NPR’s Radiolab is radio at its best—entertaining, informative, provocative. This episode will change the way you think about time and speed. One segment reveals the surprising truth about the relative speeds of the human nervous system and the Internet, and the a critical role of speed in today’s computer-controlled financial marketplace.
radiolab.org/2013/feb/05
If you don’t understand how the stock market works, you’re not alone. The market has developed a digital mind of its own, and in many ways it’s beyond human comprehension. The blog that accompanies that story includes some dazzling animated visualizations.
Category: Chapter 10 Computer Security and Risks
In his state of the union message President Obama explained that he was issuing executive orders to deal with cyber threats to government and business. He also encouraged congress to enact legislation. But as this NPR story explains, the problem may require a more aggressive approach that’s complicated by the fact that our information infrastructure is mostly owned by private businesses.
npr.org/2013/02/13/171843046/victims-of-cyberattacks-now-going-on-offense-against-intruders
Computer crime can be costly, and it’s not going away anytime soon. This Huffington Post article describes the Gozi virus, its creators, and its impact on banks and their customers.
huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/23/gozi-virus-fbi_n_2535282.html
In the ongoing debate about the impact of video games on the human brain, emotional arguments are seldom grounded in solid research. In this TED talk, Daphne Bavelier claims that current research contradicts many common-sense beliefs about the psychological impact of fast-paced gaming. The research is still in the early stages; after all, computer gaming is a relatively new human activity. And there remain questions about violence, addiction, and other big issues. But the research described here is a small step toward understanding how what we do changes who we are.
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html
Cyber-scammers are always looking for new ways to get you to reveal valuable personal information. Can you tell the difference between legitimate requests and cyber scams? Take this short quiz to find out. The quiz is a promotion for OpenDNS, a security company, but it’s worth your time even if you’re not shopping for protection. If you’re not able to identify all of the fake sites in the quiz, the feedback page will show you the clues that you missed so you can be more scam-savvy in the future.
opendns.com/phishing-quiz
The information explosion raises important questions about the free flow of information versus the threat to personal privacy. These two TED Talks present cases for more open information in government and medicine. Heather Brooke uses technology and old-fashioned hard work to expose government corruption; John Wilbanks argues that more medical information sharing is good for all of us. Whether you agree or not, you’ll likely find their stories interesting and thought provoking.
ted.com/talks/heather_brooke_my_battle_to_expose_government_corruption.html
ted.com/talks/john_wilbanks_let_s_pool_our_medical_data.html
MIT Professor Sherry Turkle has been studying the human impact of digital technology for decades. In her book Alone Together and in this Fresh Air interview, she talks about how texting and social networking are profoundly changing the way children, teens, and adults live, think, and feel. There’s plenty to think about here.
npr.org/2012/10/18/163098594/in-constant-digital-contact-we-feel-alone-together
In the U.S., non-voters outnumber Democratic voters and Republican voters combined. What does it take to get those non-voters to realize that democracy is not a spectator sport? A recent study suggests that many of them respond to peer pressure, Facebook-style.
www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/09/social-voting
The concept of sharing is everywhere on the Internet. In this thought-provoking Huffington Post blog post, Bianca Bosker asks whether Facebook and other companies are using the term to manipulate our feelings and extract information from us.
huffingtonpost.com/bianca-bosker/the-insidiousness-of-sharing-why-we-share_b_1728550.html
Wired writer Mat Honan recently lost just about everything he had stored on his computer and in the cloud. He literally watched while a malicious hacker wiped out his digital world.
This NPR story suggests five things you can do to avoid his fate.
Mat’s Wired article describes the hacker attack in detail.