setting up a personal web. I feel that blogging has become or is becoming a new social icon in cyberspace. Not so much toward the chat room aspect, but a more in-depth fundamental practice towards learning about self-interest and education.

Readings/Source:

"US youth use internet to create." BBC NEWS Friday. 4 November 2005. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4403574.stm)

Porn, Changing the face of Society

(Unfinished Essay)

To spill the milk on the meaning of cyberspace, I looked towards Benjamin Woolley’s rationale on what he believes cyberspace to be. He tells us that cyberspace means the study of control, in which he says, “-‘cyber,’ meaning steersman, coming from ‘cybernetics,” study of control mechanisms.” (Woolley, Cyberspace) Woolley expresses the ideas from Marshall McLuhan, in which he says, “One interpretation of cyberspace is that it concerns the annihilation of space.” McLuhan’s idea of the Western world and how it imploded, I believe that in a sense, pornography become revolutionary towards how it invaded the Internet. In McLuhan’s observation on how technology is an extension of our bodies and John Perry Barlows idea as cyberspace being a new frontier, Woolley tells us that, “Perhaps cyberspace, then is-literally-where the money is. Perhaps it is also the place where events increasingly happen, where our lives and fates are increasingly determined; a place that has a very direct impact on our material circumstances-…” (Woolley, Cyberspace) Maybe if Woolley is right, based on the idea that cyberspace is where the money is, maybe that’s why pornography is becoming so successful. On the other hand, maybe cyberspace is not where the money is, but where pornography can be easily accessed.

“The electronic revolution has made pornography more accessible, bringing decadent and hard-to-get images into the home. In the past, those who wanted to obtain hard-core pornography had to leave their home and go to a seedy side of town and buy a magazine or watch a movie. That is no longer the case. First came cable TV broadcasting visual images stronger than what you would see in movie theaters two decades ago. Then came videos which could be rented at your local, respectable video store.” (Anderson, Probe Ministries). Kerby Anderson, the National Director of Probe Ministries International, a non-profit ministry whose mission is to assist the church in renewing the minds of believers with a Christian worldview and to equip the church to engage the world for Christ, brings up strong points on how easy it is not to be exposed to pornography. Anderson says that, “Cyberporn is more than naked women. Demand for images goes far beyond what can be found in a bookstore magazine rack. Pedophilia, bestiality, bondage, and sadomasochism make up a majority of the images. Many of the images are too offensive to even describe here.” (Anderson, Probe Ministries).

From “The Pornography Plague,” another article by Kerby Anderson, he says, “What was only available to a small number of people willing to drive to the bad side of town can now be viewed at any time in the privacy of one's home.” (Anderson, Probe Ministries). Laura Paul, a contributing writer to iParenting Media.com, a parenting website to Childrentoday.com, says that, “With computers in most homes, parents today find it's not enough to teach their children how to be street smart. Parents need to be tech smart, knowing how to use parental controls on their home computer and how to guard their children from pornography on the Internet as well as violent video games when their children visit friends.” (Paul, Childrentoday.com) With the idea that technology is changing, parents aren’t catching up to what their kids are doing online, Paul points out. She looks toward Donna Rice Hughes, the author of Kids Online: Protecting Your Children in Cyberspace for some of her insights on how children are not safe from exposure of pornography. "Kids are developing some real problems and addictions," she says. "It's just like if you found out your child has a marijuana problem. You might want to have them start having drug testing. With respect to accidental access, you definitely don't want to punish your child or shame them or anything else. For a kid who has already started going down the road of getting addicted to this material or is starting to have online sexual relationships with people, you really need to tighten up the boundaries and get them professional help." (Paul, Childrentoday.com) Laura Paul brings up some important points on how kids are being exposed to porn. Paul talks about how children stumble across pornographic material by accident. She gives us the example of children icons like “Britney Spears.” A child can search under “Britney Spears and a website containing nudity could open up. It’s shocking to know, that I could go home and look at pornography when my parents weren’t looking. I remember that I used to save pictures of naked woman on a disc and tried to hide it when I was in high school, at the age of 16. I know that my younger brother was exposed to pornographic pictures when he was in elementary school at the age of 9. I remember finding naked pictures in his room. I asked him where he got them, he told me that he got them from a friend.

Include NICHOLAS NEGROPONTE's "being digital", and DENNIS BARON's, "From Pencils to Pixels."

“Online porn often leads high-tech way,” says Jon Swartz from USA TODAY. He tells us that, “They're among the Web's most innovative and profitable entrepreneurs, but pariahs 1 among mainstream business people.” (Swartz, USA TODAY) I think its important that you know the insight about how porn influences has on us. Swartz mentions that, “Online pornographers have been among the first to exploit new technology for more than a decade — from video-streaming and fee-based subscriptions to pop-up ads and electronic billing.” (Swartz, USA TODAY). About the idea how the porn will effect technology, Swartz continues and tells us that, “As cyberporn pioneers venture into new fields, such as wireless services, digital-rights management and geo-location software, their peers in other businesses are taking notes again. The adult industry's use of technology already reshaped how Internet behemoths Yahoo and Microsoft MSN do business. Both rely heavily on fee-based subscriptions and prominently feature video-streaming technology. Amazon.com has effectively used affiliate-marketing campaigns — posting free content on 900,000 smaller sites — to attract millions of consumers to its site. Pop-up ads are seemingly everywhere on the Net.” (Swartz, USA TODAY). In important to mention that Swartz states, “Technology has paid off handsomely for porn sites in the USA. Led by sites like Danni's Hard Drive and Cybererotica, they generated $2 billion in revenue last year, up 10% to 15% from 2002, says Adult Video News, a trade magazine. That's about 10% of the overall domestic porn market. The number of porn sites has vaulted eighteenfold, to 1.3 million, since 1998, says the National Research Council.” (Swartz, USA TODAY).

“The Internet is Not a Child’s Playground,” Cody J. Reeder tells us, based on a report by the National Coalition for the Protection of Children and Families that, “the largest group of viewers of internet pornography are youth 12-17 years of age.” (Reeder, YNOT.com) I found out that most web providers don’t check age certification or don’t have warnings about its content. Anyone and even children can preview free pictures, picture galleries, or even MPEG movie clips from pornographic adult websites by clicking ‘ENTER,’ avoiding or not paying attention to the 18 and over. Homework searching and emails is another way that most children and teenagers are becoming exposed to pornography. Janet Stanley, a researcher for the National Child Protection Clearninghouse says that, “Apart from visiting pornographic websites, e-mail offers an additional means for children to be exposed to sexually offensive or developmentally inappropriate material. For example, a free e-mail service that is commonly used by children is saturated with e-mails relating to sexual, ‘adult’ material and e-mails that appear to link to child pornography. Titles invite you to access ‘Teen sex, Teen Pics, Teen Movies’ a ‘free review of new hardcore porn site,’ Live sex see it now’ and titles too offensive to reproduce here.” (Stanley, National Child Protection Clearinghouse).

The reason kids are accessing pornographic websites so easily, is that 66 percent of commercial pornography sites don’t include warnings of adult content. I found that 25 percent of commercial pornography sites prevent users from exiting the site, and only 3 percent of commercial pornography sites require adult verification. (Hughes, protectkids.com) It not that hard to say that accessibility is easy for anyone even children to enter a pornographic website on the Internet. Janet Stanley tells us that, “Filter software is only partly successful. A major filter software manufacturer found that only 17 percent of children were blocked from viewing an objectionable website by software at school, and only 14 percent were blocked at home.” Stanley mentions other various studies about Internet filters, that wasn’t effective towards blocking. (Stanley, National Child Protection Clearinghouse)

I had to find this out for my self, to see if this is true. Under the search ‘WARNING: Sexually Explicit Content’ or ‘Warning 18 years or older,’ all the web sites that I saw that warned readers of it content, none of them stopped me from entering the site. When I went to a site that opened up to a warning notification, and pressed enter, I didn’t have to verify information towards my age. Ten out of ten pornographic web sites that I visited let me continue to view the next page of explicit or offensive adult material. Some of the sites also had pop up menus that lead to other links that usually contain free pictures, picture galleries, and membership sign ups to other links. As research goes, pornography is leading to society changes, towards interacting with the Internet and how we do business. To understand how pornography is leading to social and culture changes, I recommend you read “Porn is bad for society and bad for you. Right?”, an article by Thom Powers, from the Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2005. Similar to this find, of how pornography is changing social habits and behaviors.

"What Video Games Have to Tech Us About Learning and Literacy." James Paul Gee pulls his heart out to tell us how the idea of playing video games leads to many different social practices and role taking.

Include SHERRY TURKLE's "Identity in the Age of the Internet" and "Identity Crisis."

If we understand how pornography is changing society, we also have to understand that pornography is addicting.
While looking over a couple Internet articles on porn addiction, I came across a great article that deals with accounts of people were surveyed on the issue. From an article called, “The Great Internet Porn-Off,” David Wong, a computer software programmer and developer for the web and Java, talks about a study he did on how pornography is an addiction. He said, “I gathered almost 100 volunteers to start with, all of whom were regular porn users.” (Wong, Pointlesswasteoftime.com) In the article, he found that many of his volunteers were addicted to porn, not knowing of it until they tried to quit. “Of 94 subjects, 52 (or 55%) failed to go just one week without porn.” At the end of the article, David includes a ‘Try it your self,” deal, that consist of a self-survey that shows if you are addicted or not.

The Ten Steps to Porn Addiction: Where are you?
1. You find yourself using a great deal of porn;
2. You often look at porn rather than other things that are not porn;
3. You call in sick to work so you can look at porn;
4. You look at porn while at work;
5. You apply for and take a job where looking at porn is a requirement;
6. You hide your porn habit from your friends and family;
7. You no longer feel the need to hide your porn habit from friends and family;
8. You find yourself reading porn at a funeral;
9. You read porn at the funeral of a man whom you killed for his porn;
10. You have paid for Internet porn.

Source: http://www.Pointlesswasteoftime.com

I was shocked to find that 51 percent of pastors say cyberporn is a possible temptation. 37 percent say it is a current struggle, and 4 in 10 pastors have visited a porn site, according to statistics on Protectkids.com. I was also shocked to find, from Janet Stanley’s article, that there is an estimate of 14 million pornographic websites that carry an estimate of one million pornographic images of children. Stanley mentions that child pornography on how it is becoming a major problem due to the steady rise of the people who want it. I know that child pornography is definitely an important subject to talk about, but something that I didn’t want to touch.

It seems that today’s kids, young adults, adults, and teenagers can’t get enough of the Internet pornography. Becoming exposed through the different types of media like magazines, television, billboards, it seems that pornography has been more increasingly effective towards marketing in Cyberspace, in which filters can’t seem to stop it. News reporter from Wired News.com, Ryan Singel, says that, "The internet is a perfect drug delivery system because you are anonymous, aroused and have role models for these behaviors," Layden said. "To have drug pumped into your house 24/7, free, and children know how to use it better than grown-ups know how to use it -- it's a perfect delivery system if we want to have a whole generation of young addicts who will never have the drug out of their mind." (Singel, WIREDNEWS.COM)

(Needs to be revised and rewritten)

Notes:

1. Warning: All information is for educational use only. Information that contains information about a website should not be used or consumed by any one for personal use, but to understand the means it was used for.

2. A list of the various adult websites that had warning notifications pertaining to the content of the website, but didn’t stop me from entering site: Sorry, but I could not list them, due to the contents of the websites. Keep in mind, I thought highly to that of my readers and believe that the content maybe disrespectful or offensive towards others.

3. When I was searching under Google.com, under “Kids exposed to porn,” I saw on the side two sponsored links. One was titled “Free Porn,” which the description said, “Watch Sexy Girls Behaving Badly. It’s Free. No Credit Card Required!” http://www.Ez-Flix.com. I kid probably could have saw this easily, and could have clicked to this link.

4. Pariahs1 - An outcast; a member of a low caste or class (Answers.com)

5. Found statistics on increase of computer use by children in America, by age and use, by Eric C. Newburger. “Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August 2000.” Current Population Reports. U.S. Census Bureau. Sept. 2001. 19 Oct. 2005. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf


Work Cited:

“Internet Pornography Statistics.” Internet Filter Review/TopTenReviews.com. 2005. 19
Oct. 2005. http://internet-filter-review.toptenreviews.com/internet-pornography-statistics.html

“Pornography Statistics.” FamilySafeMedia.com. 2005. 19 Oct. 2005.
http://www.familysafemedia.com/pornography_satistics.html

“Spam Statistics 2004.” Spam Filter Review/TopTenReviews.com. 2005. 26 Oct. 2005.
http://spam-filter-review.toptenreview.com/spam-statistics.html

Anderson, Kerby. “Cyberporn.” Probe Ministries. 1995. 25 Oct. 2005.
http://www.probe.org/content/view/121/169/

Anderson, Kerby. “The Pornography Plague.” Probe Ministries. 1997. 16 Nov. 2005.
http://www.probe.org/content/view/822/176/

Baron, Denis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technology.” (15 - 33)
Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st. Century Technologies. Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe, Editors. Logan, UT. Utah State University Press. 1999.


Heins, Marjorie. Not In Front of the Children – “Indecency,” Censorship, and the
Innocence of Youth. New York. Hill and Wang, A division of Farrar, Straus and
Giroux. 2001.

Hughes, Donna Rice. “How Pornography Harms Children.” Protecting Children in
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http://www.protectkids.com/effects/Harms.htm#4

Hughes, Donna Rice. “Recent Statistics on Internet Dangers.” Protecting Children in
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http://www.protectkids.com/dangers/stats.htm

Newburger, Eric C. “Home Computers and Internet Use in the United States: August
2000.” Current Population Reports. U.S. Census Bureau. Sept. 2001. 19 Oct. 2005. http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/p23-207.pdf

Paul, Laura. “What’s Happening Next Door? Establishing Internet Rules for Home and
Away.” ChildrenToday.com. 2003. 25 Oct. 2005.
http://childrentoday.com/resources/articles/internetrules.htm

Reeder, Cody J. “The Internet is Not a Child’s Playground.” YNOT.com. 29 August
2005. 19 Oct. 2005. http://www.ynot.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=news_article&sid=9708

Singel, Ryan. “Internet Porn: Worse Than Crack?” Technology/WiredNews.com. 11:00
AM 19 Nov. 2004. 29 Oct. 2005. http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65772,00.html

Stanley, Janet. “Child abuse and the Internet.” Child Abuse Prevention Issues Number 15
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http://www.aifs.gov.au/nch/issues/issues15.html

Swartz, Jon. “Online porn often leads high-tech way.” Money. USA TODAY. 9 March
2004. 26 Oct. 2005 http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2004-03-09-onlineporn_x.htm

Turkle, Sherry. “Identity Crisis.” Cyberreader. Ed. Victor Vitanza. Needham Hights: A
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Turkle, Sherry. “Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet.” New
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Wilson, Margaret. “Keeping Pandora’s Box of Porn Shut. How to Make You Home Safe
For Surfing.” In Touch Ministries. 2005.
http://www.kintera.org/site/c.7nKFISNvEqG/b.1084353/k.8689/Pandoras_Box.htm

Wong, David. “The Great Internet Porn-Off.” Pointlesswasteoftime.com 2004. 29 Oct.
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Woolley, Benjamin. “Cyberspace.” Cyberreader. Ed. Victor Vitanza. Needham Hights: A
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