the internet of things

BCM206 | Week 11

Computers are everywhere, on everyone. There are computers in our pockets and on our fridges. They surround us everyday – evolution of the internet isn’t stopping any time soon. The term, the Internet of Things originated in 1999, with the work of two Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT] research labs, Kevin Ashton and Neil Gershenfeld argued for “the enfolding of things into the internet in an active role – either in terms of making the world comprehensible for things, or adding things to the internet” (Mattern & Florkemeier, 2010). The IoT was seen as a paradigmatic shift from the internet of single desktop and mobile computers, to a broadly defined large connectivity spread through material artefacts, therefore making them visible to humans. (Mitew, T 2014)

An object connected to the Internet of Things involved a network of simple capabilities and has a unique network ID. It has sensors, storage and processing, actuation, remote access and a semantic interface. An example of this is a Google Home or an Amazon Echo and even Tesla Cars. Data can be access anywhere, on nearly every object as the internet evolves. Thats where we’re heading so can any object become part of the internet of things? Only time will tell.

References:
– Mitew, T 2014, Do objects dream of the an internet of things?, https://moodle.uowplatform.edu.au/mod/resource/view.php?id=1661679
– Mitew, T, 2020, The internet of things: from networked objects to anticipatory spaces, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCktdyl8Lss&feature=emb_title

no computer, it’s not corona, its botnets.

BCM206 | Week 10

“A botnet is a network of computers infected with malware that responds to an attacker to perform any activity they want”

Botnet’s allow cyber criminals to control different computers from any location, after infecting them. (Covid-19 is real quiet all of a sudden). Some of these hidden virus carriers com in the from of safety software or trendy apps that improve your computing experience.. but under neath they’re just trying to get onto your computer to plant their seed. This modern day Trojan horse can become self-morphing, self-defending, self-replicating and self clocking. They can run on anything form 20 to 115 computers. (Scherier, F 2015). These hackers can use the “zombies computers” to commit crimes like collapsing websites, identity theft, financial fraud, malware distribution, mass mailing of spam. I’m always worried about getting hacker, I’m so scared to block content from my emails because i’m afraid opening them form my spam with infect me. I’m always conscious of how my online activity and clicks will actually affect my computer.

I’m the part of the percent of society that sticks a Post-it note to the camera on my laptop…. just to be safe….

References
– Scherier, F 2015, On Cyberware, https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/OnCyberwarfare-Schreier.pdf
– ESET, 2015, What is botnet and how does it spread?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0sgiY93w9c

chàe media | beta

BCM206

This semester, so far, the Chàe has been working very hard! With the continuing challenged of the pandemic, we’ve been inconstant communication with our team in planning and executing whats happening with Chàe. We’ve released our first issue of the semester, Issue 4 of Chàe Magazine, “Through the Screen“. In this issue we incorporated what we’ve been learning throughout BCM206, about future networks and our digital world. With zoom being the new classroom we wanted to include relevant topics that students would be interested in and find helpful.

The outcome of this release was positive, though our impressions have been good from the release of the magazine, our reads are leaking as they are only 20% of the impressions. This is something that we as a team need to work on. Whether it be pre-advertising a week before or more or contenting our blog – which we’ve sort of dropped this semester.

What we’ve been doing as a group (Emma, Chelsea and I) with our DA Chàe Media is a lot of planning and behind the scenes work. But as we’ve been looking to the future we forgot about the present. Our social media activity and interaction has dropped dramatically as we’ve been sidetracked with our two releases this semester, instead of just one. This again could be due to the lack of blog posts, making us feel like we have no content curation to share but we are going to get on top of that in the latter part of the semester.

Behind the scenes elements we’ve been working hard on is our visual communication within our magazine. We’ve given ourselves as an executive more time to consolidate the articles and elements in the magazine, so everything looks perfect and aesthetically pleasing. There are some marketing strategies that we are working to implement in order to enhance Chàe’s effectiveness and popularity. As well as working on a podcast that we hope to become a series throughout the second half of the semester.

Thank you for following along, and supporting the Chàe family x

anonymous hactivism

BCM206 | Week 9

For my remediation this week I wanted to educate myself, and my audience on the Anonymous group.

In 2012, Anonymous was at the height of their popularity, a network of thousands of activists, a minority of them hackers, “devoted to leftist-libertarian ideals of personal freedom and opposed to the consolidation of corporate and government power“. Their symbol is a Guy Fawkes mask (made famous by Alan Moore’s graphic novel V for Vendetta in which an anarchist revolutionary dons the mask to topple a corrupt fascist government) (Molloy, D & Tidy, J 2020)

Then of May this year and the dead of George Floyd and the trending of Black Lives Matter Anonymous posted a video to their Facebook page. They began their acts by taking the Minneapolis police department website temporarily offline over a weekend and then began circulating documents in a civil court case that was voluntarily dismissed by the accuser before it went to trial involving President Trump.

Despite there being no single unified approach among Anonymous’ members, the group has targeted groups over race relations in the past. In 2014, when the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, prompted widespread protests, Anonymous threatened to target the city if protesters were harmed, they then disabled the city’s website and compromising communications at city hall.

References:
– Molloy, D & Tidy, J 2020, George Floyd: Anonymous hackers re-emerge amid US unrest, BBC, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52879000
– Beran, D 2020, The Return of Anonymous, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/hacker-group-anonymous-returns/615058/

self-reflection of comments (beta)

Chelsea-Lee Bastable | Breathing in the Wind – Zelda
Chelsea’s project takes the form of blogs of her observations as she plays the game Zelda from a designers point- of-view. . The suggestion I made for her, is to seperate her blogs from her University blogs as they get lost on her page, and that probably leads to a lack of interactions from a public audience. A well, I suggested to looking into the background of the game, into the influences and compare the end product.  Was the design influenced by the previous Zelda games, or was it created new from a new plot line and story, was it original art design of the game, as well as its development process, that made it reach what is became? It’d be interesting to note if the game being designed and created in Asia effected the outcome of the art, evaluate how that has contributed to the virtual beauty of networked gaming culture (Chan, D 2006)

Emma Jenkins | Reaction Blogs
Emma’s DA is reaction blogs to different gaming videos on YouTube, she has made a reaction series to the game Among US, I suggested she do different series on different games and players OR end each little series with a video or blog recounting your own experience having a go playing different games. I thought maybe she could take a deeper analysis into each game, specifically these online multiplayer games. Technology can simulate multi-medial virtual worlds one can interact with and – especially during Covid-19 – increasingly being connected to other computers over the Internet. Which is what this suddenly popular game allows. (Raessens, J 2005). What I like and learn from her blogs was her genuine interest and joy in her blogs. I think commenting on her previous blog and now what she’s doing in her DA has made it easier for me to suggest more things to help her with her DA.

Ashlan Rose | Marketing In The Gaming Industry
Reading and looking at Ashlan’s DA has made me see what I need to work on in my own Digital Artefact. I made one suggestion to Ashlan, to look into reaching out to some marketing companies that handle gaming to see how the physical and digital advertising differently effects the popularity of a game. What I more so learnt from Ashlan’s DA is her consistent feedback loop. Something I already mentioned I have to work on, but seeing the different strategies she took, gave me inspiration to keep my feedback and social media presence more consistent, an important aspect of a Digital Artefact that I have been ignoring. For her blog her focus is marketing in the gaming world, but she is also marketing herself and her DA. Designers create the rules and mechanics that determine to a large extent the activities and specific needs of the participants – THIS marketing factor is what I need for my DA to create a audience and take into account when analysing the aspect of my project. (Hamari, Juho and Lehdonvirta, Vili 2010)

References:
– Chan, D. (2006) “Negotiating Intra-Asian Games Networks: On Cultural Proximity, East Asian Games Design, and Chinese Farmers”, Fibreculture Journal, 8, available at: http://eight.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-049-negotiating-intra-asian-games- networks-on-cultural-proximity-east-asian-games-design-and-chinese-farmers/
-Hamari, Juho and Lehdonvirta, Vili, Game Design as Marketing: How Game Mechanics Create Demand for Virtual Goods (2010). International Journal of Business Science & Applied Management, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 14-29, 2010
– Raessens, J 2005, Computer games as participatory media culture. In J. Raessens & J. Goldstein’s (Eds.), Handbook of the computer game studies (pp.373-388). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press

animal crossing + the sims

BCM215 | Project Beta

As I mentioned in my previous blog, three days after submitting my Pitch for my first DA idea, I felt no motivation to continue this lead me to the idea for my new DA – comparing and contrasting the digital worlds of both Animal Crossing and The Sims. My Artefact will still be a digital blog – Gamer Gorl Hannah – and I will also still be including the research element as well. What is behind this – why are people attracted to these digital world – looking at the texts in a designing and creative framework but also a psychological one.

I have been posting weekly blog and vlogs to my audience, but I haven’t had much interactions due to my lack of advertising for my gaming blog. I really do love doing the mixture of videos and written posts, so I will be continuing that. What I have been trying to do is follow and interact on different reddit’s and subreddits for animal crossing as I seek idea and stimulus from fellow animal crossing players. Because my social media presence has been lacking, I plan to create a new Twitter account solely for my blog so I can interact with fellow players and gamers instead of using my BCM account to just interact with other students. The plan for the DA is to broadening my audience and looking out to other players online to see their suggestions on what I should do in my own gameplay world. I have a lot work to do on my project but I have a plan on how I want to achieve my goals.