Tag: wikileaks

02/7/11

archiving history

History, this is something that allows us to re-live our past and never forget what has happend.  Today’s version of histroy is not the same as the past.  In the past there was no technology or electronic devices used to video tape history.  All the history we know of today is either by means of writing with feather and pen or by searching the earth’s crust for signs of life.  Now-a-days We have almost anything important that has happend on video.  It is not going to be hard for archeologists in the future to learn about our present history.  In fact the people of the future will be so ahead because they can viually see our history that it will help improve theirs.  I think archiving tweets is pointless and is definately a waste of space and paper.  The only positive that can come out of it is that it would give a few people jobs.

Regarding wikileaks.  I believe this was terrible for the country because not only was the U.S. Gov’ts secrets exposed, in the eyes of others it made the U.S.(usually known as a super power) look like a chicken that can’t control it’s eggs.  Things U.S. citizens had no busy knowing about were leaked and it could only cause damage to the country as opposed to people’s curiousity being pleasured

02/2/11

bang bang!

The evolution of the process in which we record history has been changing consistently throughout the centuries. As a society we have come from stone slabs to virtual systems that can practically think for themselves.  Historical evidence and events can now be stored faster, more organized and in an easily accessible manner.  New technology allows data basis to record information that without this technology would be impossible to even gather ( i.e. seismograms).  I think Luke makes a good  point “As anyone who’s done serious archival work before knows, you spend a whole lot of time digging through irrelevant material to find the gem that’ll be the center of your fourth chapter.”  I’m not even remotely sure how a twitter archive in the Library of Congress will help or even appeal to my future great grandchildren but hey, if we have the technology and space, why not?

WikeLeaks I feel is a very controversial way to obtain ‘evidence’ that you will later allow you to formulate your own opinion.  I do feel it is essential to the American people that they have a sense of comfort in having an outside source (that of besides government issued information) of documentation.  I also feel that it needs to be taken with a grain of salt.  K.C. Johnson states, “The WikiLeaks documents give at best an incomplete picture of recent U.S. foreign policy, and at worst will yield an inaccurate one.”  My only worries about this is that later historians will have flawed information, but then again history is always written by the victors.

02/2/11

There is no “everyone” in PRIVACY, or is there?

We’ve come a long way from the strenuous and tedious handwritten recordings on paper. Entering the 21st century, the Internet era has completely taken over. The technology of computers and other electronics has not only become tools to enhance productivity but has become the way we live. People are constantly on the Internet looking for data, whether it is  information to help them on their project to even information on social networking sites to see what their friends new status is. Whatever it is you’re looking for, the Internet probably offers it. This is a huge step forward in information gathering. It helps not only everyday people but as well as historians whom are always sifting through loads of information. With that comes consequences as well. The access to information has become so easily attained that people have become reliant on technology and the Internet. People become mind boggled when something unexpected happens: like their phone running out of batteries. Also people do not appreciate the information attained when generations before people would die (exaggerated) for these information.

In addition, another issue rises. With sites like Twitter and Wikileaks being archived, people may feel that our privacy is taken away from us. Ultimately, that is the case. There really are no secrets on the Internet. Once it is posted on the Internet, there is no way of taking it back. With that, people need to start screening what they post if they don’t want their secrets being found. Nonetheless, the Internet still is a great aspect to our future.

02/2/11

tools for future

Since people invented computer, the speed of gathering information have go beyond people’s conceivability. It becomes easier for historians to gather information of historical evidence from internet and database than before. The article, Archiving Tweets by Lauren says that the library of congress digitally archive every public tweets. I think it is a good ways to historian search online. People may concern that is huge among of data need to process every day. However, it is not a problem because each piece of tweets can be valuable historical evidences for future. Therefore, Twitter leaves a valuable property for our future generation.
The other article is talking about Wiki Leak. Wiki Leaks dumps a lot of documents which have hidden by political interest. I personally believe that it is not right to hide things that happen around us. History is belong to human, so everyone should have right to know it. Wiki Leaks not only exposes historical documents to us, but also illuminate there are incalculable documents that we need to explore. As a result, Wiki Leaks can be alarm to prevent government hiding history.

02/1/11

Tweet into history

In the past couple of decades, the standar

ds of privacy has been on much of a decline for the most part. Few people in the 1980’s had cell phones, now people are “tweeting” and “facebooking” about their where-abouts, recent vacations, and even feelings. People are not realizing that everything published digitally is (or can be) easily archived. Besides for the fact that complete strangers are able to observe your every post, posting pictures and thoughts can always come back to be held against you in the future.

Wikileaks also for example. Although I am not entirely familiar with the site, thanks to recent new head linings, I am not surprised this website was shut down for posting confidential information. Everything can be traced back to its author and nothing can be hidden on the internet. As safe as we may think we are, we are not. We must think before posting anything as nothing goes unnoticed…

02/1/11

Hidden History

Technology is one of the biggest factors that lead to progress. It exists everywhere, and humans cannot really live without it. We rely too much on our technology, which may become an issue later. But it really helps every aspect of life. In history, technology serves as a driver that pushes our civilizations to move forward from ancient time to modern time. And it makes those historians can easily record history and as well as analyzing it. We have history being recorded on papers, wall, chinaware, weapon and many other ways of recording history. The historical evidences are varied in time because of the technology in different time periods. In the present time, the information is mostly stored digitally, which it becomes more accessible than before. Computer and internet become so popular that we can easily access to whatever to we are looking for. In the article “Archiving Tweets,” Lauren argued that do we really need to store those public tweets. My answer to that question is that storing those tweets is wasting our resources. I don’t really think that historians in the future would look at those tweets. It may be interesting to read other people’s posts, but you cannot get history out of it.

For the article “WikiLeaks and the Historical Community,” I am in favor of having WikiLeaks because it reveals the hidden history. It might not be all accurate information but it opens up people’s eyes to see the hidden part of history. Most of the time, the history is written by winners, and the ugly parts always occur under the table. I think the technology in the future would help those historians to find out more hidden history.

02/1/11

reveal the Top Secrets!

I use many social network as a source of my communication such as the Facebook,but I never use the twitter and I don’t know how that works. From My experience with social networking, either messaging on AIM or MSN, I rarely chat about anything important particularly but I do spend most of my talking there. With the issue of archiving Tweets, I am sure that millions of users use that as a major source of communication and they sure will do a lot of chatting and socializing there. When government archive the tweets, they are able to track down any chat history. It can be an advantage because they may discover conversations that post a threat or do harm to the society. Well with such advance techonolgy, that invaded our rights to privacy, hypothetically, if someone really want to post a threat to the country, I think they will do in a more secret way like mobile phone or mails unless the government is tracking down those too. Overall, I think archiving the Tweets can store massive amount of people’s conversation that can tell something about these people and what is like during that period of time.

I still remmeber when US had won the war of 1812 against the

Great Britain, general Andrew Jackson kept on fighting because the army did not have any advance technology to communicate with once the peace treaty was signed. Nowadays, we have texting, internet, all kinds of advance technology that can make communications across the globe happen within seconds. With that being set, the government can take advantage of the high tech, to keep the secrets to themselves and perfom underground diplomacy or any kind of national act without the public’s realization. Like how Wikileaks trying to reveal the true story of the Irag War, the government are trying their best to contain their top secrets. I think the Wikileak still has some validity issue whether if their sources are reliable or not.

02/1/11

Welcome to the Future of No Privacy!

In the past decade, people have grown to be more and more dependent on technology. Technology offers us many advantages. It allows us to connect with people around the world. In addition, technology has the answers to our questions, even the silliest ones. Most people cannot go a day withour their phones, checking their email, or logging onto Facebook. It is through our reliance on technology that future historians are able to have some insight as to who the people in the 2000 era are like. Tweets, Facebook statuses, and Tumblr posts document our lifestyles. Archiving tweets is a useful method in gathering information. The WikiLeaks dump can also provide valuable data for historians since it will give clues to the political affairs of America and foreign nations. Historians no longer have to dig or go through caves to find information because they can easily find it now.

However, there is a privacy issue. Should the government draw a line as to the type of information it is collecting? I personally do not think it is necessary to archive all the Tweets because some of it contain personal information. This practice of providing information for future historians does make me wonder if there is privacy anymore. I think is great that we found a way to let future historians know more about us but people should be able to have some privacy of their own that nobody can google.

02/1/11

Post At Your Own Risk!

Today almost everything we do is noticed. What we say, what we do, where we go, are all being watched somehow. This provides historians with much fodder to analyze. Historians of the future will be able to look back on the past and have access to piles of information about every citizen. The scientists will be able to gather all this information through Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, MySpace, blogs, and any other web based social network. The scariest part about this is that we give all the information away, without even realizing it. In the past such extensive records were only kept on a few famous people, if even that. Today, almost everybody engages in social networking, allowing any stranger to access more information then they should be permitted to.

The fact that Twitter is being archived is not a surprise to me. Whether Congress announced it or not, everything that is done on the web can be traced back to its user. If one doesn’t want the world to know about something, then do not post it on Twitter. When you post a tweet you are putting your information into cyberspace, and once something is created you can never completely destroy it. It is easier now to spread information then it has ever been. If one wants to invite everybody to a party they can quickly send out an email, post a status, or put up a picture, and soon their entire group of friends would know about that party. The information travels so quickly that we get aggravated if our Internet page takes more than 2 seconds to load. This is what we are dealing with! Due to the ease of spreading electronic data, I was also not shocked when “confidential” data was leaked on WikiLeaks. There is always one person in every office that is willing to give up information for a small price. We see this in many industries. Today we download music CDs weeks before they even comes out, and that is only possible because somebody leaked it out. Leaking private information is nothing new, but due to today’s technology it spreads much quicker.

02/1/11

A Powerful Collection of Any and Everything…No Matter What!

The gathering of historical data is far easier now with the technology that we have.  Unless the digital era crashes or is destroyed in a way that computer technology can no longer exist.  Historians can obtain information without leaving their seats, in a matter of seconds.  No dusty books, that hopefully is in a readable condition.  No documents that can’t be preserved.   Information is sent quickly, gathered fast.  Making it easier to do research.

Reading the article on the archiving of every public tweet actually gave me chills.  We use the Internet for so many different things, that to know that the pictures posted on facebook are no longer yours or that google saves all your searches, and that a tweet stating that ” I’d sleep with my dentist, because he is so hot”, or “I can’t wait till I can eat a bunch of small animals for Thanksgiving”, is locked away somewhere is uncomfortable.  Some time capsule that is!  To imagine that, that’s going to be something that historians will use to study the era that I live in doesn’t sit well with me.  I really don’t want to be remembered that way.


Honestly, I have some major privacy concerns.  It’s one thing to collect data so that you can return to a certain time period, and discuss these historical evidences with the future generations, to better our world.  It’s another not to give people the choice to opt out or better yet, to ask if you can use their belongings.  Honestly, if I knew that Facebook was going to have the rights to my pictures, I would not have joined or posted any up.  Also, I don’t believe most of the entries from twitter should be saved, a lot of these things are just a waste of digital space.

" I know everything!

Where else the information of the wiki-leaks are so controversial, that the government is upset that these “confidential” documents were leaked. What makes them so special, or exempted from disclosure?  If “We the people” can’t keep small secrets or even pictures for ourselves, what makes it okay for “Our government” to keep large ones from us?  It has to be a balance.  I feel that the leaks were wrong, because they may have been obtained illegally, but it shows that all things are being collected in this large pool, whether anyone likes it or not.  That the internet is going to continue to provide the best and worst collection of information… no matter what!

We live in a world where the internet allows no doors to be closed because of it’s vast collection of human knowledge.  It would be nice to know that there is some privacy left.  That there are still some things that are not obtainable through the strokes of a few keys. Yet, I think those days are numbered."The Vast Collector"