Evolution of ID Theft

Identity Theft didn't start with the internet... but it sure made it easier.

I was reading this article on the history of identity theft-- like, back when if you wanted someone's identity you had to kill them for it.

But actually, even without that sort of extreme, photo-ID-less model, you used to be able to steal important information from dumpsters on via over the phone scams. So, like a lot of the other things we've learned about, internet ID theft is an old thing that has adapted itself to new technology.

Erik Hanberg and the Spaghetti Model

Once, at an awards show, I watched a red-carpet interviewer ask why a particular actor had become so successful.

He responded that if you keep throwing Spaghetti at the wall, eventually something's going to stick.

I couldn't help but think of this as Erik Hanberg talked about Black Swans. Sure, he was referring more to unpredictability than persistence. But with that cam the idea that, if you keep putting things out there and trying new ideas, eventually (hopefully...maybe in the future...) you will succeed. After all, the Internet is a big place and there's lots of room for new concepts and new voices-- too much room, maybe.

It seems kind of pessimistic to say it, but while you might succeed... you might also fail.

Scavenger Hunt

Just the other day an acquaintance was commenting that, in spite of the fact that there are pages and pages on just about anything you'd ever want to know on the internet, she gets bored with it.

Today's Online Scavenger Hunt reminded me once again about how deep that internet rabbit hole goes... and also of the power of google. I'll be honest: I had no idea what a tag cloud was before I started. And yeah, okay, that means it took me two searches to get to the answer instead of one (one on "tag cloud" and the other on the site I needed the tag cloud for), but I still had a quick, easy way to get to the answer literally at my fingertips.

In the end the Scavenger Hunt concept made me search for things I might never have known were out there if I hadn't been directed to find it.

Paying for the news.... again

According to a blogger for The Guardian, a recent study revealed that 48% of internet users in the UK and Britain are willing to pay for the news online... but Americans maxed out at $3 a month. Right now, that's about the price of one copy of the NY Times.

Here's my question: where do the other 52% expect to get their news? And will those sources be hiring?

Student Journalism Projects

From Moscow State University in, well, Moscow, to UWT, a few student journalism projects I've worked on finally went live. Here they are:

UWT/MSU Journalist (Convergence Site)

UWT Student Journalism Project

Converging Worlds

According to the handy-dandy online edition of Merriam-Webster, Convergence is:

1: the act of converging and especially moving toward union or uniformity; especially : coordinated movement of the two eyes so that the image of a single point is formed on corresponding retinal areas
2: the state or property of being convergent
3: independent development of similar characters (as of bodily structure of unrelated organisms or cultural traits) often associated with similarity of habits or environment
4: the merging of distinct technologies, industries, or devices into a unified whole

If you asked me, though, I'd say it's even more than that. Trite as it may be, I think Convergence is the wave of the future. The concept of combining different industries and techniques is popping up everywhere-- from the technology industry to journalism.

Everything today is multi... something. In fact, I'm in this class because of the need for multi-media skills in journalism today. It seems that the world has decided it's silly to use things separately when you could combine them. My phone receives e-mail, the online editions of print publications include video...

Like it or not, it's the things are. Or rather, the way things are becoming.

Digital and Physical Documents

I spent a chunk of this last weekend in a time-honored tradition: flipping through family photo albums with my mom. We have pictures-- real, physical pictures-- going all the way back to the 1950s... which, at times, seems like ancient history.

While I was feeling all nostalgic, I started thinking: what will my kids do when they want to see old pictures of me? Friend me on facebook? Double click on an old slideshow? And while physical documents have never been 100% safe (there is, after all, always the possibility they could burst into flames or be ruined in a flood or...), some sort of computer failure seems far more likely.

I guess it comes down to this: digital documents are easy to edit, easy to share, easy to store (my laptop takes up so much less space than dozens of old albums)... but also potentially easy to lose. And if we lose our photos, our letters, journals-- in short, all the bits of paper that mark our lives-- what will be left when we're gone?

"The Internet is a City"

Chris Richardson of Internet Identity really got me thinking about security online-- mostly that I'm probably not careful enough-- but a few things really stood out.

At one point he mentioned that "the internet is a city", and like most cities, it has a criminal element. This comment made me consider the term "virtual world" in a new way. I mean, yes, of course, there is a virtual world. But that world, and the people that use it, emulate our ACTUAL society in more ways than I had previously thought.

One more thing I thought was interesting were all the locations from which internet crime originates. It makes sense that internet crime can be very global, incorporating people from many countries. But it made me wonder what countries were hubs of internet crime, and why. He mentioned Italy as one place they encounter a lot-- which wouldn't have been my first guess.

All told, I guess my conclusion is that the virtual world can be surprisingly real... and sometimes this is pretty unfortunate.

I'm So Vain, I Probably Think This Search Is About Me

Okay, okay, I admit it-- I'm definitely guilty of vanity searching. Guilty to the point that, well, most of the search results when I googled my name were not surprising. To be fair, though, most of the top results are things I've written, mostly for websites. Or my facebook page. But that's about it.

I did find something that was surprising, and honestly pretty cool. It was from someone who had read one of my clips (and yeah, okay, it was a recommendation of their website, but still...) and then blogged about it-- she even mentioned me by name!

And just think... if I didn't do the occasional vanity search, I never would have known!

Mark Briggs and New Media

Mark Briggs, of Serra Media and Journalism 2.0, had a lot of interesting ideas about the future of publishing. One of the most interesting to me was that the success of news-reporting sites in new media will come down to the marketplace of ideas--but not because the idea surprised me. Rather, it made me wonder if I trust the general public to choose good, well-reported information over, well, crap.

There's already a lot of not-so-great "news" stories out there, even coming from legit sources. It's a lot more cost effective to get photos of Britney Spears shaving her head than it is to pay someone to work on a long investigative story-- especially since just as many people will pay for the photos of Britney as hard-hitting news. The same is true of reality television. They're a lot cheaper and easier to produce than good TV shows, and sell just as well.

I don't mean to compare all blog sites to trashy television and celeb gossip-- but I do wonder what will happen to the online versions of traditional, credible news organizations when they have to compete with so many "easy" news sites...

My First Page

I was amazed at how easy it was to create an HTML page... until it came time to open it in a browser.

When I had the page open in the text editor, I was flying along throwing in all sorts of (very basic) codes: bold, italic, you name it I tried it. I saved it, too--and yes, it was as a .html-- but when it came time to find it in Internet Explorer I got nothing!

I tried again-- still no luck. So, sadly, all my hard work and crazy coding is only visible to me as a text file... which is a bit disappointing after all the things I tried. But, then again, I guess it was just my first page. Hopefully I'll improve as time goes on.

My Future of Unemployment

Okay, maybe not. Hopefully not. But as a person that always wanted to write for a living, I can't help but be a little concerned that I won't have a job when I graduate.

Print media is changing-- that's one thing we really can't deny. Pretty much all major newspapers and magazines have websites and blogs (even staff bloggers) to accompany their anorexic print editions. Actually, most of the non-major publications have these things too.

I don't think this is a bad thing, but it definitely means things are changing in the industry. Because of the multimedia nature of online content, recent grads looking for jobs in the field are going to have to know more than just writing. We need video, photo, and web skills, too.

Here's the other thing: right now, almost no one pays for online content. And why would you? I love the New York Times-- but I don't pay for a hard copy now that it's free online (I used to pay for an online subscription, but that's beside the point). The problem? You still have to pay people (like me) to produce this content to put on the web... even if no one pays to read it.

Publishing is a business. Businesses need to make a profit. So until we start making readers pay for digital content, my job prospects don't look so great.

My Latest Post on IT

Pre-Russia travel advice straight from me to you. Check it out here.

Requiem for the Post Office

As one of the last-standing senders of snail mail (that's me in the photo, feeding my post card addiction), I'd like to take a minute to remember the lost art of letter writing. While e-mail is amazing in so many ways, there's a little something that's been lost with the good old-fashioned letter.

Don't get me wrong: I like e-mail. I use it every day. Okay, yes, several times a day. I use it for work. I use it for school. Just yesterday I got an e-mail with a link to a Russian friend's photos from a recent trip, an order confirmation for a new CD, a digital copy of my syllabus, and a confirmation of a meeting this afternoon. With e-mail, I can stay in contact with people from around the world instantly-- even thousands of miles from my physical address.

Forget a birthday? No problem-- you can now send "cards" on the day of and be right on time. For a lot of professional contacts or even professors at school, e-mail is the BEST form of contact. How often to you check your actual mailbox? Compare that to how often you check your e-mail.

As a writer, I can file stories for multiple sources from across the country-- sometimes even from a different country. I can send pictures. I can send links to interesting articles or important research material to people at school. And now matter where they are or where I am, they get it almost instantly.

But here's the thing: we don't take the same kind of time to connect with each other over e-mail as we do with mail in the physical form. From Paris I sent my dad paragraphs and paragraphs about how much I loved the city, what I ate, where I went, and asked him how he was in return.

I got back maybe three lines: "Glad you're having fun. Everything's fine here. Keep in touch. Love, Dad."

When I send a letter, the few that actually write back are more engaged. I feel like they've read what I've written more thoroughly (rather than skimming through on their way to the next item in their inbox) and send me a thoughtful response.

E-mail is amazing, but it's rarely personal. It encourages us to be in a hurry. So maybe next time you really want to catch up with someone, you should sit down and write a letter.