Monthly Archives: December 2018

Sleep vs.Efficiency: A Study

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Over the past week, I have been monitoring the amount of sleep that I had and its effects on my overall efficiency at work and in my daily activities. Since “efficiency” is a bit of a hard idea to quantify when it comes to the human experience, I decided to note how much leisure time I gave myself depending on how much sleep I had had the previous night.

Day 1 (12/02/18)
Having worked the night before, and obviously not having class on a Sunday, I obviously allowed myself to sleep in until around 2:00pm, after having gone to sleep around 5:30am since the bar had had a busy night and required a lot of cleaning. At 8.5 hours, I think that this serves as a fairly good control for my observation, as it is firstly the around the amount of recommended hours for an American adult to have per night, and secondly, as it gave me an equal amount of leisure time and time to do chores around the house before work.

Day 2 (12/03/18)

Once again having worked the previous night and having gone to sleep at an early hour in the morning of 4:00am, I allowed myself to sleep in until 2:00pm, accumulating a total of 10 hours this time however. The difference was surprisingly notable, because I found myself spending most of my day in leisure time activities with little to no work done that day.

Day 3 (12/04/18)

The first morning that I hadn’t worked the night before showed a marked difference in the way in which I slept, and also the amount. I slept intermittently from 10:45pm to 7am (8.25 hours), and then napped for 2 hours from 6pm-8pm before going to work. On days without school, I would say that this is the norm, as I need to sleep a little more in order to make it through the graveyard shift. I was well rested at work, although anticipating going to work hindered some of my chores as I didn’t want to tire myself out. Altogether I would say my efficiency was higher on this day, as I worked more than I relaxed (outside of sleep).

Day 4 (12/05/18)

I once again allowed myself to sleep in a good bit from 4:30am-1:00pm (8.5 hours), having worked the night before. I think that slightly under this amount is probably my ideal amount, at just over 8 hours, since that was my most productive day, and this day followed suit. Once again I allowed myself a nap (6pm-7pm) before work at 10pm.

Day 5 (12/06/18)

This day was the opposite of a control, as, having an exam at 8am, I went straight to the library after work and stayed there until my exam. Obviously productivity took a hit, but I am more accustomed to being awake at earlier hours. The time after the exam, however, caught up to me and I slept from 3pm-8pm, before going to work at 10pm.

 

 

Day 6 (12/07/18)

After having worked until 5am, and still recovering from an all-nighter the day before, I allowed myself to sleep in until 3 (10 hours). Productivity was an all-time low, as leisure dominated the day.

Day 7 (12/08/18)

That day I woke up at 9am in order to train after having slept from 12am (9 hours). Leisure time did not come into the equation as I was busy for most of the day until work at 10.

 

The National Sleep Foundation has stated that for younger adults (18-25) it is recommended that an individual get 7-9 hours of sleep per night in order to function at the highest level possible (National Sleep Foundation, 2018). This can be affected by many other physical attributes, such as being overweight, being at risk for certain diseases, and how much caffeine one intakes on a daily basis. For my research it is also very important to consider my unusual sleeping hours, putting me at high risk for health issues surrounding those who work night shifts, such as “restlessness, sleepiness on the job, fatigue, decreased attention and disruption of the body’s metabolic process.” (Price, 2011). Decision making is also very hindered due to the body not being on its natural rhythm, or rather the rhythm that it was accustomed to for the majority of its existence. In this paper we will look into how differing amounts of sleep affected my performance at work and academically, while also looking into the app I used to monitor myself, its effectiveness, and how surveilling myself changed my actions on a daily basis, specifically in regards to sleep.

In general, the data which I collected over the week were a bit abnormal, since I didn’t have to wake up for class every day. My usual sleep schedule is more broken up over a day (i.e. 4 hours from 4am-8am, then a nap from 5pm-8pm before work). I believe that this sleep schedule would have proved more difficult to monitor the changes in my productivity vs. leisure time, as more time in a “day” would be devoted purely to sleeping. The amount that I slept I think was consistent this past week with how I usually do in terms of hours, however, which I think proves beneficial to my findings. When looking at the data, it is evident that somewhere between 8-9 hours of sleep the night previous made for the most productive following day, in comparison to how much leisure time I allowed myself. Something else that affected the data, I think, is the fact that I knew that I was monitoring how much leisure time I was having, which inherently gave me a bias towards trying to be more productive than I usually would perceive that I am, even though I had less to do with the semester coming to a close. Interestingly, having already received the grade to the exam for which I did not sleep after work, my performance actually increased in terms of grade from the Midterm (for which I was rested at 4 hours of sleep after working the night before) to the Final from a 90 to a 95. I believe this to be an outlier in the data when it comes to the amount of sleep that I as an individual of 24 years old need, although it could be attributed to my nocturnal lifestyle due to work and not feeling the strain of being awake for extended periods of time until much later than the general population.

I decided that the most interesting and to the point app to use would be the one which is automatically downloaded in every IPhone, the Health App. This app allows you to track the time that you get in bed and when you got out of bed. I found this app to be a bit uneasy to manage, as after a long day, or in my case a long night at work, it was difficult to remember to set the app and un-set it in the morning. Also, as a restless sleeper I felt as though it would have been more beneficial for the experiment in hindsight to use an app that actually read when you were sleeping according to how much you moved once you were in bed. This would have given me a better estimate of the actual amount of time that I slept, as opposed to the time that I went to sleep and then ultimately woke up for the last time.

The app did however enlighten me to how my phone is tracking my movements daily. One can see how many miles one walked every day, as well as steps walked and floors climbed. I found this to be unsettling because I did not realize that it monitored that as this week was the first time that I had ever opened the app after three years of having the same phone. It would not be a farfetched assumption to make that not only are those pieces of data being sent to the phone manufacturer, but also to the cell-phone company themselves, in my case AT&T. It can also be a very good thing that the phone manufacturer can track one of their devices, as if someone is missing and their phone is still on, or if their phone has been stolen, then the proper authorities can be alerted to the phone, and maybe the victim’s location.

In tracking myself I believe that I gained a very good insight into my own activity, as well as an insight into how others are tracking my activity on a daily basis through the data that I share, either willingly or unwillingly. The class of LTGR 250 with Dr. Koellner alerted me to a fact that I was aware of in the back of my mind, but was not very alarmed by on a daily basis: the fact that everyone is being monitored, and also that we ourselves monitor other people in our own way.

 

Works Cited

  1. “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?” National Sleep Foundation, National Sleep Foundation, 2018, sleepfoundation.org/excessivesleepiness/content/how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need-0.

 

  1. Price, Michael. “The Risks of Night Work.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/monitor/2011/01/night-work.aspx.

(In)Visibility as a Form of Protest

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Data Diary

Day 1: Cistern Yard- I observed Cistern Yard and noticed the placement of cameras here. Being an easily accessible place, it makes sense to have CCTV cameras here. Cameras and other surveillance measures located here and throughout the campus might make women feel safer because they might provide a greater degree of protection from assault. Cameras can help identify certain people suspected of being involved in a crime.

Day 2: Maybank Hall- CCTV cameras are located in this space to prevent crimes or to identify people that are entering the buildings. I imagine this is meant to prevent people from carrying weapons inside of the building. This place feels most safe during the day when there are a lot people in this area.

Day 3: McConnell Hall- Cameras are placed outside of and inside of McConnell Hall. The purpose of these cameras is likely to identify people who are committing a crime. This coupled with the secure entrance of the residence hall provide general security. I feel most safe here because my room is located in this building. The RAs are almost always here. At night, public safety is here, which is very helpful. The requirement of an ID to enter the building is something that gives me reassurance that I will be safe. I think that I may have previously seen a camera in the hallway of the second floor here. This place feels very secure.

Day 4: CVS- Cameras are placed here to prevent people from engaging in a variety of crimes such as theft or at least identify someone who has done something. The cameras provide some reassurance. For me, the most reassuring part of this place is not only staff, but many customers as well.

Day 5: Harbor Walk East- Outside of the building are cameras to monitor who is entering the building and to prevent people from carrying weapons inside. I walked to harbor walk during my Freshman year, and despite the fact that it was far away from the main camus, it always felt like it was a safe place to be due to its location. It might be uncomfortable at night, but it is better than nothing.

Day 6: Harbor Walk West- Outside of the building are cameras to again monitor who is entering the building and to prevent people from carrying weapons inside of the building. These cameras should be reassuring to anyone who has to walk in or out of this place. Like Harbor Walk East, it might be uncomfortable for some people to be here during the night, but it is quite secure.

Day 7: Addlestone Library- Cameras placed in Addlestone Library provide security for the building. Addlestone might be one of the best protected parts of campus because it has people actively monitoring the space. Addlestone might be more intrusive than the others, but it feels very secure.

Maybank CCTV Camera:

 

Gregory Fields
Dr. Koellner
LTGR-250-01
10 December 2018

(In)Visibility as a Form of Protest

CCTV (Closed Circuit Television) is a form of television technology that is “usually used in surveillance systems” (Damjanovsk XIII). Since the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 “video security has taken on the lead role in protecting personnel and assets” (Kruegle 1). There has been an increase in the need for the “importance of reliable communications and remote visualization of images via remote video cameras” (Kruegle 1). Today, CCTV cameras can be found in many public places. Larger buildings tend to have CCTV cameras. I used Google Maps to find the CCTV cameras around campus. By using CCTV, I was able to observe public places in a way that I was never able to before. Of all of the locations that I monitored, I observed Maybank Hall the most. I also monitored Cistern Yard, Harbor Walk East, Harbor Walk West, CVS, Addlestone Library, and McConnell Residence Hall. Maybank Hall is where I spend most of my time on campus other than McConnell Residence Hall. I pass this area every day, at least once or twice a day depending on which classes I have. I noticed that both Maybank Hall and McConnell Residence Hall have CCTV cameras.

During the experiment, I noticed that almost all of the areas that I wanted to look at were accessible. I could look around public spaces and view the outside of buildings, and I could also look inside of them as well. Trying to figure how to get an inside view was harder, but it is possible. This limitation was probably due to the fact that certain cameras were placed outside, while other cameras were placed inside of the buildings. Regardless of the issues that I had with Google Maps, it works well for this assignment. I was able to spot a few locations where CCTV cameras are located. Those locations were Cistern Yard, Maybank Hall, Addlestone Library, McConnell Residence Hall, Harbor Walk East, Harbor Walk West, and CVS. For me, I didn’t hope to gain much from this experiment, nonetheless I have learned a lot from using Google Maps. This learning experience has taught me how navigate College of Charleston and parts of the city better, but also that cameras are present in most public buildings.

Despite all of its benefits and capabilities, I have found that Google Maps is limited in some ways. This tool restricts me, and it was complicated to figure out at times. The view that I was using to navigate the streets and to locate the CCTV cameras was limited. As a result, I originally was not able confirm whether or not there were cameras inside of the buildings until later when I became more experienced in using Google Maps. The quality of the pictures decreased significantly, as I tried to zoom in on a particular part of the building. I wish that the quality would improve so that I would be able to look closely at specific details of the buildings. Furthermore, I found that there were certain areas where CCTV cameras appeared to be missing. Most small buildings seem to lack CCTV cameras, at least on the outside. This might be because they either lack the money to install cameras or they have some type of security system. Either way, I would argue that these areas need to be better protected in the form of CCTV cameras. The larger buildings on Campus seem to be better protected than the smaller buildings, especially ones that are not a part of College of Charleston. I suppose that the benefit to having fewer cameras is that they aren’t really intrusive. The discrete nature of cameras and surveillance on the campus of College of Charleston is very different from the easy to spot cameras in Ulrich Peltzer’s Part of the Solution. In the story, the monitors are described as being “suspended at a slight angle in a metal frame that occupies the whole wall above the console right up to the ceiling” (Peltzer 4) The cameras on College of Charleston buildings monitor the areas that need monitoring the most, which tend to be areas that are visited the most by people. I don’t think that smaller buildings not having CCTV cameras is necessarily a bad thing. I believe that if too many buildings had cameras, it would appear to some as being too overbearing. The overbearing nature of surveillance is depicted in Juli Zeh’s The Method where a fictional society theoretically is based off of preserving the health of everyone. Mia Holl, like many others, has “exercise requirements” to preserve her health. She also has to worry about “the slightest increase in stomach acid” being detected by “the sensor in her toilet” (Zeh 27-28). These things that Mia and other characters in The Method have to be concerned with are a result of there being too much surveillance within their society. The possibility of surveillance being too intense or being used negatively, is when it is used to target people for their ethnicity or religion. It is worth noting that “technological surveillance, such as CCTV, airport screening and computerized databases, does disproportionately affect South Asians and other non-white persons” (Finn 424). Fortunately, these occurrences only happen occasionally, however it represents a larger issue with how surveillance is conducted within our society. While the presence of cameras on campus isn’t overbearing, it could theoretically become that way.

Regardless of whether they are intrusive or not, the main purpose of these cameras are to provide security for the public. Gender can also play a major role in how people perceive CCTV. For women, CCTV cameras are “seemingly important for increasing women’s security in potentially dangerous public spaces” (Van Der Meulen and Heynen 9). CCTV’s protective qualities ensure that certain areas will be protected. In these circumstances, surveillance is not part of a negative or anxious experience, but a reassuring one. Personally, I noticed that I felt more comfortable in areas where there are more cameras, where public safety is present, and where there are generally more people. I would argue for this purpose that having more security is a better decision because it ensures that people will remain safe regardless of whether it is intrusive or not.

For me, this project was quite interesting. I found it to be very informative. Our group looked at some of the main locations on campus such as Maybank Hall and Cistern Yard. We found that there were cameras all over campus. It was truly strange because these cameras aren’t really noticeable. I have walked to and from buildings such as Maybank Hall and Cistern Yard without noticing that CCTV cameras were there. I have noticed that surveillance is much more present in our everyday lives than I previously thought. People are always being watched by others. Maybe its their friends, their family, their co-workers, or the government, but people are always watching each other. The surveillance can be intrusive sometimes, but it is a tradeoff for one’s safety. I found this project to be very enlightening about the scope of surveillance that exists within our society today.

 

Works Cited

Damjanovski, Vlado. CCTV : Networking and Digital Technology. Vol. 2nd ed, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2005. EBSCOhost, nuncio.cofc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=189619&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Finn, Rachel L. “Surveillant Staring: Race and the Everyday Surveillance of South Asian Women after 9/11.” Surveillance & Society, vol. 8, no. 4, July 2011, pp. 413–426. EBSCOhost, nuncio.cofc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=i3h&AN=87753216&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Kruegle, Herman. CCTV Surveillance : Video Practices and Technology. Vol. 2nd ed, Butterworth-Heinemann, 2007. EBSCOhost, nuncio.cofc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=185799&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Peltzer, Ulrich. Part of the Solution. Translated by Martin Chalmers. Seagull Books, London, New York, Calcutta. 2007.

Van der Meulen, Emily, and Robert Heynen. Expanding the Gaze : Gender and the Politics of Surveillance. University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division, 2016. EBSCOhost, nuncio.cofc.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1222012&site=eds-live&scope=site.

Zeh, Juli. The Method. Translated by Sally Ann Spencer. Harvill Secker, London. 2012.

 

 

Privacy on the Internet

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Day 1: Using applymagicsauce.com

I decided to start the week off with something simple yet still informative. Before doing this project, I had never heard of the website, so it was pretty intriguing visiting for the first time. I linked my twitter and immediately got results back telling me a lot of information about myself, even though not all of it was correct. My age was off by about 5 years which I don’t hold much to because it is quite hard to tell the difference between someone in their early twenties versus late twenties. It was interesting to see my psychological gender was male as opposed to myself being female. It made me think what it analyzes to get that type of information. When I started to read the personality test it did for me, I was quite surprised how the application was able to tell all of those things just by the way I tweet, and many of them were right. Out of all of the results, I was most taken aback by the Meyers-Briggs test it does to your profile because out of all of the possibilities it guessed mine completely correct. Overall, this website really puts into perspective how much information someone can gather about you from just one social media profile online. It showed me how incredibly easy it is to create an online data double.

 

Day 2: Using Ad blockers

After listening to “Day 2: The Search For Your Identity” from The Privacy Paradox podcast, I went to Panopticlick.com and saw exactly what my browser was and wasn’t blocking. I was surprised that my browser was only blocking ads from tracking me and everything else was open and free. So, then I went and downloaded the Privacy Badger extension for google chrome. When I started using it, I was so surprised by how many ad trackers it had to completely block, and just how many there were constantly tracking me. It made me really think how long I had gone just letting these companies completely track me and how much information they have on me. Thankfully now, I don’t have to worry as much seeing that the adblocker is doing its job.

 

Day 3: Seeing and Changing My Privacy Settings

Being a frequent Apple user, I was aware of all the privacy setting you can change and have access to and a long time ago I limited these as much as I could. It was interesting to see how many apps wanted to use my location even if it seemed like they had no use for it. Some apps were even automatically set to always track your location which was also quite surprising. After looking at everything I still let some apps track my location but only the ones that are necessary and they can only track it while I’m using the app. The one new thing that I did find in my privacy settings were the option to see my “significant locations.” My phone had marked all the locations that I frequently visit and sure enough my parents’ house, my apartment, and even the building I visit most on campus was marked. I was also surprised to see it kept the location of my aunt’s house when I visited for a day during fall break. So much information is being gathered all the time and I’m not sure it’s beneficial to me in any way to keep this service on so I immediately turned it off after seeing it.

 

Day 4: Looking up Ad Settings on Social Media

Before the project, I wasn’t ever interested in checking exactly what my social media is tracking for ad purposes. When I went onto my Facebook, I was able to see the categories they sorted me into for ads. Thankfully, since I don’t use my Facebook all that often anymore, they didn’t have much information on me, as compared to other people. It was nice to see that for at least one day, my information was not as exposed as it could be.

 

Day 5: Going off the Grid

After listening to the Day 4 episode of the Privacy Paradox podcast, I tried out “Fifteen minutes of anonymity” except I tried to do it for an hour. Going into the challenge I was quite skeptical that I wouldn’t learn much since it was only an hour. I could not have been more wrong. As soon as I started the challenge, I was pretty bored. I really didn’t know what to do. I think that really says something to how much I rely on my phone for boredom. I decided to clean to at least have something to do. Even when I was cleaning, I kept getting distracted. My subconscious would keep going off with if I had gotten a text, an email, just something. It happened way more often than I thought it would. After about half an hour, the thoughts started to cease, and I was done cleaning. This meant that I had to find something else to do. I was going to do my homework, but all my textbooks were online, and so was most of my homework. I played with the cats for a little bit and then suddenly remembered this book I’ve been meaning to read for the longest time. I ended up going well over an hour while reading and while also not going to any technology. It was quite freeing to be able to survive without these things for so long. It really puts into perspective how much not only I rely on technology but also everything else, I mean who wouldn’t?

 

Day 6: Using an Encryption Tool

Much like the ad blocker I installed, the encryption add-on was interesting to use and look into. I downloaded Https Everywhere which is supposed to minimize the data on your computer that gets sent to various sources without being encrypted. This is quite useful and similar to blocking ads but instead of targeting ads, it targets everything, and instead of blocking it encrypts your data. As soon as I installed it and saw what services it was sending encrypted data to, I was reassured. Every website I went on was sending information to different companies, some I have heard of and some not. It was nice to see the list grow on websites and know that now I can have a little bit more peace of mind when browsing the internet.

 

Day 7: Taking the Exit Strategy Quiz and Reflection

I started the day off by taking the quiz located on Day 5 of the Privacy Paradox podcast. I was surprised to see I got a different result than the first time I took it. This time I was a “believer” which means I see privacy online for how it really is (or isn’t). I have lost a lot of trust in companies to keep the interests of the consumer first and keep information of data doubles open to such consumers. Most of the information I was able to access was not located somewhere accessible. I found myself trying to show other people the same information and forgetting exactly how I found it in the first place. Many times, I had to learn about myself through third parties or ad blockers and encrypters. This really just shows how companies are treating privacy and how the consumer usually doesn’t care enough to be concerned, which in my opinion will be a big problem for the future of technology.

 

 

Ashley Dowd

Koellner

LTGR 250

10 December 2018

Project Reflection

            Privacy is something on the internet that is highly valued to the consumer but often not talked about by companies. I created a project to look into my privacy on the internet and what exactly companies are gathering from me. First, I must define counter-surveillance. In my own words, counter surveillance is getting access and looking at all the information being collected from me on the internet. My experiment included researching and using various forms of counter-surveillance for a week. These forms included websites, apps, browser add-ons, software, and settings. All of this was to try and create the best representation of my “data double,” or “a digital duplicate of our lives captured in data and spread across assemblages of information systems” (Jones). In the end, I would have a good picture of what my data double looks like, what my privacy is like online, and what steps I should take to limit the information given out unwillingly. Information becomes valuable to me when it’s something I wouldn’t give out to anyone myself in person. Such things include, bank, personal, and healthcare information for example. By taking back my digital identity, I hope to get some control of the information I’m giving out on the internet, both knowingly and unknowingly.

First, I’ll start off with the actions I took online with browser add-ons. I used two different types of add-ons with one targeting blocking ads and the other encrypting my data. I found these the most useful because of how often I go on the internet and use the browser that I do. I started out by using Panopticlick.eff.org which told me exactly what my browser was and wasn’t blocking concerning information being given to advertisers. The name of the website is a direct link to the Panopticon imagined by Jeremy Bentham but later interpreted by Michel Foucault. It is basically a play on the power relationships in a society, and I believe the website is referring to the advertisers and companies being the figurative central power on the internet and looking at the consumers without their knowledge. After seeing just how many websites and other sources both add-ons had to block or send encrypted data to, it made me feel as if I was unknowingly being watched. This made me feel as if my privacy was being invaded and I was just now finding out. As for the add-ons themselves, I found them useful and appreciated them. Both of them were non-invasive and I barely notice they’re there which I appreciate. Overall, the browser add-ons did what they’re supposed to and gives me access to information in an easy way.

The next category of counter-surveillance I focused on was privacy settings. The most useful information I found out about myself was how often my location is being tracked. It seems that in my iPhone’s privacy settings, some apps would default to always track my location which someone would not know about unless they accessed their settings and manually changed it. I was surprised how that showed how much some apps devalue the user’s privacy. Secondly, I was surprised by how inaccessible some settings and information is. It almost seemed as if my phone or social media does not want the user to find information they gather, yet they make it available to be “transparent.” It took me a long time to see important information about myself, for example, what Facebook gathers from my profile and uses such data to categorize me and give to advertisers. I had to click on at least five different categories and sub-categories in my settings, and this was after being told how to access it, since before I had no clue such a thing existed. After listening to the Privacy Paradox podcast, it was clear that the user has to deal with all these problems and “try to turn this creepy situation into a merely crappy one” (Privacy Paradox ep.2). Generally, it seems that using the internet leaves the average consumer with no way to completely limit their privacy, which I think says something about the way the power is balanced in terms of the company and the consumer on the internet today.

In conclusion, privacy is something that still needs to be addressed in big terms on the internet. There exist ways to take control of what is getting out, but an internet user cannot limit everything. If a person uses the internet, they have a data double without question. In terms of how other people dealt with this problem of privacy online, many of partners also installed add-ons for their browser, considering it is most likely the thing used most to access the internet. Another area of focus was social media in which a lot of people accessed their privacy settings and also found out just how much information is used to create a “data double.” Many of the outcomes of these experiments were similar to mine because of how much information you can find out about yourself. Something that I found differed between myself and other people was the level of being concerned about your information. Some of my partners used heavier means of protecting privacy and some people did less than what I did which I can assume that their level of concern was lower. In conclusion, privacy on the internet is a give and take situation, the user gives as much as they think will benefit them in the end.

 

Works Cited

Jones, Kyle M. L. “What Is a Data Double?” Data Doubles, 17 June 2018,

datadoubles.org/2018/05/01/what-is-a-data-double/.

Poyant, Jen, et al. “Day 2: The Search For Your Identity.” Note to Self, WNYC Studios, 7 Feb.

2017, www.wnycstudios.org/story/privacy-paradox-day-2-challenge.

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  1. In my personal experience in life, I’ve known how to figure out if I’m on camera since I was a young girl.  My father has worked in security my whole life and it’s just a trick of the trade he taught me fairly young. Walking around campus I’m familiar most times on Camera, in Cougar Mall I know the cameras sit outside Maybank, the webcams that sit around campus I try to be familiar with as well as they can be accessed by anyone. The first thing I’ve noticed, since moving in is there aren’t any security cameras in my apartment building except right by the elevator that leads to the lobby. In theory we could say every day that’s where my CCTV footprint starts like it did here. It continues when I walk into the Starbucks connected to the Francis Marion, like I do almost every morning. I know when I entered the library I was on camera in the main intersections but the further back I went I no longer was, and that when I walked out of the library and walked to my friends place I was on camera a few times as well.
  2. Like I’ve stated, my CCTV footprint is the same everyday in some situations until I walked out of the Francis Marion Starbucks, this day I walked along past the barnes and noble which has cameras outside it and into Maybank Hall. It’s always surprised me how completely blank Maybank is with CCTV footage for one of the busiest buildings on campus. It’s never truly made sense to me but I wasn’t really on CCTV until I walked into Forever 21 with a friend. It might have just been the path I took but there weren’t any clear cameras in the area that I saw. In fact after leaving Forever 21 I don’t think I appeared on a camera until I got back to my building.
  3. I was very boring today and didn’t leave my apartment at all except to get ice cream, so it wasn’t until I took a step into the ice cream shop in West Ashley I think I showed up on a CCTV as I took the way down without a camera at home and the same way back up.
  4. I started how I typically do, with my CCTV footprint being the same until I exited the Francis Marion, this time I’m sure I was caught on more than one as I walked down King Street, however it was very cold and I was carrying an iced coffee and my only goal was getting to my destination, Jack’s Cafe where I met my friend for breakfast, obviously I was on CCTV in a restaurant and passed at least one on the walk to Maybank to study, but once again it wasn’t until I returned to my apartment building that I was on  CCTV again.
  5. Again, my CCTV footprint followed the same pattern and even stayed similar to Monday as I walked into Maybank Hall. Leaving Maybank after a final, I was however on the camera outside Maybank and on a few more as I walked to Cafe Framboise on Market street and took the same walk back towards Bellsouth. Leaving Bellsouth I was on CCTV as I went to Juanita Greenberg’s on Upper King. I was on CCTV the most this day as I walked down to where I work, a hotel, where I know where each camera is located as a part of my job, from there I went to Caviar and Bananas and back again picking up food for a coworker before I repeated the same process of getting home and being on CCTV for the last time of the night.
  6. I once again began my day the same and when I exited Francis Marion I began walking down to work of course being on CCTV all the while. While at work I of course was on CCTV footage for about 9 hours and then I got home as I have many times before.
  7. Very predictably I went to the Francis Marion Starbucks before I got food and went Christmas shopping with a friend, the only time I wasn’t on CCTV was a few ways I walked along from store to store.I went to work and again was on CCTV the whole time before I got home and my footprint ended once I turned a corner off the elevator.

 

Surveillance Through the Lens of CCTV

 

When choosing how to go about recording my data, I chose to just write and focus on recording times when I knew I was on CCTV. Most of my time is spent in Maybank Hall, a building with little to no security, I have never gone there and a door be locked in all the three years I’ve lived in Charleston. As I stated in the diary,I naturally look for a camera, I like to know who’s watching and when, I do it along with search for my closest exit at times and see if something is cover or concealment around me. It’s a habit I picked up from having a parent in security who would quiz me in public spaces. The Cambridge University Dictionary defines CCTV as closed-circuit-television “a system that sends television signals to a limited number of screens, and is often used in shops and public places to prevent crime” ( Cambridge Dictionary). In the US, CCTV is a blimp on the spectrum compared to some of the power house cities of Europe; living in Brighton, England I often joked that the only time I wasn’t on CCTV was once I closed the door of my flat. It’s so much more prevalent in the UK for example that I would give up on trying to know if I was on camera, I would assume I was. In the United States, with individual state constitutions and laws controlling CCTV surveillance. For example in the state of Ohio red light cameras have had an ongoing fight with legislatures in the state claiming that they’re unconstitutional for the Ohio constitution. For the national level, in his book Surveillance in America: Critical Analysis of the FBI, 1920 to the Present, Ivan Greenberg writes that “No one knows for certain the number of government/police security cameras embedded across the nation” (Greenberg 279). It’s an interesting concept that Greenberg points out, with CCTV cameras in such public places legal warrants aren’t necessary. This idea of public CCTV is normal but not at the same time. In 2018 individuals are used to being on surveilled to a point that jokes are made about it but in the United States the huge mainstream known CCTV of Europe is such a different concept of surveillance from the American point of view.

The very first sentence, even before the copyright information,  of Opening the Black Box by Gavin J.D. Smith puts CCTV cameras  in the most accurate description possible “ a prominent, if increasingly familiar feature of urbanism” (Smith).  He continues to call them inanimate, something that’s often not thought of. It’s like in You Are Wanted, being aware a camera is there a person makes conscious decisions knowing their being recorded. It’s a false security blanket, while the numbers aren’t there CCTV footage is only constantly being monitored at high stakes areas. It’s seen in countless crime investigations, where the CCTV is already lost by the time it’s looked for. It’s rare to find a location in everyday life, that isn’t a large institution where CCTV is kept more than 30 days just because of the sheer amount of data that it takes up. As time goes on the United States only increases its amount of CCTV cameras in spaces especially as it becomes easier to store and transmit data via digital clouds instead of television circuit waves. With an constantly rising high security risk, it’s not an if  there will be more CCTV cameras in the country it’s a when. The only question is the hightech route they’ll take, will it be the facial recognition type that is now fairly active in China and being discussed in the House of Lords and House of Commons in the UK. And if those are suddenly all over the country, in public spaces how does it fit into legality of each state’s constitution.

With urban as a key word in the CCTV narrative it’s no surprise that certain issues with urban areas and gentrification with CCTV are around. As John Michael Roberts writes in his book New Media and Public Activism about the lack of correlation from crime rates and CCTV plus the effect it’s having on certain urban areas. In theory some of it could be used to target certain areas instead of aide them. For example, Roberts writes about the consequences that come with circulating CCTV images of sex workers which would push the narrative of a space being dangerous. It’s the threat of CCTV helping provide a negative agenda that could become an issue. If certain locations were looked at more than others when they had the same amount of crimes. It’s all relative but the issue is there and an important question to put into perspective.

In a post 9/11 society, we live in a world that knows nothing but surveillance. There are certain aspects of 2018 in the United States that echo the statement from Gary T. Marx about public and private being obliterated. We bring certain surveillance to us, we have a daily footprint just by getting up in the morning. After 9/11, according to Ivan Greenberg’s other book The Dangers of Dissent, CCTV became a new way to control the masses and 5200 cameras were installed by 2008 in Washington D.C. alone. Likewise, before 9/11 in Manhattan there were under 2500 CCTV cameras, by 2005  there were more than 5 times that just in the city government and Wall Street area. No longer is public space public, even here at the College of Charleston, if I were to walk the 20 feet out of the library from where I sit typing this paper I would be on camera until I passed the Bell Tower, and those are just the camera’s we’re aware of. Everything about life in 2018 is monitored, my phone tells you without asking how long it will take you to get to home, work or school without prompting it, webcams are often hacked into, and CCTV follows us more than we want to even admit. In a poll by IPVM from 2016, 54% of Americans thought they were on CCTV only 4 times a day when reality is it’s closer to 50 or more. It’s almost like there’s a sense of oblivion just because it’s not a precendently known as it is in the United Kingdom for example, that we aren’t as watched. We are though, far more likely, I walk around in Charleston knowing there are spots that are blind but that it could be watched and recorded. It’s a fine line though. As I’ve said before I grew up with a parent who worked in security and when I called my dad just to brainstorm on what I could talk about with CCTV he mentioned how rare it is to actually have someone actively watching the ‘live’ stream from the CCTV. Everything mentioned above are thoughts that went through my head as I looked more into this theoretically. Using London, because the UK has such a big CCTV demographic. There are two boroughs with very similar crime rate and population Greenwich and Lewisham, now the data is a bit off because there isn’t a more modern map of ethnic groups by London boroughs but 2011 is fairly close. Theoretically say that because Lewisham has more of a minority population than Greenwich that it would be monitored more closes using CCTV, there’s where the issue could come into play. Ultimately, it’s a very thin line that the United States teeters on with CCTV footage and the rise of it’s surveillance uses. Especially as the private and public merge more and more.

Works Consulted

 

Borchardt, Jackie. “Bill to Punish Cities with Red Light Cameras Clears Ohio House.” Cleveland.Com, cleveland.com, 21 Mar. 2018, https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2018/03/bill_to_punish_cities_with_red.html. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

“CCTV | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” Cambridge.Org, 1 Jan. 2018, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/cctv. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

Cadman, Josh. “How Dangerous Is Your Borough? 20+ London Crime Statistics June 2018.” Finder UK, finder, 5 Nov. 2018, https://www.finder.com/uk/london-crime-statistics. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

Farkas, Karen. “Restrictions on Red-Light, Speed Cameras Unconstitutional, Ohio Supreme Court Rules.” Cleveland.Com, cleveland.com, 26 July 2017, https://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/07/ohios_restrictions_on_red-ligh.html#incart_m-rpt-1. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

Greenberg, Ivan. The Dangers of Dissent: the FBI and Civil Liberties since 1965. Lexington Books, 2013.

 

Greenberg, Ivan. Surveillance in America: Critical Analysis of the FBI, 1920 to the Present. Lexington Books, 2014.

 

ipvideomarket. “Americans Vastly Underestimate Being Recorded on CCTV.” IPVM, 24 May 2016, https://ipvm.com/reports/america-cctv-recording. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

“Mapping London’s Population by Ethnic Group.” Opinion, 10 Dec. 2013, http://blogs.lshtm.ac.uk/news/2013/12/10/mapping-londons-population-by-ethnic-group/. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

“‘One Nation Under CCTV’: The U.K. Tackles Facial Recognition Technology.” Lawfare, 8 May 2018, https://www.lawfareblog.com/one-nation-under-cctv-uk-tackles-facial-recognition-technology. Accessed 10 Dec. 2018.

 

Roberts, John M. New Media and Public Activism: Neoliberalism, the State and Radical Protest in the Public Sphere. Policy Press, 2014.

 

Smith, Gavin J. D. Opening the Black Box: the Work of Watching. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015.

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BeBe Valencia

Koellnersk

LTGR: 250 Nothing to hide

10 December 2018

 

The Quantified Self

When we read What Remainsby Christa Wolf we were introduced to the topic of self-awareness while someone is watching you, what if the person watching was yourself.  The quantified self or (QS) is the term that embodies self-knowledge through self- tracking. Some things that we can measure about ourselves is endless: among others, our heart rate, respiration, hours of sleep, or even the number of sneezes and coughs during the day (Quantified self-Institute 1).  I think being aware of one’s self can be both a positive and negative depending on the situation and outcome. For myself observation I wanted to choose a topic I could gain from the knowledge and would overall help me grow. For seven days, I managed how many times I used profanity.  This is a very bad habit I have and even though I’m aware I’m doing it, I think to see the data in front of me would be very surprising. I hope to gain more awareness of how many times I cuss and to learn from it and get better. In my opinion, data becomes valuable when the results can teach you something about yourself and benefit you. Having data just to have information is pointless especially if the data is about yourself.

For my tracking app I chose to use something that helps keep count, and then at the end of the day would self-reflect and write about it. I used the app “tally counter” in order to track how many times I cussed. The app was pretty simple to use, I just kept the icon open on my phone and would tap it every time I cuss. Then at the end of the day, I would screenshot my total and save it to my camera role to reflect on. However, there were limitations to the app as I was using it. For instance, the app required a lot of initiative from me in order to be successful. I was responsible for screenshotting the total at the end of the day and I had to be very self- disciplined and keep tally every time I cuss, which was probably the hardest part. There were a few times I forgot to tally but remembered later on. I presumed I would have an easy time of being in control of my words but even being self-aware it was still difficult. At night when I was going over my total for the day and had documented the results, I would just reset for the next day. I do wish the app had some sort of documentation for your tallies. Anyway, the app could have made it easier for me to where I had to be less self-aware and not think about how much I was cussing.

During my seven-day self-tracking of how much I use profanity, the first day was definitely the most eye-opening and had the most impact. Even though I was aware and knew I would be tallying myself, the first day I had the highest number of 67. This blew my mind, I never truly paid attention to how much I cuss but when the numbers are right in front of you, it makes it harder to ignore. After realizing how much of a terrible habit I actually had, I decided the next 6 days I would work to decrease the number. Since I was the subject of my own observation, it was both easy and hard to control the results but slowly the number came down. Day by day, I set a goal to cuss less than I had before which motivated me. There was one day when I just barely made my goal and I discussed it in my diary. I found it was much harder to control my tongue when I’m mad about a situation. By the last day of the tracking, I was overall pleased with my data and managed to reach my day to day goal of decreasing the tally total.

Throughout this course my perception of sharing information has definitely changed, and this project has enlightened me more. I started off by thinking the government shouldn’t have any of our information and we shouldn’t rely so much on technology because it’s dangerous.

However, from readings such as Juli Zeh’s The Method we see how the idea of quantified life is perfectioned and in (we never sleep), we see how tracking one’s self and reduces one existence to a quantifying self can affect life. After doing this project, I realized sometimes tracking your own data and putting it out there can actually be beneficial. I learned more about myself and the extent of my foul language from using an app, which just shows technology can help you grow and not always be damaging. I still believe we shouldn’t share just any information on the internet/apps/social media due to not knowing where it goes but using a simple tally or sleep monitoring app we can benefit from the results. Also, being your own subject of observation makes things either easier or difficult depending on how well yourself accountability is.

After the seven days were over, I looked over my results in comparison to other classmates and saw similarities. Some people did subjects close to mine such as sleep and exercise where the data about our unhealthy habits would be right in front of us. They also set small goals to reach daily and used the project to help them grow and learn. Just like me they saw how hard self-discipline can be and how hard it is to be accountable. There were a few differences, those who chose to monitor social media had different opinions on the results. However, as a whole I do believe the project overall led to us a personal realization. Whether that may be our social media addiction or how many times we use profanity, we all gained new knowledge from this project and I think thats a success.

 

 

 

 

 

Data Diary:

 

Day one 12/01/18: So today was the first day of the project and I am absolutely shocked at how high my number was, a grand total of 67. I didn’t realize how bad I was until I saw this today and now I’m doing a little self-reflection. Cussing is something I do without a second of hesitation and it is worse than I thought. So, I am going to set a goal to decrease my total every day, even if it’s just a little. I want to each day get better results and have personal growth.

 

Day two 12/02/18: So today my total was 55 and I feel pretty good because I completed my day to day goal. But it was a little hard at times because it’s easy to fall back into old habits but im okay with this number.

 

Day three 12/03/18: well today I had a not so good total of 52 and just barley completed my goal. I had a frustrating situation happen to me today and lots of profanity was used and I found myself struggling to have control of my words. A little discourage but tomorrow I will do better!

 

Day four 12/04/18: my total tally for today was 41! Which is so much better than yesterday, and I am very proud of todays accomplishment. This is starting to get a little easier and not too much over thinking

 

Day five 12/05/18: My total tally for today was 37, im okay with this number because its way better than where I started at. Also, still completed my goal so I’m overall pleased with todays stats.

 

Day six 12/06/18: The grand total of cussing today was 34! I catch myself more now and prevent myself from cussing too much, and my friends even made a comment today. They noticed how much I haven’t been cussing lately which boosted my motivation more. Still on track with my goal!

 

Day seven 12/07/18: last day of the project and I have a total of 33! I think if I was to continue this would be about my average number unless I somehow managed to quit completely. Overall, I’m very pleased with my results and be able to stick through it and I learned about myself and my dirty habits.

 

 

Counter-Surveillance as a Form of Protection: William Young

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Day 1: Disabled my Facebook account and changed privacy and tracking settings in my phone. Facebook gathers and sells information on us to private corporations and organizations and most people don’t realize it.

Day 2: Began using Firefox and downloaded a number of addons, such as HTTPS Everywhere and various adblockers, in order to better protect my online presence.

Day 3: Looked up information about myself on applymagicsauce.com. Most of the information was wrong (I don’t use Twitter very much) but it was still interesting to see the information that can just be gathered and inferred from the public.

Day 4: Downloaded the Firefox app onto my phone. Firefox has famously been on the side of user privacy and net neutrality, so I figured it would be a decent investment that costs nothing.

Day 5: Changed all of my passwords. Not a huge deterrent but every bit helps. Changing passwords regularly can be a huge deterrent in information gathering.

Day 6: Began keeping an eye out for cameras around college campus. There are a number of them in the residence halls and a webcam looking out into the cistern in Randolph Hall.

Day 7: Changed privacy settings on my phone to better protect myself. Set location services to “off” on certain apps, but most of them I changed so that instead of always tracking my location, they can only know my location while I’m using it.

William D. Young

Professor Koellner

LTGR 250-01

10.12.2018

Surveillance Project Reflection Paper: Counter Surveillance as a Form of Protection.

In this age, more so than ever before in history, we must expect that we are being watched. It is simply the way life is now, information on ourselves is being gathered and sold to the highest bidder, and there is shockingly little we can do about it, but we are not entirely helpless. It takes a little extra effort, but by utilizing surveillance like our watchers do, we can protect ourselves from potential malicious threats. There are a variety of ways we can do this. Some are as simple as only using cash instead of debit or credit cards, others take more effort, such as watching out for cameras and downloading specific apps and web browsers. Regardless, it is more important than ever in this day and age to learn how to protect yourself online, and it is something that everyone should learn how to do.

Surveillance, as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, is the “close watch kept over someone or something.” That’s a fairly basic explanation, but it is entirely accurate. I think it is probably fair to say that when most people think of “surveillance” images of detectives and spies come to mind. Unfortunately, this somewhat romantic notion is not entirely accurate anymore. Today, we are under surveillance the likes of which would make the Stasi blush. Whether you consider him a traitor or a hero, when he blew the whistle on NSA surveillance activities, Edward Snowden in many ways opened up the eyes of the American populace. He showed that the NSA was using mass surveillance tactics to spy on everyone, from enemies of the state and terrorists, to our own allies in the European Union and even American citizens. But it wasn’t just the government that was spying on us. The website “crackedlabs.org” shows just how extreme corporate surveillance can be. Through a complex system of tracking and trading, they can influence us and infer very personal information from us based on our online presence. Thankfully, we can take steps to protect ourselves and ensure our privacy through surveillance of our own.

Using surveillance as a form of protection is a bit of an interesting concept, as it seems rather unconventional at first glance. But by doing this, one can very efficiently protect themselves online. This does not require one to be some expert hacker or data guru, all it really requires is a basic understanding of computers and bit of awareness both offline and online. Offline, you can take measures such as paying only with cash and keeping an eye out for Closed-Circuit Television, or CCTV cameras, which according to facilitiesnet.com are divided between Analog and IP-based cameras. Analog cameras, again according to facilitiesnet.com, “…have been around for years.” These are the cameras that are all local and store their footage on-site. They are still the most common type. IP systems are newer, offer better resolutions, and “allow user to e-mail video images for consultation.” So they’re much more advanced, and you can probably expect CCTV systems to become even more advanced in the future. Something else you can do to limit your offline presence, though it may be extremely inconvenient, is deciding to use cash instead of a debit or credit card in your day-to-day purchases. Naturally, in this day and age, this isn’t ideal, but it is another option you could take if you’re so inclined.

Managing your online presence is a lot more obvious, but can in many ways be more difficult. Really the first thing you should do is research to find out exactly what information is freely available on the internet. If you have a Facebook account, you can go into the settings and view the information and the categories they put you in based on post history and location tags and tracking. For instance, they are able to guess if you live away from family, or have a pet, or have friends of a certain ethnicity. The website applymagicsauce.com can tell you what personal information they can infer about you based on your Twitter activity. This is to mirror what information companies and corporations can guess about you using similar technology. The next step you can take is using certain websites, browsers, and addons and extensions to protect yourself online. The web browser Firefox is famously pro-privacy, and have also taken a stand for net neutrality. Furthermore, you can use addons such as Adblock Plus (https://adblockplus.org/) to block not only adds, but also cookies, which, according to whatarecookies.com, are small files that are used to track your online activity in order to “deliver a page tailored to a particular user.” You can also download the web extension “HTTPS Everywhere,” which, according to their homepage, “encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure.”

By taking these steps, you can begin to take back your online presence. Living in the age of information can be scary, in part because no one has determined which information is off limits for the general public. I think it’s safe to say that everyone has some form of dirty laundry that they don’t want made public. It’s just a part of being human. But we live in an age where we need to be careful about what information we allow to be collected and used. Websites like Facebook can gather personal information and sell it for a pretty penny to the highest bidder. Taking some of these steps can help, but ultimately what we need to do is get out and vote for people who respect and support our rights to privacy. It is only through law that our privacy and personal online security can be secured definitively. Ultimately, there are precious few other genuine long-term solutions.

 

Works Cited

“Adblock Plus | The World’s # 1 Free Ad Blocker.” Adblock Plus | The World’s # 1 Free Ad Blocker, adblockplus.org/.

Cadwalladr, Carole, and Emma Graham-Harrison. “Facebook Accused of Conducting Mass Surveillance through Its Apps.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 24 May 2018, www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/24/facebook-accused-of-conducting-mass-surveillance-through-its-apps.

Grove, Jon. “What Are Cookies? Computer Cookies Explained.” Computer Coookies Explained, www.whatarecookies.com/.

“HTTPS Everywhere.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 27 Mar. 2018, www.eff.org/https-everywhere.

Rainie, Lee. “The State of Privacy in America.” Pew Research Center, Pew Research Center, 21 Sept. 2016, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/09/21/the-state-of-privacy-in-america/.

Szoldra, Paul. “This Is Everything Edward Snowden Revealed in One Year of Unprecedented Top-Secret Leaks.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 16 Sept. 2016, www.businessinsider.com/snowden-leaks-timeline-2016-9.

“What Does CCTV Stand For? – Security Coverage.” Facilitiesnet, www.facilitiesnet.com/security/topic/What-Does-CCTV-Stand-For–19068.

Sleeping for Myself (My quantified Self)

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November 30:

 

Today I recorded my sleep using the application “Sleep Better”. It tracks your sleep and when you wake up during the night. Today was an awful night of sleep, I slept 6 hours and I fell asleep at 12:30 and woke up 6 hours later. My dog had his first of two appointments at seven in the morning. The application had an alarm set and put me at a state of deep sleep when I woke up. Felt really drowsy, and I wanted to stay in bed.

 

December 1:

Tonight, I had a much better sleep, even though I stayed up later. I went to bed at 1 in the morning and woke up 8 hours and 30 minutes later at 9:30. I had to wake up during the night to use the bathroom and let my puppy out of his crate to use the bathroom. However, much improvement from yesterday’s sleep, and I woke up feeling energized. So far, I do not like using the application because it recommends methods of how to get more sleep and has my data suggest sleeping products.

 

 

December 2:

 

Tonight, I had my best night of sleep. I went to bed at roughly 12:15 and woke up at 10:10. I woke up only one time to use the bathroom and let the dog out. I felt in a deep state of sleep and I remember dreaming about a basketball game that I lost one year ago in high school. Another day, since I allowed notifications, notifications are popping up for sleeping remedies and videos on how to meditate before sleeping. Also, this is new I am getting app suggestions to watch basketball with meditation music, which is weird because I have a bunch of basketball applications and history in my tabs.

 

December 3:

The worst night so far. I was working for my finals until 1:30 in the morning and fell asleep and had to bring my dog to the vet at 7 so I was up at 6:30. When I get five hours asleep, I am very groggy, and barely got out of my bed. I woke up at 3:15 to take my dog out and it felt like I slept for only 20 minutes. I put my head down, and I just felt like I took a brief nap. I was exhausted.

 

December 4:

I was reportedly in a deep sleep state three times. Every time I was in a deep sleep state, I was awoken because my dog had an upset stomach and pooped in his crate. I had to clean it three times and I barely got any sleep. After cleaning and falling asleep, and then waking up to poop again, my night was awful. In the morning, I was very grumpy and I had to go right to work. Worst night yet.

 

 

 

December 5:

 

Today, I had my best sleep yet. I was in a deep state sleep for a long time, and I had a great dream about Christmas. I did not wake up at all, and the dog slept the whole time as well. I woke up at 7 and checked the clock and fell right back asleep. It was a great night, until I remembered I had to submit a paper at the last second, and it threw off my great morning. Overall, my energy levels were spiked and I thought I could work for hours and hours.

 

December 6:

Correct my last journal, tonight was my best night of sleeping. I fell asleep with a full stomach at 12:30 and I slept until 10:30. My dog was at my brother’s house, so I had no worries. The sleep tracker claims I was in a light sleep for around 60% of the night, but I felt like the energizer bunny when I woke up. The only strange thing is that I keep receiving “suggested products” and “Facebook Advertisements” that recommend sleeping products. I am definitely going to continue this sleep journal because it works anytime your phone goes into sleep mode and the options work well and are easy.

 

 

 

 

Reflection Paper: Sleeping for Myself (My quantified Self)

 

 

 

Quantified self is defined as the act of using personal data to improve one’s quality of life throughout this reflection, I explore the sleeping patterns and effects of a seven-day sleep journal (Investopedia 1). In Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, the employees’ lives have revolved around work to the extent they do not get any free time or sleep. As stated before, the quantified self is defined as using personal data to improve one’s quality of life, in order to improve my quality of life, I must improve my sleep habits. It is a common norm that the amount of sleep person gets per day is eight hours. This just is not the case for me. Sleep is quintessential in our lives. Each and every human has the main basic functions in common. One of such necessities is our need of sleep.

Throughout my life, I have learned is that people greatly vary in their sleeping patterns, timing and quality. However, everyone can agree that sleep is vital for all the people to remain alive. While sleeping is as important as breathing, many people go on ignoring the basic rules which with time result into various sleep disorders. Often the importance of sleep is overlooked. The surveys conducted by the National Sleep Foundation (1999-2004) “reveal that at least 40 million Americans suffer from over 70 different sleep disorders and 60 percent of adult’s report having sleep problems a few nights a week or more.” (American Psychological Association). There are many reasons explaining why sleeping is important for people. One of the most vital is that it is the way for our body to rejuvenate and to work on our quantified self. During the period of sleep when we lower our energy levels, our soft tissues and muscles are able to be revitalized and repaired. Concurrently our brain has the time to process and absorb the memories and experiences we learnt during the day.

Sleep is important no matter how old we are. However, it’s essential to pay careful attention to children because “importance of sleep during early life when the brain is rapidly maturing and highly changeable” is vital. (Medical News Today) One day of without the sleep is not fatal, however, the increase of sleepless nights will cause negative changes such as mood swings, poor physical and mental wellbeing, provoked disease or even death of a person.  To be able to clearly understand the importance of sleep, it is vital to consider the symptoms that happen with the lack of proper sleep. In order to better myself as an individual, I will be recording my sleep hours and analyzing how I am affected each day.

 

To start off, I used the sleep mobile application called “Sleep Better”. This mobile application allowed me to track my sleep, and with any movement towards my phone, it would record my sleep level, my waking periods, and my level of sleep. In order to effectively gauge my sleeping habits, I tracked my sleep patterns to a tee. The late nights that I studied, or when I was abruptly awakened by my dog to take him outside, I would record in my sleep application. The nights that I needed to be up early, the sleep application had testers in the morning that followed up the alarm clock to see the state of mind I was in. The negatives of this application were that even though it was a sleeping application and one would think it is very harmless, it used my information and data to suggest meditation videos or sleeping medications/remedies based on the type of sleep I received. I was just trying to implement my sleeping patterns, in order to understand how that affected my energy levels and my productivity levels.

While using this application, I had very mixed results. Being a college student during finals, I do not expect to have an ideal sleep schedule. Instead, I had very mixed results: some nights I had very little sleep, and some nights had an abundance of sleep. In connection with Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, my life has been come revolved around two things: my puppy and school work. In order to get my best grades possible, I try to do extra work whenever I can; sometimes this affects my sleep schedule. Every night in my journal, I did not fall asleep until after 12. The earliest being 12:15 and the latest being 1:30. On December 1,3,5,6, I had great nights of sleep, averaging over 8 hours per night, while waking up refreshed. On November 30, and the other nights, my dog and school work kept me up, and woke me up for late night bathroom breaks.

This relates to Kathrin Roeggla’s “We Never Sleep”, because the characters and employee’s life revolves around work. As a college student with a puppy, my life revolves around getting good grades, and making sure my puppy is raised properly. IF that means going to bed at 1 in the morning, that is what will happen. If that means waking up three times to clean out my puppy’s crate after he had accidents, I will do it. Overall, my sleep is in direct correlation with my health in my opinion. When I had a little bit more time to sleep, I felt instantly energized and had no drowsy feeling. On the other hand, when my sleep time was limited, I felt groggy, moody, and deflated.  Together, myself and my group mates who also did sleep instead of steps walked, discovered that getting that “good night of sleep” did correlate to positive health behaviors, in turn creating a more efficient self, while working on our quantified self.

In comparison with my group, it is clear that we all had similar results with understandable gaps. Everyone who participated, came within 2 hours of each other with all of their data. Depending on schedule conflicts, my group mates found time to gain sleep. For example, one group member had 4.5 hours sleep on a Thursday, so on Sunday, he made up for that limited amount of sleep by sleeping 11-12 hours. Clearly, our group as a whole has found a system to make it work and improve our quantified self by working in sleep hours, which work for each individual in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

 

 

Works cited:

American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, www.apa.org/helpcenter/sleep-disorders.aspx.

“Sleep Right.”  Investopedia.  Investopedia US, 31 July 2014. Web. 1 August 2014.

 

(In) Visibility as a Form of Protest

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Documentation

The College of Charleston has 8 closed-caption television (CCTV) cameras around campus. They are located at the Cistern Yard, Craig Hall Courtyard, Beatty Center atrium, Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts, Rivers Green, School of Sciences and Mathematics Building Courtyard, atop the BellSouth Building, and College Way and Green Way.

Day 1 – Amazon Rekognition video analysis software was setup and trained to recognize two College of Charleston professors faces, clothing, and movement patterns. Recordings were taken of the Cistern Yard camera and the School of Sciences and Mathematics Building Courtyard camera. The subjects were recognized with an 84% probability on facial recognition alone. Folly Beach CCTV camera on the Tides hotel was monitored for surfing purposes.

Day 2 – The two professors were monitored in the two same locations. Subject 1 passed by the Sciences and Mathematics Building Courtyard camera 4 times throughout the day. Patterns of similarities in outfits and movement patterns are being built.

Day 3 – Subject 2 seems to have a routine that is followed. A daily routine pattern is starting to develop. This is normal when conducting surveillance on a subject. It can be shocking to people when they are tracked and see the results, but everyone has their routines.

Day 4 – Both professors were recognized by their outfits. One seems to be wearing a shirt identical to Day 1. Facial Recognition is up to 92% today. Bad weather can have an effect on results. Machine Learning (Rekognition) is gathering the data and automatically providing the individuals without me having to input the description anymore.

Day 5 – Routines have altered slightly as it is a Friday. Both individuals passed by the School of Sciences and Mathematics Building Courtyard camera 4 times though.

Day 6 – Subject 1 showed up to work but only passed by the camera once. It is a Saturday, so results were expected as. Folly Beach Washout Camera was monitored and showed great signs for surfing.

Day 7 – Minimal movement on the cameras as it is Sunday. Higher than expected activity mainly because Finals.

College of Charleston CCTV

Amazon ReKognition

CCTV Traffic Cams Charleston

Change your IP Camera’s password

Reflection

The Internet of Things (IOT) has evolved at an excessively high rate. It is hard for cyber security to keep up the devices that are connected to the internet. Companies are pushing out products so fast without the consumers privacy in mind. I focused on all the closed- caption television (CCTV) cameras within Charleston. Amazon Rekognition (facial recognition software) was incorporated into the study while tracking two College of Charleston professors. Parts of this blog post is not intended to frighten the reader but to bring awareness to the devices and technology available to everyone. CCTV (closed-circuit television) is a TV system in which signals are not publicly distributed but are monitored, primarily for surveillance and security purposes (Rouse). Charleston has CCTV cameras spread throughout the city. They are used for traffic, weather, show off college campus, beach waves, follow action at popular beach side clubs, and viewing nesting seabirds. The monitoring systems are used primarily to provide the public with information.

The College of Charleston has 8 closed-caption television (CCTV) cameras around campus. They are located at the Cistern Yard, Craig Hall Courtyard, Beatty Center atrium, Marion and Wayland H. Cato Jr. Center for the Arts, Rivers Green (Addlestone Library), School of Sciences and Mathematics Building Courtyard, atop the BellSouth Building, and College Way and Green Way. The first webcam was installed on the Marlene & Nathan Addlestone Library in 2007 to capture a time-lapse video of construction on the new School of Sciences and Mathematics building (Menchaca). Since then the cameras have evolved into an attraction to display America’s most beautiful campus. The study was focused primarily on the Cistern Yard and the School of Sciences and Mathematics Building (SSMB) Courtyard. The Cistern Yard camera is located in Randolph Hall looking outward towards The Cistern Yard. The Cistern Yard (with the raised, oval Cistern in the foreground) is the literal and figurative center of campus. Each spring, this is where the College’s commencement ceremonies take place. And, in late May and early June each year, this space serves as a performance venue for jazz artists during the Spoleto Festival USA. During some Spoleto performances, the blinds in this window may be closed (Cofc). The SSMB camera looks north across the courtyard that sits just behind the College’s new science building on Calhoun Street. Students and faculty find respite here during their otherwise busy days (Cofc). The two subjects take multiple trips across the locations during a regular school day.

Ron Menchaca, Senior Director of Communications at the College of Charleston, writes that the CCTV at the college serves five purposes. He writes that the first reason is that they are in fact very popular. Campus webcams have become one of the most popular features on the College’s webpage. Some months, the cams account for nearly 28,000-page views on cofc.edu (Menchaca). Menchaca describes that Parents love the webcams, people reminisce about their college days, technology has evolved, and TV Meteorologists Rob Fowler and Bill Walsh love them (Menchaca). The college is proud of its campus and wants it on display to the world. The data that is collected on the cameras is mostly harmless and provides society with the ability to look into college life.

The two professors that were monitored in the study was easily picked up as they crossed in front of the camera. The data collected from the two popular locations of the professors was put into the video analysis inside Amazon Rekognition. As the video looped through it would give a notification when the subjects passed the camera. The data was not in real time, so it was recorded and feed into the software and trained to look for their faces. The accuracy of the software was the largest surprise as it provided percentages of likeness that it was the individual based off face structure, the way they moved, the outfit they were, and skin color. This data was not a required portion of the project, but it was a fun experiment.

Charleston currently has 74 traffic CCTV cameras, 9 beach cameras, 8 college cams, and a few others spread throughout the city. Those are the publicly known cameras. Surveillance has changed over the years and with new IOT devices being added to the internet each day, security is not the top priority. Websites like www.shodan.io provide all the connected devices that do not have a secure connection, or the owner is still using the default username and password. I conducted a search in Charleston and found a shocking number of web cams with default passwords. I decided to not conduct my research on these individuals as somewhere cameras inside private homes. Technology is evolving rapidly and education on security will always be behind. It is a disturbing fact on how easy it is to look inside someone personal life through a lens.

The outcomes from a few group members were the same within the College of Charleston’s CCTV when it came to monitoring the locations. The Cistern Yard was a primary focus for most as it is a popular location especially this time of year with the Christmas lights. My research was slightly different because I looked at multiple cameras across Charleston but in the end remained my focus on the college. I have conducted surveillance on multiple subjects throughout previous careers. The art of surveillance has changed drastically within the last 10 years. The use of IOT devices has made it possible to find individuals within a crowd, monitor movements, and detect people with facial recognition. Technology will be continuously evolving so it is important for the individual to learn safety precautions when it comes to their devices. The project made myself more aware of what technology is out there and how an individual can be monitored and tracked especially on a college campus. Inserting the data into a facial recognition software was an added bonus but it made the project even more interesting.

Works Cited

College of Charleston. “College Webcams.” http://webcams.cofc.edu/

Iteris. “South Carolina Department of Transportation.” https://www.511sc.org/

Li, Amanda. “Unsecured IP Camera List – Is Your Security Camera Vulnerable to Hackers?”. https://reolink.com/unsecured-ip-camera-list/. October 2018.

Menchaca, Ron. The College Today. “5 Reasons to Smile for Campus Webcams” http://today.cofc.edu/2014/03/21/5-reasons-smile-campus-webcams/. March 2014.

Rouse, Margaret. “CCTV (closed circuit television).” https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/CCTV-closed-circuit-television. April 2012.

Surveillance Project

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Keeley Duggan

December 10th, 2018

LTGR 250-01

Surveillance Project

 

Day 1:  

On Wednesday morning I woke up at 10:50 am. I started my day off by slowly getting ready for my 12:00 pm  class. After this class I had a 4 hour break until I had to leave for my 5:30pm class. I got out of my class at 6:45pm and took the time to make dinner. I then did my homework and showered. After that I hung out with my friends and then watched Netflix until I fell asleep which was at 12:08 am.

Day 2:

On Thursday morning I woke up at 8:30 am and started to get ready to leave for my 9:25 am class. After that I went straight to my 10:50 am class. I had a break after that until my 1:40 pm class so I made myself food and finished up any homework. I then went to my next class which ended at 2:50pm. From there I saw my friends and then went home to cook and do homework. I fell asleep at 1:29 am.

Day 3:

On Friday morning I woke up at 10:18 am, showered,  and left at 11:45 am for my 12:00 pm class. After this class I went home to take a nap. I then went out and got lunch with people. After that I went home and hung out until I saw my friends again. I went to bed at around 3 am.

 

Day 4:

On Saturday morning I slept in till 12:30 pm. I woke up and ate food and sat in bed for a few hours. I then went and hung out with my friends. I came home at 12 am and fell asleep at 12:38 am.

Day 5:

On Sunday morning I woke up late at 1:12 pm. I ate food, worked out, showered, and then got back into bed. I studied for finals from 5:00 pm to 10:00 pm. After that I watched netflix until I fell asleep which was at 11:49 pm.

Day 6:

On Monday morning I woke up at 11:13 am and got ready to leave for my 12:00 pm class. I then watched netflix and did last minute homework until it was time to leave for my 5:30 pm class. After this I went home and started to study for my finals again until I was too tired. I fell asleep at 11:27 pm.

Day 7:

On Tuesday morning I woke up at 11:46 am. I started my day by showering and eating breakfast. Then I went to the library to study more for my finals since it was a reading day. I stayed at the library until 6:00 pm. After that I went home, watched netflix, ate dinner, and studied more until I fell asleep at 11:30 pm.

 

The quantified self is the captured knowledge of one human being through one’s own self surveillance. This is everyday tracked information as well as the possibility of further research.

Sleep is the natural periodic suspension of consciousness during which powers of the body is restored (Webster). In other words, sleep is when your body essentially ‘shuts down’ to restore one’s energy. This is a very important part of the everyday human’s schedule. Sleep affects your health mentally and physically in the sense that it aids your immune system.

I decided to track the amount of sleep that I get every night for the time period of a week. I am doing this research because it will help me to reflect on why I have certain performances some days compared to others, it will help me track my health, and overall reevaluate my day to day life.

Throughout this research I hoped to understand why I feel a certain way when I wake up in the morning, whether that be happy, well-rested, tired, exhausted, sad, etc. I also wanted to see how this affected my immune system, to see whether  it caused me to be more susceptible to illness. Another piece of knowledge that I wanted to gain and understand was how different patterns during the day and before bed affect the amount of sleep I received.

Data turns into knowledgeable data to me when it as able to be understood and pieced together in the overall picture. For example, it was knowledgeable when I saw that on the days I stayed up watching netflix, I got less sleep and went to bed later, which means that obviously the screen time took away from my ability to fall asleep faster.

The app that I used was Sleepzy, a sleep cycle app that tracks and measures the sleep you get every night.

I believe that this was a well designed app, it was free and easily accessible to everyone through the app store on the Iphone. The app has a 4.3 out of 5 star rating. I would give this app a 4.5 out of 5 stars because I believe that it was navigable for all ages, one would not get easily confused. It has the option to wake one up in their lightest sleep phase so that the user of the app feels like they naturally woke up. It also analyzes one’s sleep quality. One can sync the app with Apple’s Health app to create a bigger and more organized journal with all of one’s data on their health. One can set goals for their sleep, tell if they have a sleep debt, fall asleep to certain sounds, songs, or noises. It gives one weekly statistics, adjust one’s sleep patterns to benefit the user, and it also makes adjustments to one’s sleep in order to prepare for the weather in the user’s city or town.

My personal data was entered in this app by allowing myself to use this app before I fell asleep and when I woke up in the morning. It was able to determine how long I slept each day out of the week. At the end of the week it gave me the week’s statistics, allowing me to understand how much sleep I got and how much more I would like to see, etc.

The benefits of using this app are that I am able to see how long I sleep on an average week night. This helps me to understand what I need to change in my daily schedule to make sure that my body is getting the sleep that it needs. I was also able to see that on the days that I got less sleep I was groggier and didn’t feel as healthy as the days where I did get more sleep. This helped me to understand my body and how sleep affects my health as well as my mental state for the day.I found this to be a very important bonus of tracking my sleep because it is important not only in the short run but in the long run as well. I have heard about studies that people who tend to get less sleep over their life, tend to have poorer health and die earlier. The limits of this app are that it doesn’t necessarily always do the best job of waking one up when their statistics show that they need to be. I only had this happen to me one morning of the week, therefore my critique isn’t the most exemplary review.

The group data was somewhat similar to each other in which we all got roughly a few hours difference between our sleep patterns. The group that I was in had an average of about roughly 6 hours and 30 minutes. I tended to be on the higher side of the spectrum by 2 to 3 hours on some days. I believe that I got more sleep because my schedule didn’t involve any job or internship that would lead some of my classmates to have to stay up later than me to get their homework and studying done. I also think one of the other factors was that although I did have screen time, mine tended to be a bit less than some of my classmates. This app was beneficial to me and my classmates because we were able to see how activities in our daily lives affect our sleep patterns and moods, and or health.

 

Works Cited

 

“Sleep.” Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2018.

 

Sleep: Do the health benefits outweigh the time wasted?

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The average american sleeps 6.8 hours a night, 1.8 hours less than the recommended 8 hours we should be getting each night. Why is that? What is it that keeps us up for so long, and what are we doing? Examining my own self, I decided to find keep a record of what my sleep schedule was like, and take note of what it was I was spending my time doing in those extra hours of being awake.

  As day one started, I had the point of this research I was doing in my head throughout the day. It was Monday, so my only school obligation was 9 AM to 10 AM and after class I had work until about 4. Once I was home from work, I went on with my day, watching YouTube and Netflix until it was about dinner time where I got up to make a run to the grocery store since Monday’s are normally when I get this done. Got my groceries, cooked my meal, and after eating, began getting my work done that was due for the next day. After that was all said and done, it was about 9 PM and I began doing a bit of research on car parts for my car, which is one of my greatest passions. After about an hour I received a text from one of my best friends from back home, asking if I would like to play a game with him so I did which lead until about 2 AM. After that was done, I got in bed and put on some more YouTube until I fell asleep which was about 2:45 AM.

  The next morning, Tuesday, I woke up at around 8 AM, which gave me roughly 5 hours of sleep the night before. My classes began at 9:25 AM and I did not finish until later in the evening at 5:15 PM where I then headed back home, cooked some food, and began watching YouTube as I regularly do. This brought me until roughly 7:30 PM where I then began getting the work I needed to do for my one class the next day done. Roughly 9:30 PM arrived and that is where I then began to watch more YouTube, play some games with my best friend, bringing the time to 2 AM once again, where I did not fall asleep until 3:30 AM.

  The next morning, Wednesday, I once again woke up at 8 AM, totaling 4 ½ hours of sleep, went to my class and then after went to work until about 2:30 PM. Once I got home, I took a break and watched more YouTube, which is clearly seen as a daily routine of mine, and waited until my girlfriend got out of class at about 6:45 PM where we then went out to eat and I did not return home until 10 PM. I then began getting the work done needed for the next day, finishing at about 11:30 PM. After this, I played games with my best friend, another daily routine of mine, leading to 3 AM where I did not fall asleep until roughly 4 AM.

  Thursday morning came, waking up at 8 AM with 4 hours of sleep. Left for classes, returned back at around 5:45 PM where I then grabbed my car and went to play soccer with one of my friends. Returned back home at around 8 PM, got my school work done, leading to about 9:30 PM, began watching YouTube with a late dinner until about 10:45 PM, and once again played games until 2:30 PM and not falling asleep until 3:30 PM. To save some time, the following days leading up to Sunday were essentially the same, with 4 ½ hours of sleep, 9 hours of sleep, and 12 hours of sleep for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night respectively.

  From this tracking, I was able to gain an insight on what my days look like, and start to analyze why it is I get little sleep. And taking a moment to do so, it makes the saying “not enough hours in the day” all the more real for me. With the large workload I have on my plate for a day to day basis, balancing school, work, and sleep alone takes up the hours I have. If I were to exclude all the extracurricular activities I enjoy, may day would mostly consist of something like wake up at 8 AM, got to school, get my work done, sleep at around 12 AM by the latest giving me the recommended 8 hours of sleep we are supposed to get nightly. But living that sort of lifestyle to me is not worth it. Because of this, I sacrifice sleep in order to add in those such activities I do enjoy which makes my days all the more enjoyable, in order to withstand the things that are not so enjoyable like school.

  The app I used to monitor my sleeping habits was the Bedtime section under the Clock app on the iPhone. This app allows you to set your bedtime, recommends when you should go to bed in order to get your desired sleep amount, and tracks the amount of sleep you get nightly. An app that tracks sleep is not something that is hard to create, which is why I have no faults with this app. For me, notes would have sufficed as I could have just as easily wrote down when it was I began sleeping, when I woke up, and taken into account how long on average a human takes to be fully asleep in order to get my nightly sleeping hours. Bedtime just took all of the busy work out of the tracking, which is why I used it. Since it is made by Apple, I assume my data is now in the storage drives of Apple, which does not bother me in any way since in the end all it is is my sleeping habits. I am sure they have access to other information, so sleeping habits are not something I feel like being too cautious about. All that this researching has done, is shown me that when it comes to healthy habits or life enjoyment, I would rather make time for what I love, then search time for those same activities.

  In comparison to my other group mates, it is clear to see that I am not far off from what most college students get on a nightly basis for sleep, roughly 2 hours off. To me, all that this shows is that others have more self-discipline than I do, allowing them to get the sleep they need and pushing away other activities they may have been able to do during those times. For me, however, I enjoy the way I live and whether it is right compared to the general public or not has no impact on what it is I will do in the end.

Counter-Surveillance as a form of Protection – Abrie Richison

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Abrie Richison

Dr. Koellner

LGTR 250

10 December 2018

Part one: Data Diary

            The first steps I took in taking back control of how much I am being surveilled online was to decide which social media accounts I used the most. In doing so, I had to reflect on my online presence. I came to the conclusion that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were my three most prevalent social media accounts. Once I did this, I decided to go in and activate Two-Factor Authentication so that it would be more difficult for someone to hack into my account and gain insight to my personal settings and such. Once I knew the setting I was looking for, it was not difficult to facilitate this in my social media accounts. This was my task on day one.

On day two, I went to Applymagicsauce.com and saw how I was perceived by my Twitter account. It was interesting because twitter thought that I was a male and that I was 32 years old based on my tweets and retweets and overall Twitter use. Once I saw these results, I went back through some of my content to see why Twitter would think these things of me. I noticed that I rarely tweeted personally, rather I retweeted other accounts. The accounts that I spent most time with were owned by men, maybe making Twitter think that I was also a man. It was interesting to know what they had gathered regarding my identity and then to go back in and see what may have given them that impression.

On the third day, I did some research on Ad blockers and what that service entailed. Interestingly, I sometimes enjoy the adds that pop up on my social media accounts because they are obviously tailored to my interests and needs as a social media user. Rather than apply the Ad Blocker to my phone, I just researched it from the outside to see how it would benefit people who did not want these ads. Ad blocking is very effective and one of the most popular blockers I found was AdBlock Plus.

On the fourth day, I really focused on Facebook and who could see what posts of mine, as well as what accounts were connected to my Facebook account and sharing information. I found that some of my posts were being shared with people who were not in my “friends” list – meaning that people outside of my approved list were seeing my posts. I had a problem with this because some of my pictures or events were personal and I would rather not share them with just anyone. I then went through and made sure that only my friends could see all of my posts, rather it be something I was tagged in or something I posted personally.

On the fifth day, I researched and installed Privacy Badger. This settled my mind in knowing that third parties could no longer track the sites I was visiting and spending most time on.

On the sixth and seventh days, I researched other applications and ways to continually keep control of my privacy. While this experiment has been enlightening, I would love to continue keeping control of my privacy. I looked into Signal, Duck Duck Go and even considered YubiKey.

 

Part Two: Reflective Research Paper

          Technological advances have created an abundant increase in internet use, specifically through social media. Because of this increase, users have begun openly sharing information, location, personal photos and relationships on the internet without knowing who can see it and how these consumers can use such information. It is important to be aware of our online presence because much more of our information is being used than we think. During my research, in which I implemented counter-surveillance as a form of protection, I learned just how much about our personal lives is documental through social media. This was done through researching different applications, settings and personal social media accounts. My goal throughout this research was to gain insight into how much of my information is being harbored by third parties and to then take back control of my own privacy using useful tools. By focusing on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, I was able to gather information regarding privacy and just how much of it we are lacking as social media users.

All of the three social media accounts that I focused on – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – have their own privacy settings. I learned that when you make an account, these accounts fail to offer much aide in your account’s privacy. Users are able to easily access their ability to make an account private but that is typically the extent of their privacy settings endeavor. What users rarely utilize, me included, is the extent of their ability to make their accounts more private. For instance, Two-Factor Authentication, a security step in which users are required to identify themselves in two ways to log into their accounts, is available on many social media services but not well advertised. Though some companies are becoming more transparent with their privacy settings, there are still unpredicted breaches of security that have exposed user’s information to the public.

One of these breaches that completely effected the privacy of users was the Cambridge Analytica. In a New York Times article titled “Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far,” written by Nicholas Confessore, the scandal is exposed and discussed. News broke in mid-March 2018 that Cambridge Analytica, a London based data-mining firm, lifted the Facebook profiles of millions of users without their consent for political purposes related to an upcoming election. Documentation surfaced and proved that a former board member at the London based firm, Stephen K. Bannon, pulled users information in hopes to “build voter profiles” (Confessore). In doing so, he breached Facebook’s privacy claims and put millions of users at risk. Users began to protests Facebook as Confessor states when he writes, “The Times reported on a growing number of Facebook users, including singer Cher, deleting their accounts – and broke news of departure of Facebook’s top security official, who has clashed with other executives on how to handle discontent” going on to mention, “The hashtag #DeleteFacebook began trending on Twitter” proving the uproar that took place after the breach. From this quote, it is adamant that users were not pleased with the breach in their personal information and even used other social media platforms to express their unhappiness. Because breaches like this are possible, it is abundantly important that we take back our privacy as users in order to protect it ourselves.

There are plenty of ways to take back our privacy as users. There are applications that can be downloaded that aide in the containment of privacy as well as browser extensions that can be added to search engines. For instance, Ad Blockers are available that will block ads from appearing. There is a certain software, called AdBlock Plus, that prevents third parties from being able to gather information from you and then tailor the ads to that personal information. While this is just one thing we can do, there are many things that can protect our online presence. However, I do believe that there should be 5 rules for equity and fairness when it comes to data sharing.

The first of these rules is to implement more transparency between companies and users. In doing so, users will know what they need to accomplish on their end to achieve total privacy of information. Companies, like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, should have a more open communication with their users, working with them rather than separately in obtaining privacy. I think another rule that would be beneficial is for Two-Factor Authentication to be implemented at all times, rather than just when the user finds out about it. If users began their online experience with Two-Factor Authentication, then a majority of breaches and hacks would be prevented. Another rule would be for users to know who is viewing their content at all times. This would eliminate any questionable viewing of user’s information. The fourth rule I would like to see installed is less connecting of accounts. In connecting your Facebook account with other accounts, users are at a higher risk for one of their accounts to be hacked, therefore, the other accounts being hacked as well. Though we are informed of data sharing that leads to ads, I think a fifth rule that would help the overall usage of social media is for users to be more educated as to what is being shared. I think a simple, easy-to-read terms and agreement that details exactly what will be kept private and what will be used to public use would help in overall online experience in relation to privacy.

Some techniques that I found especially helpful were Duck Duck Go, Applymagicsauce.com and Privacy Badger. I began by uncovering my online presence from an outside source, such as Applymagicsauce.com. This site allowed me to connect my Facebook and Twitter accounts in order to gather information about my data double. What they found from my accounts surprised me as it was much different than what I expected. For instance, with my twitter account they believed I was a middle-aged man. This was interesting to me until I viewed my own account from the perspective as an outside source. In doing so, I could see how they gathered these assumptions based on what I retweeted and who I followed. In knowing these interpretations about me, I am now able to alter what one could gather from my Twitter account because I have more knowledge from Applymagicsauce.com. After doing this, I became much more intrigued with my online presence and decided to investigate the capability of Duck Duck Go and Privacy Badger. Duck Duck Go is search engine that blocks trackers and eliminates the possibility of other people using your information. They market themselves in a way that expresses tracking as “creepy” and shows how they never track your searches, hoping to leave users feeling more protected in their online experience. They just launched a new mobile app in 2018 that makes it even easier for users to use Duck Duck Go. Comparatively, Privacy Badgers is a browser add-on that prevents third party trackers. Both of these counter-surveillance techniques are beneficial for user’s experiences.

Overall, gaining control of our data doubles is very important as internet use is abundantly predominant in our culture today. Whether or not we realize it, our privacy is not always guaranteed online, meaning our personal information, relationships, interests and much more is being shared with undisclosed parties. Because of this, counter-surveillance can definitely protect us online. As my group members also learned, it is much easier than we thought to take back our online privacy. From this course, through literature and our own outside research, we have seen many instances of extreme surveillance. Whether it be from the government, like The Method or “In the Penal Colony”, one man, The Sandman, or many people, like in “Up in the Gallery,” surveillance is all around us; it is all encompassing. There are few ways to escape surveillance in today’s society but there are steps we can take in preserving our privacy to the best of our abilities.

 

Works Cited:

Confessore, Nicholas. “Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 4 Apr. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/04/04/us/politics/cambridge-analytica-scandal-fallout.html.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mary Noll

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Data Diary:

During the seven days of self-tracking, which is something that is always being done by different forms of technology we use, I used the Apple Health app to track the physical activities I complete throughout the day. Some days I’ll wear my Apple watch and other days I only carry around my phone. When I wear my watch, I receive some data that my phone could not track. The information found is my resting energy, standing hours, steps, walking and running distance, active energy, exercise, heart rate, flights climbed and sometimes my phone will keep track of my sleep analysis. This data that is documented, especially the distances, are also tracking the places I’m walking. When tracking deeper into each of the categories being tracked, there is no underlying information that shows it is tracking my location at all times or not, but my location services are always running for certain apps, which this is one. I believe that the heart rate information is being used to track the health status of people. Apple probably uses the ages groups of their iPhone and/or Apple Watch users and sends the statistical averages to health professors. These trackings might actually help encourage to help themselves. Apple has developed their watches to check move, exercise, and stand. Move is based on the calories you are burning daily, which you set an amount that you think you’re capable of burning and then you try and meet that goal each day. Stand and exercise are both on preset goals. Stand is set to twelve hours each day in hopes that people can take the time out of their days and get off their butts. Exercise is set to thirty minutes a day because it is doctor recommended to get at a minimum of thirty minutes of movement in a day. Once all three of these goals are met, Apple watches have a celebration mode to help encourage people to continue to do this each day. I believe using this idea of celebration and other watch apps help boost people into purchasing the watch and they then can track everyone’s location.

 

My data received for each day was:

November 23, 2018

I did not complete all my goals via Apple watch but was tracked 11,872 steps and 5.5 miles that I walked that day. The different energies I had that day, which is 445 kCal of active energy and 1,689 kCal Resting energy. I had a heart rate of 73 bpm and my sleep analysis was tracked this day. My phone says that I slept for 2 hours and 15 minutes, which I know is completely wrong. I lot of the information seems a little bit inaccurate because this day I spent most of my day outside walking around.

November 24, 2018

This day I think I did not wear my watch and did not get much time to complete any movement because I was in the car most of the car traveling home from Florida. There was a different tracking on this day. This track was flights climb, which is recognized once you start walking up and down steps. A heartbeat was not tracked on this day.

November 25, 2018

All goals were met this day with the exception of stand. This day I was tracked walking 4.9 miles and 9,486 steps. Stand for 11 hours, climbed 1 flight of stairs and had a total of active and resting energy of a little bit over 2,000 kCal. I had a heartbeat of 83 this day

November 26, 2018

Again on this day, I met all goals except for the stand goal. I had 12,625 step, 6.3 miles and 3 flights of stairs climbed. I had 55 exercise minutes and again a little over 2,000 kCal total between resting and active energy. As I mentioned before I believe this can be inaccurate because on this day I had a heartbeat of 116

November 27, 2018

On this day a change happened with meeting my goals, 14 hours of standing happened and then my move and exercise goal was not met. 4.1 miles were walked, 8,590 steps were made, 55 minutes of exercise happened, and 2 floors climbed. Again a little over 2,000 kCal were achieved between resting and active energy. I had a heartbeat of 70 bpm.

November 28, 2018

Here’s another day that I met only one of three of my goals, which again was standing. 10,260 steps, 4.8 miles, 8 floors climbed, 15 hours stood and 27 exercise minutes happened. Around 2,000 calories were burned this day between resting and active energy. My heartbeat this day was 87 bpm

November 29, 2018

I barely did anything this day. No goals were met on the Apple watch. Resting and active energy had under 2,000 kCal burned this day. 6,488 steps were done, 3.1 miles walked, 11 hours stood, 11 minutes exercised and 3 floors were climbed. This day my watch tracked my heartbeat of 92

 

Reflective Research Paper

Mary Noll

LGTR 250

Koellner

December 4, 2018

Sharing is Caring – The Quantified Self

Throughout the semester of Nothing to Hide, my perception of surveillance has not changed, but now has a different view on how the world is constantly watching me and tracking me at all times of the day. The privacy paradox podcast that we listened to at the end of the semester gave a modern view on the ideas of the little privacy we all have in our lives today. Our cell phones, computers, appointments, and many other things, places and actions follow all the movements we make in life. Nothing to hide taught me and many others in class about the awareness of surveillance through self-tracking, tracking others and apps on our phones because all times these apps are watching and tracking you through all different forms.

The seven-day tracking log we completed gave me an idea of how my phone is tracking me without me actually realizing that it is following my every movement. The health app through Apple, along with Apple watches, allows us to track our steps, distance, energy, heartbeat, sleep, and many other health components. Apple health gives the option of Apple users to put their emergency medical information into their phones. Some believe that this violates their privacy and should only be available to certain people (PRIVACY PARADOX). Health apps have become more and more popular in recent years to help with weight loss, workout tracking, and diet. Some of these apps give examples of how to do certain workouts and workout plans for your personal needs. Diet apps have also helped with weight loss and  weight gain. They measure, record and quantify the foods you put into our bodies. They can measure the macros and micros from the calories we intake. Weight Watchers, a weight loss program, is another form of tracking the health of your body. Using a food counting method, members will record their food points each day after everything they eat (Digital inequalities). The Apple health app has the ability to track sleep. There are many apps available on the app store to help track sleep too. They are able to track sleep duration and interruptions. Sleep apps and other apps have made the abilities to track daily routines, actions and physiological changes easier. Before apps became a big thing, especially with sleep, doctors would have to pull patients out of their natural routines to perform sleep analysis to find sleep issues in people. Nowadays apps have made it capable to track this without having to remove them from their natural environments (Making Sleep). Phones and smartwatches have made it easier for the location to be tracked while doing workouts, such as running, walking and biking that involve changing location. These devices can also track your heart rate. Tracking devices have helped to improve and promote healthy lifestyles of our everyday lives.

As our phones are helping us track our health, they are also tracking us in other ways. Location tracking is being done at all times on our phones. Apps such as Find my Friends, Mappen, Life360, and other apps, are only used to share our location all the time to others or for us to have others locations. This gives the abilities to have others to know where we are and track the location of one another. Some use it as a form of protection in case anything were to happen. The app Life360 has the capabilities for people to call 911 through the click of a button or just give a family member the ease of knowing you made it somewhere or left somewhere. These apps have no intention to harm others, but only to help spot the location you’re in. Other apps, such as Uber, Snapchat and PokemónGo, use location services to track you down and find you, to share your location for the fun of it and even to help you win a game. In the Privacy Paradox, the hosts mention that an individual they interviewed only turns on her location for Uber when she is using it because she doesn’t like the thought of them always knowing where she is at. Another individual they interviewed mentioned that she doesn’t want any type of tracking on her phone and refuses to download anything that will. “Moreover, recent experiences from the PokemonGo game illustrate that a significant number of users are eager to reveal their location information in order to participate in popular location basked augmented games. (ScienceDirect).” Social media apps have given users the option to add locations to posts unless location services are on while using the app. Instagram, a photo sharing social media, gives the option to add the location to a post when going through the posting process, but Twitter and VSCO, two other social media apps, will add the location to any post if the location services are on when the app is open. Social media or location sharing apps have the power to know your every location constantly.

Many predownloaded apps on your phone have your location. Maps are always using your location for the help of maps. “According to the 2013 report of the Pew Research Center on Location-Based Services, approximately 74% of adult smartphone owners get directions or other information based on their current location (ScienceDirect).” While maps are using the current location, the weather app uses it too. Each place your phone relocates itself to shows the current weather. Another app that tracks where you are and will show the location is the photo album app. On each picture, the location of where it was taken is at the top of the photo. This feature helps search photos in the album easier. Certain forms of social media and other apps will use information from your contacts, calendar and photos are used to help with their networking. This information is not necessarily important to social media and other apps, but they like that it can guide them in a certain direction for advertising and broadcasting media (PRIVACY PARADOX). Each app from your phone links with each other to embolden advertising and to track where you are at most times.

Nothing to hide taught me and many others in class about the awareness of surveillance through self-tracking, tracking others and apps on our phones because all times these apps are watching and tracking you through all different forms. Fitness tracking has grown over time to help inspire a healthier lifestyle and fitness gurus use social media to help promote their fitness routines and strengthen the confidence in others to be a part of the healthy lifestyle as well. From fitness gurus to everyone else using social media, it’s become a fad for everyone to use and a great way for everyone to know where you are. Lastly, as you’re only thinking that social medias are tracking you, several other apps on your phone are too, such as photos, weather, and maps. All this tracking talk may seem like a fearful thing, but it’s not. I believe it is good for people to know where I am or anyone and no matter how hard I tried to not have anything track me, someone still could. A phone has GPS signals all throughout it sending our very locations to someone at all times. If we all sent postcards and never used envelopes it might seem suspicious, but if we all used envelopes,  life would seem normal (PRIVACY PARADO). Let’s start to look at the concept of tracking the way the privacy paradox does because it isn’t a bad thing in life.

 

Works Cited

Choudhury, Tanzeem. “Making Sleep Tracking More User Friendly.” Communications of the ACM, vol. 61, no. 11, Nov. 2018, p.156 Business Source Complete, doi:10.1145/3266285

 

Poyant, Jen, et al. “What Your Phone Knows.” The Privacy Paradox: Note to Self, season day, episode 1, WNYC Studios, 6 Feb. 2017.

 

Tsohou, Aggeliki, and Eleni Kosta. “Enabling Valid Informed Consent for Location Tracking through Privacy Awareness of Users: A Process Theory.” Computer Law & Security Review: The International Journal of Technology Law and Practice, vol. 33, Aug. 2017, pp. 434-457. ScienceDirect, doi:10.1016/j.cisr.2017.03.027.

 

Régnier, Faustine, and Louis Chauvel. “Digital Inequalities in the Use of Self-Tracking Diet and Fitness Apps: Interview Stufy on the Influence of Social, Economic and Cultural Factors.” JMIR Mhealth And Uhealth, vol. 6, no. 4, Apr. 2018, p. e101. MEDLINE, doi:10.2196/mhealth.9189.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Houston Sorrels

Data Diary

Day one (Dec 3)

    Today I focused on my mobile phone settings. Going through them I realized I had mindlessly given apps various permissions that, when I took the time to actually consider why they needed these permissions, were not strictly necessary to get what I needed out of them. For example my phone dialer wanted permission to use my camera, and netflix wanted permission to use my microphone; these were just two examples of permissions that I had given that seemed strange to me, but by going through and denying certain apps certain permissions, I can help to ensure that data isn’t passively being collected against me when using services that are apart of my daily life.

Day two (Dec 4)

    Today I focused on my browser. One app I downloaded for it that was recommended in The Privacy Paradox was Privacy Badger. It’s an app that monitors websites and reports what cookies they are trying to collect, and if they are attempting to track you. A lot of these things occur behind the scenes in everyday browsing, so it was interesting to have it brought to my attention again, just how much data I was allowing to be passively collected against me simply by browsing the web. Pages that contained tweets, such as news articles, still produced trackers for Twitter, the same was for Facebook of course.

Day three (Dec 5)

    Today I focused on social media. My Facebook is deactivate, but I actually reactivated it temporarily to see what information they had on me. Possibly because I haven’t used it in awhile, the information it has on me is quite random, some of it is accurate, while some of it is totally off base, but nonetheless it was interesting to see how the information was collected. Some from liking pages related to topics, some from interacting with ads, and some simply for “interacting with pages”. Outside of Facebook, my only other social medias are really Instagram, with my profile set to private (even though facebook probably hogs some data from that), and Reddit, which isn’t really forthcoming about the data they collect on users, although I’m pretty much a lurker.

Day four (Dec 6)

    Today I focused on my email. After the GDPR went into effect in the EU, I received a tooooon of emails from websites I had visited asking to agree to new terms and conditions, blah blah blah, so I actually went through those and unsubscribed myself from quite a few sites to cut down on all the useless emails I never read anyways. I use Gmail, so I’m sure Google is busy at work harvesting data there, and in fact I’m sure of it because often times emails with dates or phone numbers, I will get notifications asking if I want to “add to calendar” or “add to contacts,” and that wouldn’t happen without a second set of invisible eyes recognizing the info in my emails. I should be careful of how I talk about Google; both my phone and laptop run on Google operating systems, and I have the Google Home speakers in my house as well…

Day five (Dec 7)

    Today I focused on my bank information. I’ve never had an issue with my bank accounts being compromised, so I know at least on that front I’ve done a good job of protecting myself (outside of the one time I swiped my credit card on a skimmer, but that got resolved really quickly). Mainly I was interested in seeing what companies had my bank information stored so they could make recurring charges to my account, and it seems the only ones I have are from Google, Capital One, Ally Bank, and Metro by T-Mobile, so at least these companies have done a good job of protecting my information, although behind closed doors I’m sure they inevitably sell bits of it to third parties to advertise to me online.

Day six (Dec 8)

    Today I focused on “group data protection.” This stuck out as important to me because although I may be taking efforts to protect myself, certain aspects of digital privacy require parties on both ends to take steps to be effective. One app I’ve started using, and one that I have gotten friends to start using is Signal; it’s a messaging app that offers end to end encryption, so I can feel more confident in knowing that only myself and the person I’m communicating with are reading the messages, not the NSA, and not G-who-shall-not-be-named (still gotta be careful).

Day seven (Dec 9)

    Today I focused on reflecting on my progress. From what it seems before this week I had a “digital filing cabinet” that I would just leave unlocked to be viewed by anyone interested in my information. Although I can’t completely lock it, I’ve definitely taken steps to make sure I know who has access and whether or not I feel comfortable with the level of access they have.

Houston Sorrels

Dr. Koellner

German Lit in Trans

10 December 2018

Digital Privacy Reflection

    We live in an age where one’s private information can no longer be contained within the contents of a fireproof box locked within a home office; an Email address had become a “digital fireproof box” of sorts where an individual receives communications from healthcare providers, financial institutions, business correspondents, and of course friends. With the creation and widespread adoption of digital commodities and services, it has become nearly impossible to live a life that is “off the grid.” Life on the grid, however, does not mean one must forgo the benefits of informational security; one must simply learn to adapt and utilize these new age securities so that he or she does not miss out on the various benefits and conveniences the digital age has brought forth. The goal of this paper is to show what forms of counter-surveillance can be utilized in order to bring one’s digital privacy back into his or her own grip.

    In this essay counter-surveillance refers to the steps taken to understand how one’s digital information is collected and redispersed for the benefit of corporations through marketing, both at the individual and macro levels, or governments, and how an individual can take steps to find this collection of data and decide what information they are then comfortable with sharing. Directly preceding the writing of this paper colleagues of mine, as well as myself, were tasked with keeping a digital diary to document what information we found that was being collected on us, and the steps that we took in turn to take back control. One of the first steps I took was to go into my phone settings and restrict various app permissions that I felt to be unneeded in my day-to-day routine. There was no need for my phone dialer to have access to my camera, just as there was no need for Youtube to have access to my messages. Taking this one step of limiting these permissions can have large effects on minimizing data being collected an individual, especially when it has become common to have one’s phone at all times.

    To take things a step further, one may consider various apps or browser add-ons to help protect against passively sending data out about oneself that could be picked up by other entities. Firefox is a great browser choice in this regard as they have widely be associated with protecting and helping the end user, add-ons like Privacy Badger go a step further by showing you what trackers and collectors may be on a webpage that aren’t outwardly apparent, and giving you the option of limiting just how much can be collected. An app I found personally useful and highly important was Signal; Signal is a messaging app that offers end-to-end encryption, meaning the users can rest assured knowing that only the person reading their messages, are those for which they are intended. It must be noted though that in order to have this end-to-end encryption, both parties must use the Signal app; you’ll know messages are encrypted when the locked icon appears in the bottom right corner of the sent message.

    It is interesting to analyze the ways my colleagues and myself went about reclaiming our digital privacy. We all seemed to have drastically changed our online browsing habits by either downloading different add-ons to stop ads, trackers, and data collection, or downloading entirely new browser all together; our mobile habits also certainly changed with some of us changing passwords, others changing apps we use to communicate, and pretty much all of us going through our setting to see what we were allowing or forbidding. Two things I thought interesting that my colleagues did but that I did not do included going “cardless” for a day so that financial transactions could not be traced outside of ATM withdrawals, and examining where video cameras were placed in the public to see where we were being recorded. At the end of it, we all seemed to have ended up in relatively the same position, even though we may have not employed the same tactics to get here, and it is a position in which we are more aware of the digital world around us, and how we must take steps to secure our privacy within it.

    Just as how one must be responsible to handle personal, private documents with care, one will only have as much privacy online as which an individual is willing to commit. There are undoubtedly trade-offs that come with setting these personal limits, and they will surely differ from individual to individual, but they definitely do not come as the standard. When one uses a service that appears to be free, that individual must be the product to someone else. After committing to this data diary project, I developed five rules for myself to adhere to in order to protect my digital privacy; some of these rules I already subliminally followed, and some were created due to the realizations with which this project presented to me. The rules are as follows: 1) If I wouldn’t be comfortable shouting certain information about myself in public, I should not allow it to be accessible online, 2) if a company is not forthcoming about how they intend to use my information, then they should not have my information, 3) I should not need a lawyer to understand the terms and conditions of a website, if I do, then they probably should not have access to my data, 4) Actually read the app permission requests to see if they seem reasonable, 5) If I am able to give permission to have my data collected, I should be able to at any future time have permission to stop such collection.

   

Sharing is Caring – Jill Mastrofrancesco

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Data Diary: 11/28/18 – 12/4/18

November 28: Today is the first day of my data diary. I will be using Apple’s Health app for the next week to track the number of steps I take and the amount of distance I travel in one day. The data for today reveals that I began moving at 8:02 am and stopped moving at 11:28. Over the course of the day, I walked a total of 4.8 miles and took 12,003 steps. This data does not include any movement which may have occurred while the phone was not on my person. After the first day of this experiment, I learned that the data collected by the Health app is much more detailed than I had originally thought. Below the graph which plots steps taken and distance traveled lies a section called “Show all data.” This section reveals that the exact time and date in which the steps were taken and the distance traveled occurred.

November 29: On the second day of my experiment, the Health app data reveals that I was less active than I was the previous day. I walked a total of 3 recorded miles and took 7,675 steps. As stated previously, this data is not entirely accurate because it can only monitor movement that occurs while the phone is either in my hand, pocket, or bag. Because I have relatively unchanging habits throughout the school week, however, the time I spend in motion without my phone is likely to be similar each day of the school week.

November 30: As this day comes to an end, I am able to conclude that the data from day three is very similar to the data gathered on the previous day. I walked 0.2 fewer miles and took 192 fewer steps. It appears that the majority of this data comes from the time I spend walking to and and home from campus. I can reasonably infer that the location of my Tuesday and Thursday classes requires me to take slightly more steps and travel a slightly greater distance than I am required to on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

December 1: Today marks the first day of this experiment in which I did not have classes to attend. For that reason, my activity on this day is significantly lower than it has been the last three days. I only walked 0.59 miles, compared to 4.8 miles on Wednesday. I also only took 1,705 steps. The data also shows that I did not begin to be active until 12:06 p.m. My late start, combined with a lack of responsibilities, explains the significant decrease in overall movement.

December 2: This Sunday, I walked a total of 1.3 miles and took 3,615 steps. Although this is an improvement from yesterday, it still shows that I was significantly less active than I was during the school week. The Health app data shows that the majority of my activity occurred at the end of the day after I left my study spot at the library. At this point in the experiment, I have started to realize how easily the extremely specific data that the app collects can be misused if it was accessed by a 3rd party. After only five days of tracking, I can already see trends regarding sleep and wake cycles, and time spent away from home.

December 3: With the weekend now behind me, I expected the data for this Monday to be similar to that from the past school week. However, only 2.1 miles and 5,257 steps were recorded by the end of the day. Additionally, The time that I ceased movement was the earliest it has been thus far in the experiment. This data leads me to believe that my low level of activity can be attributed to an overall tiredness throughout the day, solved only by going to sleep at 8:30 a.m.

December 4:  Today is the final day of my data diary and also the only day during this week that I was at work. While working as a waitress at Brown Dog Deli, I am required to be on my feet for the five hour shift and constantly move about the restaurant to accommodate the needs of my tables. For this reason, my activity levels were higher on this day than any other day. I walked a total of 5.4 miles and took 15,096 steps. A closer look at this data proves the claim that I was working at a food and beverage service job. The distance I traveled was recorded in short bursts because I was constantly moving within the confines of a small space.

Reflection

There are two ways to measure a life: Quantitatively and qualitatively. It is through these two conceptions which the entirety of one’s being can be defined. The finiteness of quantitative data creates an exact record of a measurable amount. It is a standard which takes nothing more than numbers into consideration. Qualitative data, meanwhile, examines each one of an individual’s distinguishing features to form a single, whole image. The combination of both quantitative and qualitative measurements creates an essential understanding of a human’s life at its most complete level. With this information in mind, it seems conceivable that it would impossible to measure a life from an exclusively quantitative perspective. Over the course of one week, a data-tracking experiment was conducted to discover how much of a life is lost when only its quantitative information is taken into consideration.

The concept of the quantified self can be defined as “the embodiment of self-knowledge through self-tracking” It involves an observation of the measurable aspects of one’s life, such as heart rate and hours slept, in order to develop a better understanding of the person’s health. It can also be described as self-surveillance or self-tracking. The validity of the claims of this movement to improve a person’s daily life are still being tested. Like actual surveillance, self-surveillance is constantly changing as a result of new tracking technologies constantly being introduced. Juli Zeh, in her novel The Method, creates a world in which everyone becomes a quantified self. In this world, a government program implants chips into the arms of every citizen, then tracks and analyzes the health data it collects to promote perfectly healthy society. While this program’s intentions are made in good faith, the data collection process gives the government an overly invasive look into the lives of its people. The Method’s extreme focus on empirical data turns individual people into measurements. A review from the British Journal of General Practice states, “The Method has superseded democracy: people police each other and themselves constantly. It is a world mad on metrics, and not entirely unfamiliar” (Secker). After conducting a self-tracking experiment using only quantitative data, the possibility of a world like that described in Zeh’s novel becomes apparent.

There are many aspects of a person’s life which, without them, their life would be incomplete. In today’s time, one of the most crucial components of day-to-day life is the smartphone. For the majority of Americans, a day could not pass without their smartphone being constantly within the immediate vicinity. This information was taken into consideration when parameters of the experiment were planned. Based on the fact that a smartphone is such a critical aspect of modern life, it was the main tool used to gather the data necessary to measure one aspect of a life. For the week of November 28th to December 4th, Apple iPhone’s Health app was utilized to monitor the number of steps the subject had taken and the total distance the subject had traveled during each twenty-four hour period of their life. The average totals are respectively 5,716 steps and 2.2 miles per day. The data gathered of two easily measurable movements, which is recorded unstoppingly, was used to delineate the user’s activity level. By the end of the one week period, however, far more than simply the daily activity levels were realized.

Oftentimes, quantitatively measuring one aspect of a person’s life is complex enough of a process to result in the realization of multiple levels of data-based conclusions. Apple’s Health app measures data using two standard measurements, time and distance. The average user of this app is likely only interested in seeing data about their physical activity. However, a closer look at the records this app keeps easily reveals how the user’s entire day was lived. While it is achievable to encounter the activity data and regard it only as such, the other possible uses of this data become increasingly difficult to ignore when they are taken into consideration. The phone begins recording steps taken and distance traveled at the exact minute that motion is detected. With myself being the participant of the experiment, I learned a great deal about my life that otherwise goes unnoticed. The time markers that accompany each period of movement reveal the when I get out of bed, when I am traveling outside of my home to go to class, and when I return to bed at night. The distance, recorded in miles, also shows exactly how far my most frequent locations are from my home. The number of conclusions that I was able to make about my own life after only one week of experimentation are concerning to consider. Although the app states that it does not share any of the data it collects, the possibility for this information to be misused still exists.

There are two outcomes from the data-tracking experiment relating to the app and the user. First, the Health application, which comes automatically installed on every iPhone produced by Apple, makes self-surveillance easily accessible to a significant portion of the population. In a growing number of ways, the smartphone is becoming a more and more like a precursor to the chip implant seen in Zeh’s The Method. Second, the ways in which the app collects user data makes otherwise unrelated data vulnerable to inspection. While the number of steps I have taken is of little importance to me, the sleep schedule and general class schedule that this data reveals is considerably valuable information. No longer is the numerical value of what I am doing recorded, but also how I am doing it and why. This goes back to the previously mentioned theory regarding the concurring relationship between quantity and quality. While the app only quantitatively measures time, the participant is able to use this data to qualitatively measure their day. My specific data, for example, showed that I was less physically active on the days that I rested for fewer hours. Despite not being explicitly stated like the quantitative data, the user’s qualitative data is still very present. This experiment demonstrates that the composition of a life can never be made up of only quantities, so it cannot be measured without its qualities.

 

Works Cited

Bamforth, Iain. “Book review: The Method Juli Zeh”  British Journal of General Practice vol. 62,602 (2012): 489.

 

Bauman, Zygmunt, and David Lyon. Liquid Surveillance: a Conversation. Polity, 2016.

 

“Chapter 2. The System of Categories in Philosophical Thought.” Dialectical Materialism, by A. G. Spirkin, Progress Publishers, 1983.

 

“What Is Quantified Self?” Quantified Self Institute, 20 Apr. 2017, qsinstitute.com/about/what- is-quantified-self/.

 

Zeh, Juli, and Sally-Ann Spencer. The Method. Vintage Books, 2014.

 

Counter-Surveillance as a form of Protection.

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Group 2: Counter-Surveillance as a form of Protection

Part 1: Data Diary

Day 1: Change Privacy setting on Facebook and Firefox browser. This would be the first step in creating a more private world. I found that changing my settings were pretty simple to do. However, I learnt that Facebook categorized me and were mostly inaccurate. I also became aware of how my data was interacting based on the websites I visited.

Day 2: Privacy Badger. This seemed like a good next step to take in providing knowledge about who can see my data and who can access what I’m doing. Downloading this little fella was extremely simple. I found that a lot of sites I visit keep track of where I go, and Privacy Badger managed to block many advertisements that did not respect my “do not track” settings. This has helped me become a little more invisible to advertisers while reminding me that they’re still there in case I ever want to change my mind.

Day 3: Signal. This was a good use for my everyday life. Using this app was able to provide a security that I did not have before. I was able to send text messages to others that I convinced to download the app and if one did not have authorization to access the conversation they could not (I tested that as well). Once again simple to access and download.

Day 4: Duck Duck Go search engine. They encourage you to protect your data, so using them to search the web for information was interesting. I found that both DuckDuckGo and Google have the same information without the creepy following factor. I was still able to find news articles, scholar articles, recipes, etc. Also, there was a “hack” to using duckduckgo, if you couldn’t find what you were looking for you could do a google search within duckduckgo and still have your data protecting.

Day 5: Tor browser. This works a lot like the signal app but specifically for internet usage. Router WIFI number wasn’t recognized so advertisers couldn’t target me for their products. Was able to replace my Firefox for the day and found that Tor provided more privacy in the site I visited. Simple to use, it’s a search engine. However, after further exploration I did become aware that Tor uses “volunteers” to bounce data traffic around which left my data exposed to the “volunteer”.

Day 6: Applymagicsauce.com. I do not use my twitter often, but they did not have the Facebook option available. So, I analyzed my digital self with what twitter information there was. The applymagicsauce was not that accurate (i.e., conservative personality and age wrong) but held some truths (i.e., other top 5 personalities were semi correct).

Day 7: Cash transactions only. This was not easy but enlightening. The only thing that was tracked was when I pulled money out of my account via ATM, other than that my bank had no idea what, or where I was spending my money. It gave me a sense of privacy as well as provided me with more security while purchasing items (you can’t hack cash).

Part 2: Reflection Paper

 

Counter-Surveillance as a form of Protection

April Alvey

            Counter-surveillance can be understood as measures taken though methods and devices to evade or prevent surveillance (Merriam-Webster.com). For this project, I will be using different forms of devices and methods for 7 days to gain more knowledge and control over my digital data. I will be addressing a few types of methods and devices I used to achieve more privacy and awareness of how my data is used. I will also acknowledge some of the limitations that I have found with some of the methods used throughout this project. I will compare my experiences with this project to those in my group and/or reviewers of the methods/devices. I will finally create my own personal terms of service and 5 rules for equity and fairness for data sharing. By the end of this project, I will have gained knowledge and control over my data as well as provided a better understanding of my digital self.

The first method I engaged with was the privacy setting on my Facebook (Stokes, 2018) and Firefox (Taylor, 2018) browser because this seemed like a good place to start in regaining control over my data. By changing the settings on my social media and browser I will create some privacy in what I search for. The main goal for this was to gain some control over who can see what I do. I found out that Facebook was categorizing me based on the information gained through my page and advertisers were able to target me based on the products I would search for using Firefox. The value in the data information gained highlights the visibility advertisers have on users and the relationship between Facebook and browsers like Firefox are geared towards taking advantage of their users. A limitation I found to using this security measure is what information is already accessed cannot be made private although you can request for the information already gathered on you.

The next device I engaged with, and found to be the most useful, was the Privacy Badger (Electronic Frontier Foundation, 2018) because this add-on provides better protection of my data, control over access to my data, and awareness of what websites are violating the privacy settings on my device. The Privacy Badger gives me the option to control who sees my data while still allowing approved sites or organizations to access my information. I found Facebook, Google, and unknown trackers were tracking a lot of sites I was visiting. Facebook and Google were rated by Privacy Badger as the worst perpetrators. A limitation with Privacy Badger was that it could only prevent future violations of my privacy, but any data previously collected could not be reclaimed.

Another useful device that I used to provide better protection for my data was the Signal application (Signal Messenger, 2013). By using the Signal application, I will be able to privately carry out various types of conversations by allowing the data used to be encrypted and not stored on servers. I found that Signal can help protect all information stored on phone such as my card information and all messages used through the app. Signal also makes it difficult for those trying to access conversations or information without permission. Limitations, if recipient does not use signal than messages are not encrypted. Another limitation to Signal, is that your identifier is your phone number, which could be a little off putting.

Another device I used for this project was Tor (Tor Project). Tor is a search engine that uses a relay connection to mask the IP (Internet Protocol) address. My router WIFI (wireless communication tool) number was not recognized which provided me with protection from advertisers targeting me for their products. Tor can allow an individual to evade being tracked by organizations. I found the privacy intriguing and was interested in learning how Tor can function in such a manner. A limitation to Tor is it can be abused by the volunteers that are the relay points because they will have access to your traffic data.

The method I used for this project that provided the most data protection but was also the most difficult to use is Cash transactions for a day. By participating in cash only transactions, I would be providing myself with the most data protection possible, since cash cannot be hacked. My bank was only aware of when I pulled money out and how much I was intending to use. While using cash I found that my bank account was better protected because my card information could not be copied and used by another individual. However, the limitations of using cash only is that if the purchasing items cost more than the amount of cash on hand the individual will be forced to decide which items will not be purchased at that given time. Another limitation to cash only transactions is if I were to have been robbed I would permanently lose all that money, unlike cards the bank could not refund the money or track the perpetrator.

I was unable to obtain information regarding this project from my group members (they did not post data diary to google doc) so my experience with this project was compared to those who have used the applications, add-ons, browsers, etc. I found that many users reviews have be largely positive of the add-ons, and applications I used. Such as in the use of Privacy Badger, many users agreed that he has been very helpful in blocking access to their data from organizations. The Signal application was largely liked however, showed some conflict with other applications downloaded onto the device, I did not experience this conflict. Many individuals felt they have regained their privacy with the use of these devices and methods. The web browsers that were used for this project had great approval from other users. However, many reviewers of Tor and DuckDuckGo liked the knowledge that their data was not saved to the servers but that encroach on the saving of information to logins/passwords for numerous accounts, I believe having to keep up with login/password information to be a “worth it” sacrifice for my data privacy.

The podcast The Privacy Paradox has introduced numerous was to regain control over the digital data double that has become a part of everyday living. I used The Privacy Paradox to access various types of tips and suggestions and listened to the broadcast to gain better understanding of how our data is tracked and used. Angela Richter’s Supernerds provided examples of how easy it is to gain information on people through actions taken daily by the individual while highlighting that public access allows some information (i.e., homes address) to be viewed by anyone. Both The Privacy Paradox and Supernerds highlight the modern day worries of invasion of the private space we each have.

By the end of this project I have gathered enough information to form my own Terms of Service agreement based off 5 rules for equity and fairness when it comes to the access of my data. First, any organization who wants to access my data must request for permission to view my data. My information belongs to me and I believe no organization should be allowed to profit off my data without my permission. Second, if an organization wants access to my data I can grant them as much or as little access as I see fit. Depending on the specifications of the request, my data could allow corporations to target me or categorize me inaccurately which would lead to a false representation of myself to the digital world. Third, I can control how long an organization has access to my data. To be granted access to data in general without a time line could include access to future data which would create an issue with my privacy. Fourth, I can terminate any contact and access an organization has with me and my data. If I do not feel that my data or myself is being treated fairly or respectfully, I can end the connection permanently. Fifth and final, if I have signed up to any application and wish to leave, I will be able to take my data with me. My data is a part of me, it represents a digital version of myself and should be treated as a part of my being, so if I leave a site, or application, or add-on or etc., I should be allowed to take all information of mine with me.

 

 

Resources

“Countersurveillance.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/countersurveillance.

Inc. “Tor.” Tor Project: Overview, www.torproject.org/.

“Privacy Badger.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, 24 Oct. 2018, www.eff.org/privacybadger.

“Privacy, Simplified.” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes at DuckDuckGo, duckduckgo.com/.

Richter, Angela. “Supernerds.” Sign in to Your Account, Nothing to Hide Blog, 9 Aug. 2018,             cofc.mediaspace.kaltura.com/channel/LTGR 250: Nothing to Hide/96423631.

“Signal >> Home.” RSS, Signal Messenger, 2013, signal.org/.

Stokes, Natasha. “The Complete Guide to Facebook Privacy Settings.” Techlicious, Techlicious, LLC, 20 Mar. 2018, www.techlicious.com/tip/complete-guide-to-facebook-privacy-settings/.

Taylor, Sven. “Firefox Privacy – The Complete How-To Guide.” Restore Privacy, 1 Dec. 2018,               restoreprivacy.com/firefox-privacy/.

Zomorodi, Manoush. “The Privacy Paradox Tip Sheet | Note to Self.” WNYC, WNYC Studios, 10 Feb. 2017, www.wnyc.org/story/privacy-paradox-tip-sheet/.

 

Surveillance Project

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Sharing is Caring: Tracking information I use and show through Social Media
What is the quantified self? The quantified self or QS is the term that establishes self-surveillance that of tracking one’s self. What one can measure from in terms of tracking is endless such as heart rate, how long one has slept a night, a number of steps one takes among many other acts one performs on a ritual or daily basis. This having been said, not everything that one track can be important to know and not everything that society deems important can be measured such as love and friendship. Quantified data is essentially measuring things that one finds personal meaning and importance within studying. This comes into play with the self-assessment I am performing within this reflection of how this data I am studying is quantified within myself.
What I am measuring  for this self-assessment reflection is the data I share within my day to day life using social media and technology as a whole Other then me performing this self-assessment of  my social media habits for a grade for my German literature class because I am forced to, I am curious the sheer amount of information I am sharing within app to app relationships along with how the information I share is collected in order for social media platforms to learn more about me and my habits and can be used positively and negatively.
My goal of your self-observation is to become far more informed about the information I am sharing about myself on social media and how it is used against me. As well I want to track how apps that I use to connect to other apps such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter use this data and cookies in order to collect narratives about me and whom I am in order to target its data and advertisements for me.
The (self-)knowledge through self-tracking do I want to gain is about how much data and exactly what data I am giving up with my usage of social media especially with keychains and connectivity within accounts. This comes in terms of location and friends lists yes but as well as passwords for various accounts, bank information, social security numbers along with information of travel. Data turn into valuable information for you when my data is used in order to create a data double to fraud me or in order to trick. Valuable information is information that can be used to harm someone in an extreme case, having basic information can be helpful in order to get to know someone and okay to share on social media but with the issue is when all apps are connected to social media such as facebook soon nothing is private anymore and all information, even that one does not want some loose acquaintance or a friend of a friend to have viewership of.
The app I used for this self-surveillance project was the app Journally, this is a very basic journaling app where you can just write little diary posts and attach photos as well if need be. I believe that it’s a very non-conspicuous app so people who are snooping wouldn’t directly click on it but it’s by no means private at all and there is absolutely no lock on your data and information on it unless you dig into the settlings in order to figure out how to put a passcode on it. Its similar to the notes app already installed on an iPhone but this one you can set reminders every day which i guess is helpful. The benefits of the app are how easy to use it is, how simplistic and organized it is by date and that there is zero learning curve for it but I guess the limits or fallbacks of it would be the lack of privacy on it. Overall a great app but would not be placing private data on it in a million years with how the passcode you have to really seek it out.
My understanding of myself has greatly shifted during the experiment especially when it comes to my social media presence and the information I share with others online. For one I have become very aware with how quickly one can find a great deal of information about me with minimal effort by looking at my social media pages such as where I grew up, where I go to college, what I am studying, past places of employment, where I studied abroad/ with what university I studied abroad along with information on my family members and significant others. By knowing such information this puts me in risk for identity fraud along with data doubles. Yes, there are positives of being interactive online with the thought that sharing is caring with showing those you care about what is happening in your life especially huge moments such as the start of a relationship or attending a new school but this as well can be a weakness with sharing too much being a fault. As well I learned about myself by this reflection about how connected my accounts of social media are, if one was to gain the password for one of my accounts they would have control of many of other features of my life such a banking/venmo/PayPal information, lists of friend groups and messages on social media and further on. I became aware of how connected all my accounts are with how many of my social media are linked such as Instagram linked with twitter and facebook. I also became aware of how I shared different things on different social media. On Facebook, I would share what appeared to be more family appropriate with posts about my dog, school and life events where on twitter it was more funny memes and posts that were for a more college-aged audience where I could feel free to share my views about the world and society as a whole. Instagram as well I shared posts that I believed was visually appealing and was sharing what would show me in a good light as a whole. 
In terms of my group’s overall consensus, we all had similar outcomes in the self- surveillance project. We all began to realize the sheer amount of data we share on a daily basis about ourselves while on social media and just how easy it is to find information about ourselves. Some in the group chose to forgo social media as a whole after this project or to take a break from it while others were fine with this just realizing it is the world we now live in. All of the group’s data was very much the same as mine with how they spent the majority of their day on social meda, though our types of social media differed, we as well used the internet a lot and were sharing information with advertisers of what we were looking for along with cookies on how to cater to use more.

Documentation: your digital data diary (as shown below)
   

Surveillance project

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On the homepage of MyCharleston, the online portal for students and teachers, you can see a live stream of the cistern. This means that there are cameras hidden, that overlook the yard. Through the the life stream, you can see a building to the left and the pathway that run towards the front, with the view expanding to the street. Without seeing this life stream on the homepage, I would have never known that there were cameras in the cistern.

 

 

 

After further research, I found that the College of Charleston has multiple webcams placed throughout campus. Anyone is able to access the live cameras through the CofC website by simply searching for them on google. The site states that the cameras are there “to provide live, streaming video 24/7”. The website does not state many uses of these cameras, but I am sure they partially serve as a tool to keep an eye on students.

 

I live in an off campus apartment but the building is filled with a majority of college students due to its close location to the College of Charleston. Throughout the halls there are security cameras which make the building feel safer. Currently, the cameras are being replaced so there are none on the ceilings of the hallways. There are also security cameras in both of the elevators. I have not seen any cameras in the stairwells which is surprising to me considering the high levels of surveillance in other areas of the apartment building. The purpose of these cameras are likely to keep an eye on residents and to make sure no one is doing anything harmful or dangerous.

 

 

My roommate works at Francesca’s, a little boutique on King street, where they sell many different clothing items and accessories. In many stores, there are security cameras dispersed throughout the floor in order to prevent thefts. I went into her work place to take pictures of some of the security cameras. Despite the security cameras placed through the store, my roommate talks about how there are still a lot of people who steal items from her workplace.

 

 

On the CofC website there is a map of all the places crimes have occurred. The map is titled “Campus Incident Map”. The most abundant crimes are Vandalism, Theft, Narcotics Violation, and Traffic Offense. I am sure cameras were used in the process of catching the suspects, and today many traffic lights have cameras on them, making it easier to monitor and control traffic violations. I believe that as time goes on, security increases, due to the developing technologies.

 

There are many “blue lights” placed throughout campus, most of them being in cougar mall, which is where our classroom is located. These lights are there in case of emergency, and help will come to the location where the button was pushed. This is not a surveillance camera but it is device that aids in crime prevention and provides information of a location, making it a possible form of surveillance that is used only when necessary.

 

 

The College of Charleston provides an annual security report where they list parts of campus procedures, and statistics. One of the sections of the report is titled “what locations must be tracked”. I believe it is necessary for all colleges to make their main priority safety of the students and staff. I think it is a positive thing that cameras are placed throughout campus in order to keep an extra eye out to prevent crime and to help solve cases if something does happen.

 

 

 

Nikita Eglis

Professor Koellner

December 10, 2018

                                                   (In)Visibility as a Form of Protest

 

Closed Circuit Television is defined as “the use of video cameras to produce images for display on a limited number of screens connected directly to a non-broadcast transmission system (encyclopedia.com)”. The many cameras placed around campus can be seen through the College of Charleston Website, and after researching the purpose of CCTV, I would not categorize the cameras shared on the college’s website as part of this system. CCTV systems are only able to be seen through a few screens, intended for specific people like police officers, security guards, or employees(encyclopedia.com). The security cameras where I work are used to monitor activity in the store, and are connected to a small screen in the back which shows different angles and areas of the store. Digital video surveillance is described as a system that “enables embedded image capture capabilities that allows video images or extracted information to be compressed, stored or transmitted over communication networks or digital data link (webopedia.com).” This definition is more vague than closed circuit television, and I think all modern security cameras would fit under this category, whether the footage can be viewed by a lot of people or not.

 

Majority of the College of Charleston Campus is monitored by cameras. The College of Charleston website provides twenty four hour live video surveillance of the popular spots on campus.This footage can be seen by anybody who google searches the school’s cameras. I am assuming the cameras are used in order to keep an eye on students, while also allowing the public to view what occurs in these busy spots around campus. The goal of these security cameras throughout campus is not just to track activity, but to also provide the public with more information than they would have without the use of this online tool. At Yale, students were interviewed on their opinion of security cameras around campus. One student said he felt as if the cameras were an invasion of his privacy, while another student felt that if they were made visible, she would feel more comfortable (yaledailynews). I disagree with the fact that the cameras are an invasion of privacy and believe they are necessary in order to to solve and prevent crimes.

 

In other places around Charleston, such as shopping stores on King Street, there is closed circuit television systems. Where I work, there are many cameras placed throughout the floor and they are all connected to a mini television in the back. These cameras are solely used for the purpose of preventing crime. When I see cameras anywhere in public I only associate them with crime prevention. I believe that cameras are important to have in very busy, public places where it is hard to keep track of everything going on. I do not ever feel too watched, but I believe that technology could advance to a point where there is too much surveillance, which has the potential to make people uncomfortable.

 

Throughout this course we have talked about many different forms of surveillance and the ways in which it makes people alter their behaviors. I believe that the many cameras on campus may prevent the way some people act in front of them, and some will act completely different when not under the eyes of the camera. This could help prevent crimes from happening, but also could have negative effects if a crime takes place where students know surveillance is not present. On my way back from class, I tried looking for the camera that provides twenty four hour video surveillance of the cistern online, but could not find it. Although these cameras are hidden, the school has still made it known that they are there. The fact that the public has the ability to find out where cameras are placed around campus has positive and negative sides, but I believe cameras are an important part of campus safety whether they are hidden or not.

 

I believe areas that are the most commonly used are monitored the most because of the greater flow of traffic. A crime can happen any place, at any time around campus, so it is difficult to decide what areas should have surveillance. The College of Charleston does a good job at providing blue lights spread around campus which are used to track one’s location when an emergency occurs. They also have many cameras overlooking popular spots around campus. Through this project I learned a lot about all the information the College provides on their website about public safety and the importance of the surveillance of campus. In relation to security cameras around the college and my workplace, I never feel watched and I know the cameras are only there to keep me and the others around me safe.

 

Although I do not mind security cameras, throughout the semester I learned about other forms of surveillance that make me feel a little more watched than I would like to be. For example, I never knew that the application on my phone “Maps” tracks all of the locations I have ever typed into it. I also learned about how Facebook categorizes people based on their friends and posts they have liked. I will not change the way I act over social media in order to change the way facebook or any social media platform defines me, but I do find it is crazy that they can make assumptions about people in order to manipulate what their feed looks like every time they open up the application. During Hasan Elahi’s TED talk, he mentions how we are surveilling ourselves by taking pictures of the food we eat and the places we go. He created a project where he takes pictures of everywhere he has eaten, meals he has made at home, airports he has flown out of, and even the different bathrooms he has used. He did this after an encounter with the FBI where they questioned him on what occurred during specific days of his life (Elahi). I never thought about how recording data on our cellphones is technically a form of surveillance until I watched this video.  With advancing technologies, surveillance is increasing and occurring all over without us even knowing.

 

Works Cited

 

Beal, Vangie. Digital Video Surveillance System. www.webopedia.com/TERM/D/digital_video_surveillance_system.html.

 

“Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV).” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Ed, Encyclopedia.com, 2018, www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/law/crime-and-law-enforcement/closed-circuit-television-cctv.

 

Elahi , Hasan, director. FBI, Here I Am! TED Talk

www.ted.com/talks/hasan_elahi?language=en.

 

Foggatt, Tyler, and Vivian Wang. “Campus Cameras Prompt Privacy Concerns.” Yale Daily News, yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/04/06/campus-cameras-prompt-privacy-concerns/.