Blue Ribbon Campaign

The pink ribbon campaign focused on prevention of breast cancer on women. The white ribbon campaign is to raise awareness on violence against women. I bet all of you have heard about this popular ribbon campaigns. But Blue Ribbon... have you ever heard about it? Probably you will be saying aiya! why got so many colour?? Actually Blue Ribbon Campaign is a campaign that supports free speech online.

According to Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), they are fighting that everyone should have the rights to blog anonymously because they think that it is their right to write blog anonymously in the internet. You should also have the rights to keep your sources confidentially and make fair use of intellectual property. Besides that, they helped to fight for the rights to allow reader's comments without fear. You need not to afraid that you will against the law because it is your freedom to comment.

Moreover, they fight for the right to protect your server from Government seizure and they are still trying to fight for the freely blog about Elections. The Electronic Frontier Foundation said that everyone should have the right to blog at your workplace and have the right to access as media. Moreover, they encourage people that to know about your rights and prepare to defend themselves before it is too late.

Below is the Blue Ribbon Campaign icon which can link to the website of blue ribbon.

Sources:

Blue Ribbon Campaign website, Blue Ribbon Campaign Introduction [Online], Retrieved 20th February 2009.
URL: http://www.umsl.edu/~munsr/blueribbon/1.htm
Electronic Frontier Foundation website, Help Us Protect Free Speech Online [Online], Retrieved 20th February 2009.
URL: http://w2.eff.org/br/

Vote Results (Week 5)

Do you think firewall needs to be implemented in colleges/ universities?

Below is the result of poll question of Week 5 which shows 57.10% of voters have agreed that firewall shouldn’t be implemented in colleges and universities because they can’t do further research for their assignments/ project, where as, 42.90 % have agreed that firewall should be implemented in the colleges and universities because people may view unsecured websites and no one agreed that firewall shouldn’t be implemented because it’s their freedom to access to all websites.

From the poll analysis, it shows that many have stated that implementing firewall in colleges and universities becomes a problem for them to do further research for their assignments or projects. This is because, as a college student many of them has lots of assignments and projects to be accomplished and to get those tasks done they need further reading and research by browsing in the internet.

Most of college/ university students access internet by using the computers provided in the free lab. When they tend to browse for information, firewall either blocks the entire website or maybe some elements in a website. For an example, most colleges and universities block the access to Youtube, for some students like advertising students, when they want to view some advertisements as an reference for their assignment, they wouldn’t be able to access to it because firewall blocks the entire Youtube website.

I bet many would be nodding your head in agreement with my statement! =)

In the other hand, 42.90% of people have agreed that firewall should be implemented because people may tend to view unsecured websites. It is fairly agreed that as a student most of us tend to view many unknown websites everyday. Intentionally or unintentionally we tend to view some websites which maybe be unsecured to view. Unsecured is in the sense where the content maybe immoral or worse comes worse it spreads virus. What happens if the virus spread over the entire system? I believe no one would love that to happen. To solve this problem, the college and universities management has too only filter and block the exact website or elements that are harmful to people and not forgetting as a student we also have a big responsibility to avoid ourselves from viewing or accessing to those websites that are unsecured and invite unwanted guest --->viruses. Hopefully people can start using the internet in a more appropriate and safe way.

Do leave us your comment and have a great weekend and don’t forget to Thank God It’s Friday =P

Filters in libraries

Internet is educational. Yes it’s a fact. Students always mentioned using internet is for research purposes but what lies behind it?

They might be absorbing materials about obscenity, bomb recipes, militia materials, hate speech of every stripe, political on the Internet. Well, there is no universal definition of what is objectionable and what is decent. Students are exposed to these materials every minute on the Internet everyday and measures had being taken to prevent this from happening.

Internet filters are mainly used in schools and libraries. The main reason is to protect students from explicit and improper contents. Two main methods used to filter the Internet:

Keyword blocking filters

It uses pre-defined lists of objectionable terms. It is also known as “content identification,” “content analysis,” and “phrase blocking.” These filters search the website for certain words, usually words with sexual references, before it is displayed and then determine whether or not it is suitable for viewing. Because it has to search the page before it allows it to be displayed, it can slow down Internet viewing. The filters also assume that words only have a specific meaning which is not true. Words that are used innocently or technically are automatically presumed to be objectionable. For instance, “chicken breasts” or “breast cancer” could just as easily be blocked as the phrases “human breasts” or “women’s breasts”. Due to the keyword blocking filter’s unreliability, over six percent of blocked websites have been “overblocked”. Improving keyword blocking is almost impossible without first creating artificial intelligence that can understand that words can be used in different ways. Despite the faults of keyword blocking, it still provides a high level of protection for children on the Internet.

Website blocking or “site” blocking

It can be defines as a blocking method in which people review Internet websites and decide whether they meet the criteria to be blocked. The websites are then put on a “site list” that the filter uses to block the websites. Internet robots are used to flag Internet sites that could potentially contain objectionable content for humans to review. However, many problems arise in this method as well. The Internet robots can still miss out some objectionable websites that strays too far from what is being checked. Even using this method, websites can either be overlooked or over blocked. Another problem is that different filters categorize websites differently. Websites dealing with homosexuality could be grouped into different categories like “Sexuality,” “Lifestyles,” or “Adult”. It will only be blocked depending on what category it is in and what categories are selected to be blocked.

There are mixed feelings about the use of Internet filters in school and colleges. Most schools, however, choose and support filters.Many schools complain that it costs too much to implement and maintain filters, and that internet is for educational and research tools. Internet filters with the aid of teacher monitoring allow students to properly use the Internet and focus on their work.

Speaking about the matter, I just can’t stop my ‘kaypoh-ism’. I have done some experimenting on INTI filters and realize that INTI uses keyword blocking and websites blocking methods. As you know, there was a time when Youtube was banned. It was quite disappointing as some students needed to watch and visualize commercials to spark up their creativity.. Doesn’t matter whether it is censor or not, I believe that we have the wisdom and knowledge ability to judge what is right and wrong.