"The Corporation"

There is a YouTube page containing the 23 chapters that make up the entire film The Corporation, from which I showed that short clip on 'Externalities' during discussion on 10.09. Most movie stores have the dvd, but you can watch the film in its entirety using the shareware link on YouTube.

Flex Your Rights

During the guest lecture on Monday a student was inquiring about real-world privacy issues, i.e. car and house searches. I mentioned in discussion today the short film "Busted", made by the Flex Your Rights organization and wanted to include a link for those of you interested in viewing the film and learning more.

Another fantastic available resource for you as IU students, is Student Legal Services (SLS). They can help you with several varying issues, even landlord disputes.

Daniel Solove - The Future of Reputation

Daniel Solove gives a google talk about his book, "The Future of Reputation" As you listen, try and listen critically to what he's saying. That is, what is his argument? Where is it strong or weak? etc.

Brain Scans in Indian Court

Here is a link to the NY Times article about using brain scans in court.

ECHELON & UKUSA Alliance

ECHELON is essentially the system that is capable of collecting and sorting all your info. The UKUSA Alliance is the agreement between countries like USA, Australia, UK, etc. to share that information that is collected.

Below is a photo of Menwith Hill station, purchased by the NSA. In fact the NSA was a major player, including the purchase of a patent they developed for ECHELON, which in its most base can be related to fuzzy logic. The system could analyze data and sort it not by just key words, but could actually "define" its content with words not even found in the data itself.


The large white spheres are known as 'radomes' and are essentially casing for satellite dishes to make it impossible to see in which direction they point.

Remember that this had been going on for *years* and it wasn't until some companies complained about suspiciously losing bids that it was investigated. I believe the first official confrontation that brought it to the public's eye was through an Australian news station.

You can find all kinds of information by just googling the key words.

More general info on World Info.org and the NSA's involvement.

How does this make you feel? How does this very real example fit into our discussion this week of *topias? Those who believe that legislation can help, who is realistically capable of holding some of the most powerful nations in the world accountable when we don't even know what they're doing as was the case for several years with this example?

Videos from 9.11 Discussion

Below are the two videos I used in today's discussion about technological determinism, social construction, and social shaping. For more info on either of them, to download high quality versions, or to see/read more, go to the Digital Ethnography blog.


A Vision of Students Today

"This video was created by me[Dr. Michael Wesch] and the 200 students enrolled in ANTH 200: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Spring 2007. It began as a brainstorming exercise, thinking about how students learn, what they need to learn for their future, and how our current educational system fits in."

The Machine is Us/ing Us