Spectrum Series

Earlier today I went to the spectrum series, entitled New Media and Youth. Featured panelists were Danah Boyd (whom we are all familiar with), Justin Hall (the pioneer of blogging), Sasha Costanza-Chock (media analyst) and moderated by Cory Doctorow (science fiction author). I was disappointed with the panel for a few different reasons 1) more time was spent on the backgrounds of the differnt panelists than on their actual points within the discussion 2)there was a backchannel that was supposed to be used for different comments regarding the panel, but everyone was using it to discuss meaningless things, and I found it more distracting and almost rude that they were posting things about the Lakers and Captain Planet when the speakers were trying to speak about something that we are obviously a part of 3) lastly, the entire event seemed more like an introduction to an issue rather than a real panel. That being said, there were a couple of things I found really interesting. First of all Doctorow brought up David Brin's theory of the "transparent society" which he basically summed up as a society in which everyone's every action is recorded; and he argues that this would then prodce this utopia and crime and violence would disappear because people would be aware that they were being watched all the time. The panelists were quick to pick apart the problem of this theory; stating the main problemwould be that the people with authorial positions would talk advantage of this power and only punish other people, which creeped me out. Not only the fact that everyone being filmed doing EVERY thing but also that this could be taken advantage of, and the thing that is most creepy is the fact that it could happen so easily. We already have things that can track us; be it a cell phone, which can be traced to location, we post pictures, we write blogs about our lives, we display our age, where we live, email addresses, and allow people to stalk us, not to mention access it in the future. The fact that we do it so freely without much thought to the consequences makes me think that putting up cameras all over the city (which i believe they said was coming here, but dont quote me on that) might not even warrant a second glance from most people, i dont even know if I would take notice truly. Anyway this brings me to the next point that intrigued me in this panel, which was that at DisneyWorld they are now taking fingerprints upon entry. I dont want to write an essay here, but basically Disney world is taking fingerprints when you enter to prevent ticket fraud. They have a new machine which scans two fingers for the shape and takes one fingerprint, which they claim only looks at "numerical information." They state that they only use the information to attach it to the ticket. It is under must scrutiny, as the park does not claim that the scanner is a fingerprint machine, while other experts claim it is. Also, there is an alternative, so if the guest does not want to scan their finger, they can show a photo id, however this option is not advertised by the park anywhere before entering. if you want to read more the link is
here
there is also a video on that website which goes through the process as well.