For example, the proper security practice for storing user passwords is to use a special individual encryption process for each individual password. This way the database can only confirm that a password was the right one, but it can’t independently look up what the password is or even tell if two people used the same password. Therefore if someone had access to the database, the only way to figure out the right password is to use “brute force,” that is, keep guessing passwords until they guess the right one (and each guess takes a lot of time).

Hacking attempts can be made on individuals, whether because the individual is the goal target, or because the individual works at a company which is the target. Hackers can target individuals with attacks like: Password reuse attacks, where if they find out your password from one site, they try that password on many other sites Hackers tricking a computer into thinking they are another site, for example: the US NSA impersonated Google Social engineering, where they try to gain access to information or locations by tricking people. For example: Phishing attacks, where they make a fake version of a website or app and try to get you to enter your information or password into it. Some people have made malicious QR codes to take you to a phishing site. Many of the actions done by the con-man Frank Abagnale, which were portrayed in the movie Catch Me If You Can

People in the antiwork subreddit found the website where Kellogg’s posted their job listing to replace the workers. So those Redditors suggested they spam the site with fake applications, poisoning the job application data, so Kellogg’s wouldn’t be able to figure out which applications were legitimate or not (we could consider this a form of trolling). Then Kellogg’s wouldn’t be able to replace the striking workers, and they would have to agree to better working conditions.

For example, social media data about who you are friends with might be used to infer your sexual orientation. Social media data might also be used to infer people’s: Race Political leanings Interests Susceptibility to financial scams Being prone to addiction (e.g., gambling)

Trolling is a method of disrupting the way things are, including group structure and practices. Like these group-forming practices, disruptive trolling can be deployed in just or unjust ways. (We will come back to that.) These disruptive tactics can also be engaged with different moods, ranging from playful (like some flashmobs), to demonstrative (like activism and protests), to hostile, to warring, to genocidal. You may have heard people say that the difference between a coup and a revolution is whether it succeeds and gets to later tell the story, or gets quashed. You may have also heard that the difference between a traitor and a hero depends on who is telling the story.

RIP trolling is where trolls find a memorial page and then all work together to mock the dead person and the people mourning them. Here’s one example from 2013: A Facebook memorial page dedicated to Matthew Kocher, who drowned July 27 in Lake Michigan, had attracted a group of Internet vandals who mocked the Tinley Park couple’s only child, posting photos of people drowning with taunting comments superimposed over the images. One photo showed a submerged person’s hand breaking through the water with text reading “LOL u drowned you fail at being a fish,” according to a screen grab of the page shared with the Tribune after the post was removed.

While modified behaviors to present a persona or code switch may at first look inauthentic, they can be a way of authentically expressing ourselves in each particular setting. For example: Speaking in a formal manner when giving a presentation or answering questions in a courtroom may be a way of authentically sharing your experiences and emotions, but tailored to the setting Sharing those same experiences and emotions with a close friend may look very different, but still can be authentic Different communities have different expectations and meanings around behavior and presentation. So what is appropriate authentic behavior depends on what group you are from and what group you are interacting with, like this gif of President Obama below:

There are many ways inauthnticity shows up on internet-based social media, such as: Catfishing: Create a fake profile that doesn’t match the actual user, usually in an attempt to trick or scam someone Sockpuppet (or a “burner” account): Creating a fake profile in order to argue a position (sometimes intentionally argued poorly to make the position look bad) Fig. 6.5 US Congressional candidate Dean Browning in 2020 posting what appears to be a post intended for a sockpuppet account where he was pretending to be a gay Black man.# Astroturfing: An artificially created crowd to make something look like it has popular support Parody accounts: An account that is intentionally mimicking a person or position, but intended to be understood as fake. Schrodinger’s asshole: the guy who says awful shit, and decides if he was “only kidding” depending on your reaction.

4Chan has various image-sharing bulletin boards, where users post anonymously. Perhaps the most infamous board is the “/b/” board for “random” topics. This board emphasizes “free speech” and “no rules” (with exceptions for child pornography and some other illegal content). In these message boards, users attempt to troll each other and post the most shocking content they can come up with. They also have a history of collectively choosing a target website or community and doing a “raid” where they all try to join and troll and offend the people in that community.

In the mid-1990s, some internet users started manually adding regular updates to the top of their personal websites (leaving the old posts below), using their sites as an online diary, or a (web) log of their thoughts. In 1998/1999, several web platforms were launched to make it easy for people to make and run blogs (e.g., LiveJournal and Blogger.com). With these blog hosting sites, it was much simpler to type up and publish a new blog entry, and others visiting your blog could subscribe to get updates whenever you posted a new post, and they could leave a comment on any of the posts.

n addition to the main components of the images, sound, and video data, this information is often stored with metadata, such as: The time the image/sound/video was created The location where the image/sound/video was taken The type of camera or recording device used to create the image/sound/video etc. For our purposes in this class, most of the time we run into images, we will find a string that tells us where the image, video, or sound is saved (e.g., we’ll get something like “kylethayer.jpg”), and we might additionally get some metadata.

Sounds are represented as the electric current needed to move a speaker’s diaphragm back and forth over time to make the specific sound waves. The electric current is saved as a number, and those electric current numbers are saved at each time point, so the sound information is saved as a list of numbers.

You might recognize this as the same style of instructions as a cooking recipe, like making dumplings:

Antagonistic bots can also be used as a form of political pushback that may be ethically justifiable. For example, the “Gender Pay Gap Bot” bot on Twitter is connected to a database on gender pay gaps for companies in the UK. Then on International Women’s Day, the bot automatically finds when any of those companies make an official tweet celebrating International Women’s Day and it quote tweets it with the pay gap at that company:

Only “Can we do this?” Never “should we do this? We’ve seen that same blasé attitude in how Twitter or Facebook deal w abuse/fake news.

“Rational Selfishness”: It is rational to seek your own self-interest above all else. Great feats of engineering happen when brilliant people ruthlessly follow their ambition.