Post 10 -Reflection and proposition

Before the discussion on my proposal that I had with my peer Liz, I was already a little unsure of what I was creating, or what my actual outcome was to be. Through further research before the session, I had discovered or rather specified exactly what was my specific issue dealing with 18-25 year olds, and what I wasn’t the outcome to do.

It was clear through research that the  monitoring and data collection wasn’t going to end or let up any time soon, especially not with the inclusion of the Internet of Things. And so rather than designing a possibility to end the monitoring on wither end, it was decided that my proposal was aiming at creating awareness of the increased privacy issues, and get round adults to spread the word or understand the Internet of Things. Thus, my proposal was to create awareness, to educate, or to inform.

I didn’t exactly have an actual proposal idea to run through with my peer in the class session. I had a few ideas floating around that I had picked out from the brainstorming session around the 5 possibilities to create change, however I wasn’t sold on a particular one. And so, in the session with Liz, I decided to quickly run through my 5 ideas–quite briefly–and figure out if a particular one caught her eye.

None really did, or they weren’t at a point to yet.

However she was quite startled and intrigued by a story I told her that I founding a news article. Basically, the gist of the story was that a young woman had extremely private and intimate personal data collected from a product of hers, when she had no idea she was being monitored. This snippet sparked both our interests, as it really portrayed the idea that public entities such as business and companies can collected very private data from us without our knowledge, in very private settings and environments. Who knew that you could be monitored through products in your house or bedroom.

Even thought I didn’t have an exact proposal, she did give me some advice and feedback on the ones that I did have, and brainstormed other ideas with me.

The first piece of information the she gave me was that she like the idea of creating awareness or informing the generation of the lack of privacy. We both felt that the monitoring wasn’t going to stop, and luckily she agreed with me. And so this now became the focus of what I wanted my system or design to do ultimately.

Due to the short story that I had told her, and the fact that she was quite shocked by the invasive nature, she felt that it could be a good idea to focus on a specific set of data to help ground the proposal or make it more emotional. While being specific like personal details could have worked, she suggested that I look into creating a proposal around the really private data that we have, such as in the story told. This notion also helped to develop my proposal as there are lots of ways that we give out private data, however most of the time we know we are giving it out. So I thought it could b interesting to focus on the times that we are unaware that we are providing private and personal data, such as in the Internet of Things.

Another piece of information or critique that Liz provided to me was to place whatever my issue or proposal was, into a real world content. Place it in an area, a time, a place, a social setting. And that way, whatever my proposal ends up to be, it will be relatable to the generation or audience the tis it being designed for. Immediately, this made me think of social media and anything online, and also of the bedroom. People always say, or at least imply, that our bedrooms are a visual expression of who we are; our interests, loves, personalities etc. So why not place my proposal in the context of the bedroom and online. There isn’t one person that I don’t know that doesn’t use their phone at least once a day in their bedroom, or doesn’t use a single piece of technology or a product daily. If I had to look around my room, I would at least see a computer, a laptop, an iPad, iPod, phone, Nintendo 3DS, Wacom tablet etc. So it’s fair to say that this setting could work effectively for my target audience.

The final piece of information that we discussed was another port of WHY? Why was I wanting to create something like this? Why were they to interact with it? Why was I thinking of a service design over any of the other emergent practices? The gist of our conversation was that I want people to care. Care about their privacy, care about what information they are putting out there, and care about who is viewing it. So along with the basis of informing the audience or making them aware of the Internet of Things, I really wanted to find a way to make them care.

This session was very helpful as I was able to get another brain on my issue. I could work out if things were working and whether I was in a correct direction, or if I had completely lost the plot. It also taught me (again!) that everybody thinks differently. What I figure could be an excellent idea, could be terrible for someone else or vice versa. I understand exactly now why there is usually user testing and prototyping along the way for all projects.

So now for my revised proposal—

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Growing up in the age of Technology, 18-25 year olds have witnessed the rise of the Internet and its wide spread use. And in todays society we are being introduced to the Internet of Things, a system where all devices and products will have the ability to connect to the Internet and feed information to their suppliers and companies. However, users this age aren’t aware of the Internet of Things or its increased invasion of privacy. While they don’t necessarily care about their online privacy, they know what personal information should or shouldn’t be posted. The problem becomes the increased invasion of data monitoring with which we are unaware of in public and private spaces.

Since the internet is so ingrained in our daily lives, ending the data collection and monitoring isn’t a possibility. Instead, the change would be to create awareness and inform this generation of the increased potential for data monitoring with the inclusion of the Internet of Things. The change should get them to think differently about the Internet of Things and what products could be linked and connected, as well as how they interact with their private and personal environments. The change should start a conversation between this generation, for them to continue to spread the word.

Which brings me to my possible design action. The Unseen, or Unseen Connections (the name is pending), is a service design that aims to create change. The proposal is an augmented reality app that shows or reveals the unseen connections that products and devices have to the Internet of Things. The user could be introduced to the app through a social media hashtag that sets up the campaign and encourages them to see their ‘home’s Internet of Things’. After answering a few questions, and inputing parameters for daily use, the app then accesses the phones camera and superimposes graphics and lines over the real life image. The app reveals what devices are or could be connected, revealing to the user the possibility for data monitoring and collection. After this, the app also provides tips of ensuring your privacy in the Internet of Things, especially your bedroom, based on the results seen in the camera. From here, the user is then encouraged to continue the conversation, and spread a link or the hashtag to their friends and peers on social media. Reveal the connections, be informed or shocked, and spread the word.

Proposal visualisations

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Post Ten: Don’t be a rookie

My draft design proposal, discussed in ‘The Proposal’ was mainly based on online fraud, the type that comes from scam emails. Since researching this topic further and discussing it with my colleagues, I have decided to keep my proposal still on the topic of online fraud but explore the part cookies have in it. This way, my proposal is very much related to the 18-25 year old audience and has room to really make use of emergent practices, as the varying uses of cookies are being increasingly discussed in the media. While explaining this revised proposal to my tutor, who gave very helpful feedback, we decided that rather than designing a complete website for someone to use, it would be more beneficial to create a plugin similar that the user can simply click on while browsing to see the desired change appear. I was shown a relevant example of a pre-existing plugin for Gmail, ‘Just Not Sorry’. This plugin highlights ‘problem’ words/phrases in emails and prompts the user to swap them with a similar but more confident word. The plugin is free to download and automatically does its ‘job’ without the user having to very much at all. The outline below explains my proposition in greater depth.

Project title: Don’t be a rookie

Practice type: generative system

The issue: Cookies. Cookies are files stored by a website on a users online device and are mainly designed to hold onto amounts of data for the particular website. These can either help improve the site for the user or do the complete opposite (as is the case with airline sites and hotel sites). All one person has to do is visit an airline site, view ticket prices for a trip and close the window. The next time this user enters that site to have another look at those prices, they will have increased, all because of cookies.

The possible change: Many internet users are not aware of the dangers or even inconveniences of websites that use cookies. There are also many internet users that are aware of these cookies but forget to delete them. Creating a system or plugin to remind users is a simple way to create a change in this area as it will raise awareness and prevent online fraud.

The design action to support change: To limit online scamming through cookies, I propose to create a plugin that warns users of the inconveniences and dangers of websites saving cookies whilst also educating them on what cookies are and how to prevent being scammed in the future.The plugin, ‘Don’t be a rookie’,  will incorporate a five minute timer and a cookie that blows up the price of something the user is looking at into cookie crumbs. This price, once turned into crumbs, will re-emerge at a significantly higher value. A drop down box will appear saying ‘Don’t be a rookie, delete that cookie. Or go incognito’. A ‘read more’ link will also be available, allowing the user to read more about cookies and be informed on how to delete cookies from a website or how to use an incognito tab in their browser. This plugin will most benefit users on airline and hotel sites but will work on all sites, reminding the user to watch out for cookies, and can be turned on/off at the users disposal as can be done with a regular plugin.

Header image
Giphy 2016, Hungry Cookie Monster, viewed 24 September 2016, <https://giphy.com/gifs/hungry-cookie-monster-EKUvB9uFnm2Xe&gt;.

By Chloe Schumacher

POST 10: Reflection and proposition/online privacy

Reflection

This week I have handed my draft proposal to peers and tutor ask for concept feedback. I realise that the idea I come up last week was not strong enough, it still need a clearly idea behind to support the service design. I need to further consider:

• What will happen if user don’t use this system?
• What the feeling of the user using this system?
• How it will interact with other users? is any possible?
• How it balance the relationship between users and online business?

I learned a lot from my peers feedback, he gave me suggestion I should focused on how the system can bring positive effect to users – the user experience behind, as well as how it will helps others. Therefore I proposed a map section in the Third Party Platform design. It allow users interact with others through social media and also possible to check the location of data lost.

The process from in class feedback and outside class brainstorming are quite help me to develop my final proposal and find the possible thing to apply action around online privacy.

service map

Revised Proposition

AIMS: Stand on online business side, I decided to design a service design system reflect on a Third Party Platform (app), which aims to help people protect their personal information not be used by online commercial transaction and to regain the credibility of online business. The project called “ Trust me”; it’s engage user prejudge the result of using or non-using the system.

ISSUE RESEARCH / POSSIBLE CHANGE: Business use information in ways that user do not like, users quickly learn about it, and the firms are forced to stop. The research involved lot examples to explain why online marketplace failure at the present stage. Otherwise, young teenagers have become concerned about the disclosure, use, and sale of information which businesses have collected about them through a website. According to the interview task and probe task result that I have presented before, one of my interviewee (22years old girl) explained that most of time she has to sign up the website with right personal information because most of them need to verify your email address which she has no choice. Besides, the probe task shown the result of how many promotion/junk email she got for one week. I picked up NSW as the target area, come out with 3 points of the possible change: help people protect data (Action); Share value information with others (Interaction); understand the seriousness of the issue (Feeling).

ACTION TO SUPPORT CHANGE: Therefore, the concept designed that each website need provide a QR code option, which “Trust me” scan QR code to sing up without submitting any personal information. The thing people need to do is create an account for “Trust me”, which will require you set your email address, security code and username only; once you sign up a new website, you can decide whether you want all the information from this website is managed by”Trust me”; If yes, all the information from the website will directly go into the e-mail and mail inbox; you are able to check all the message here. If not use the scan option:  when you click normal sing up option, it will bring you to the social media pop out page ( explain in next paragraph).

On the other hand, the result of how many messages/emails “Trust me” has blocked and where your data has been in danger will show with maps in “Trust me”. It will help you understand what the situation you are in. Share your maps on social media upload with hashtag, you also can see other users posts, check where the data has lost usually and be aware of any dangers.

Trust me user flow chart

“Trust me” not only help online companies get the contact information of users (email, username), but also help users protect their privacy and be aware of danger. It has balanced the relationship between users and online business, with this system, people can live in comfortable internet environment and online business will get batter in the future.

Written by Jiahui Li (nancy)

Post 9 -Visual documentation of the brainstorming session

Group brainstorm of possibilities of change

The image above depicts the brainstorming session that our group had around my issue. It was decided early on, that having individual pages for each issue would invite us to throw any and all ideas on the page, and encourage us to fill the space with possibilities.

Another rule for the group initiated early in the process was that there was to be no judgement with regards to the ideas conveyed. This ensured that it was quantity being created rather than quality (a particularly strange concept to wrap your brain around when the whole course has been about the quality of work and concept).

With these rules in mind, we began to brainstorm each others problem statements individually. Spending around 15 minutes on each person, we spoke about the possibility we were imagining, and then wrote them down. Often times one idea would spark another, and branches of ideas similar to each other would be created.

What I found good and useful about this process of brainstorming was that I managed to get different perspectives on my problem and issue, and provide ideas from an outside point of view. For the past 7 weeks I have mostly been the only one researching and developing my issue, so to have people brainstorm visual responses as if they were possible users, was a great and useful experience. The process also allowed for undiscovered concepts and visuals to come to light. There were some ideas mentioned that I hadn’t thought about, and managed to spur different thoughts.

However, there were some down sides to this brainstorming process also. The main disadvantage was that the problem statement that I had wasn’t well researched and I didn’t have a sufficient understanding of the issue, this was because it was spurred from a comment of one of my peers. It would have been better to originally choose the internet f things like I had been researching, to get actual concepts and possible responses I could have developed. The other slight issue that I discovered with this process was that my peers did’t have a great understanding of the issue as well. It way have just been that I didn’t explain certain parts of it correctly or well enough, but seeing as data issues generally aren’t talked about, it was hard to brainstorm solutions.

Overall, the process was helpful in providing more eyes to bounce ideas off and see what they would do in my situation, however it would have been more effective if I had chosen a more researched (and possibly broader) topic in order to get ideas to develop.

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After the slight disaster of my part of the group brainstorming session, I decided to do further research and try the exercise again. Since the Internet of Things was a focus  for the past few weeks, I decided to create another problem statement, but with privacy and the Internet of Things as the centre of the exercise.

New problem statements

With the map above, I felt like I had a better idea of my concept and problem, and could create more possibilities for change. Or at least there were more opportunities to look at. And so, with the top right map being a little tight, I recreated it on a larger page, and kept developing visual responses and ideas.

New possibilities of change

While it was great to redo the class and group exercise of brainstorming the possibilities for change, doing it by myself lacked the group experience and the opportunities created by having multiple eyes on the issue. The next step would be to get another person to briefly look at the ideas presented, and see if they can add some, or change any that are existing.

Post 8 – Brainstorming possibilities for a design response

After weeks of researching, it now came time to start thinking about the end game. What can I turn all of this research into, and what kind of design response could be created?

The individual and collaborative tasks that were undertaken in class were very helpful–if only I had a good grasp on a specific data issue! The first section of the exercise was to individually develop a problem statement. Throughout the research process, I hadn’t investigated a specific issue within data privacy and surveillance. And although the Internet of Things was somewhat specific, at the time of the problem statement it didn’t feel specific enough. So with a brief discussion of issues and topics with a peer, the issue of patient data came to mind as a specific concept that was also present in the research. With this brief topic in mind, I tried to develop a problem statement.

Initial problem statements

However, it almost seemed too specific (topic / user wise), and was probably too long. Shortened, it came down to patients wanting control over their heath data. It was almost too specific because there wasn’t a lot of room for interpretation or response development because the topic was too small in terms of who it involved and creative solutions. I almost needed something more varied and broad that could also be specified in certain situations.

But I powered on with the specific patient data, and used the problem in the next stage of the task which was to brainstorm any and all visual design responses to the problem statement that were of an emergent practice. This was difficult as not only did I not have a lot of understanding of the problem and key characteristics, but there was nothing to clearly explain the problem to my peers.

Even still, we brainstormed for around ten minutes and came up with few possibilities. Not nearly enough to develop a good proposal for though.

Group brainstorm of possibilities of change

After taking a week off the research and development, I wanted to ty the exercises again. So after doing some more secondary research, and going back to my original topic of the Internet of Things, I developed new problem statements, and brainstormed new possibilities for visual design responses.

Initial problem statements

Initial problem statements

It was decided that the responses would be around education, warning and limiting the problem rather than stopping it, as the data privacy controversy won’t end any time soon while the Internet of Things is active and growing.

Five ideas stood out as the most possible and interesting, as well as the best responses to the problem.

While the emergent practices were in the foreground of my mind, I feel that some of the responses may need a greater connection to one of them.

1. A data visualisation on the places that you would get targeted / monitored, or what types of data would be collected if a particular suburb or local area were to be a smart city in the Internet of Things.
2. A new service / policy for companies, governments and businesses to comply to. Like Microsoft’s DNT.
3. An opt-in / opt-out system / service that could act as a way to be a part of the data collection and monitoring as little or great as you want (limits).
4. A data visualisation on how much of ‘YOU’ can be collected through the Internet of Things data collection / monitoring.
5. A service that aims to spread the awareness of the Internet of Things around the home, especially with regards to public entities monitoring your private data without you knowing about it.

I tried to keep the same mindset of the process taken in the original brainstorm session in class: there is no judgement, the aim is quantity over quality, and it shouldn’t be too hard (in terms of how the concept can progress or be adopted. It would have been good to have another person to bounce ideas, however the time frame left me short.

From here, it was time to determine a particular response that fitted best into one of the emergent practices, and had the most possibilities for change. It came to my attention that the solution was not going to be to stop the monitoring or end the tracking of private data as it is already too prevalent in today’s society. What is needed, is a way to create limits on the collection and monitoring of data, so that the users are given part of the control. Or at least there could be a compromise.

One possibility seemed the most interesting and direct in creating an intervention: number 3, an opt-in / opt-out system / service that could act as a way to be a part of the data collection and monitoring as little or great as you want (creating limits). Being in the so called technological age or generation, 18-25 year olds have grown up with technology and the internet. They have seen it been born and grow into a gigantic virtual world that is used daily. However, with all of this growth and use, some things have been lost. With the terms and conditions of online websites being so long and in such fine print, they are generally skipped over and forgotten about. Or on the other hand, the terms and conditions are deliberately placed in hard to find areas on sites. What is needed here is a system that is in the control of the user. And so, this proposal aims to give control back to the user by creating an opt-in / opt-out service. For every site (or connected product / place in the internet of things), users could be presented with a short form, or a button that transforms into a slightly longer form. The concept is, that through a standardized form or set of questions, the user could state how much or how little or particular things they would want to be tracked. This way, instead of just stating ‘track’ or ‘don’t track’, they can be involved in some aspects, none at all, or only for particular companies / products they trust. There is also potential for the system to go further and block particular details of the user, so their online persona turns into a bunch of statistics rather than a digital personality. The tracking and monitoring control would be up to the user.

While this could be a solid idea, it is only a draft at this point and could (or most likely would) change in the near future.

Post Nine: Another day, another map

Following on from The Proposal (post eight), this blog post explores the possible ways design can make a difference or contribute to change within an audience of 18-25 year olds. I chose to narrow down the topic of online surveillance and data privacy to scam emails and online fraud, and the mindmap below displays possible design options in regards to this area.

Mindmap of design ideas to create change in the online privacy world for 18-25 year olds

The mindmap was created using IDEO’s brainstorming tips/methods after writing down a problem statement; un-educated online users are getting scammed daily through emails and fake advertisements leading to avoidable fraud and identity theft. 

The ideas explored in the map came about through first discussing the problem statement in a small group, and then creating a discussion that enabled us to pump out ideas quickly (go for quantity) and most importantly, without judgement. By simply stating any relevant idea (encouraging wild ideas) that came to mind, we were able to delve deeper into the focus area, building on the ideas of our peers in order to generate the best design possibilities.

However, as discussed in The Proposal, I realised when reviewing my mindmap that the design ideas displayed above do not have the immediate capacity to benefit a group of 18-25 year olds, and therefore do not fit the design brief. I have since amended this problem statement to attempt to fix or change online fraud affecting users through cookies. This new problem area not only has a place within the target audience but has more room to explore emergent practices through design.

References
Design Kit 2016, Brainstorm Rules, IDEO, viewed 20 September 2016, <http://www.designkit.org/methods/28&gt;.

Header image
Buzzfeed 2013, 25 moments when Joey and Chandler won at friendship, viewed 20 September 2016, <https://www.buzzfeed.com/regajha/joey-and-chandler?utm_term=.fdA6rP1x1#.ws5RelGWG&gt;.

By Chloe Schumacher

Post Eight: The Proposal

Online privacy and data surveillance is such broad topic but almost all aspects of it intertwine with the lives of 18-25 year olds on a daily basis be it positively or negatively. The issue that stands out the most for me is online privacy in terms of scam emails and online fraud. To investigate this issue further, I made use of one of IDEO’s brainstorming methods and broke the issue down into the following categories: who, what, when, where and why. This process enabled me to compose a relevant proposition/statement that succinctly summarised the issue.

Who: the elderly, users with less computing knowledge and users that aren’t aware of the consequences

What: the boundaries are lack of awareness, wishful thinking, well-designed emails that look legitimate. If fixed there would be significantly less online fraud, less identity theft. If the issue is left unsolved more and more internet users will continue to be scammed, many unaware that they are the victim.

When: online scamming and email scamming occurs all the time with these emails becoming more and more believable with new technologies. Therefore the issue needs to be fixed as soon as possible.

Where: occurs all over the world to people with email accounts and adequate internet access (and in this technological age, there are a lot of email users). In terms of where physically, it occurs on laptops, computers, iPads/tablets and smartphones.

Why: the issue is important to fix to ensure people stop getting scammed. For regular home users, it would save them money and diminish fear. For corporate companies that have been mimicked in these scams it would help them regain the trust of their client base especially for those that were successfully scammed in the past. For hackers or the people that create the scams, it would put an end to their ‘business’ for the good of the community.

Proposition
Un-educated online users are getting scammed daily through emails and fake advertisements leading to avoidable fraud and identity theft.

Five point summary of possiblities

1. Email preview before clicking on the actual email. This would allow users to preview the email and determine whether or not a scam is present without getting a virus.
2. Website that shows the recent scams circulating so you know not to click on a certain email. Although this idea does currently exist, the layout and design of it is not clear or cohesive. It is also not updated as regularly as it should be.
3. Creating a site or you send the email to, it will then confirm its ‘scam status’. This will give users peace of mind, as they do not have to open the email themselves, but simply forward it on and await a response from a secure site as to whether or not they should open it or follow the links included in the email.
4. Generating an automatic email warning/sound for the account to play when you receive an email from an unknown sender. Although this would definitely alert the user when they receive an unknown email, it could prove to be quite annoying, especially for those who receive high numbers of emails per day.
5. Creating a site that displays all the warning signs to a scam email. This idea seems like it has the most potential. Should be made easy to navigate with minimalist icons and symbols while also explaining in-depth the warning signs of a scam email. 

The purpose of this task is to identify possible ways that I could make a difference or contribute to change through my issue for 18-25 year olds. However, it was only after completing this brainstorming session and the mapping exercise (refer to post nine) that I realised the audience for my proposition does not match the target 18-25 year old group we are designing for. Upon realising this, I have decided to still focus on online users but lean towards the increasing cases of online fraud caused by websites (mainly airline and hotels) storing cookies.

I have altered my design proposition to the following:
Un-educated young adults are increasingly getting scammed online as they are unaware of web cookies and how they work to store information alongside their browsing history which continually pumps up prices especially on airline and hotel websites.

Header image:
Amazon 2016, Stills from The Proposal, viewed 20 September 2016, <https://www.amazon.com/Proposal-Two-Disc-Deluxe-Digital-Copy/dp/B002K0WBY6&gt;.

By Chloe Schumacher

Post 9: Visual documentation of the brainstorming session / online privacy

By Jiahui Li (nancy)

Review the six weeks brainstorming and collaboration exercise in our group, online privacy issue has been discussed and explored from different perspectives. I found some comments and ideas from my peers help me further understand the topic and identify what I missed within my research, as well as help me framed my problem statement towards my response of the specific issue.  The different concept of our proposal opened our mind to look at more possibilities rely on  “online privacy”  issue.

I have mentioned the first brainstorming section in post 8, we start with the IDEO brainstorming to generate our ideas for a proposal and then direct our problem statement. Once we have our problem statement done, we start brainstorming in our group. We develop ideas around online privacy, what’s possible to change, and what our ideas to drive a proposal. The comments and feedback from peers helped me draft my initial concept of my proposal. Although the collaboration exercise helps me found a lot of different insights to develop my project, the process still needs more concrete ideas that can separate from each of our proposals.

week 6 in class brainstorming

During the break time, I have joined the collaboration workshop for service design case study. In the first stage, we were asked to mindmap out all the actors included in the article and categories the actors to the different controversy such as people, emotion/identity/behaviour, networks/communication and biological. The process helped me clarify how they represent the user in the process and what the main emotion direct the design.(image below)

service design case study

Follow on, we combined the actors from each category and created a sentence to explain the actors. From the feedback from tutors, we released the most important thing we want to emphasise should also be set up in the beginning. So the statement of the analysis should focus on user’s experience, not the designer.

In the next stage, we were introduced to develop a flowchart (joinery map) that document the way the user interacts with actions in the service. In this section, we began to break off our ideas into a rich storyboard of the user experience, which will bring me a deep insight of how can I start with my service design project.(image below)

service design case study 2

Based on my pervious blog post include all the brainstorming exercise have represented the steps/process of developing my issue proposal. Collected all the comments and feedback from peers and tutors,I need further clarify how actors/players react to each other in my proposal, as well as what the experience of the proposal will bring to users.

Post 8: Brainstorming possibilities for a design response / online privacy

by Jiahui Li (nancy)

After the past six weeks research and brainstorming, my issue study has been brought into the important stage. We finally introduced our proposal into three types of design practice: data visualisation, service design and generative system. We start with the IDEO brainstorming section to generate our ideas for a proposal. Below are the five cues that help me articulate my problem statement:

1. Who does the problem affect?

The key stakeholders in this issue are 18 – 25 years old teenagers who do need Internet and don’t know how to control the seriousness of online privacy issue. Most young teenagers have a large demand of Internet and low level of privacy understanding; although they afraid of online privacy leaking sometimes, they are not strong enough to control the problem.

2. What are the boundaries of the issue?

The boundary of the issue is representational; it shows the most common online privacy problem that exists in online commercial development. Based on the previous research, I explored the online privacy issue that specific to “online commercial use of personal information”. When business use information in ways that user does not like, users quickly know about it, and the firms are forced to stop. Because of  business keeps ask and use user’s personal information without their consent, the balance between online commercial development and user privacy has lost.

3. When does the problem occur?

Problems usually happened when you are registering a new website and browsing the illegal websites. More and more website ask to sign up before you browsing, when you sign up a new website, users are required to provide a large amount of personal information include interest, email, gender, address, phone number, even more, privacy questions.

4. Where does the problem occur?

The major place that the problem happened is in your email system, mobile phone message and a phone call. For example, thousand of promotion email keep annoying you every day, phone fraud and message fraud made you afraid and don’t know what’s the truth is.

5. Why is it important that the problem is fixed?

The problem is too common to exist in the online society, the invasion of personal privacy had a great influence on people’s life and the development of the network industry. So the seriousness of the problem can’t be ignored. People need to have a healthy network environment, as well as can protect their personal privacy not  be violated. Especially for young teenagers, they can’t live without Internet, so we need to fix the relationship between website and user privacy.

In class brainstorming

Once we have our problem statement done, we start brainstorming in our group. We develop ideas around online privacy, what’s possible to change, and what our ideas to direct a proposal. Below are the 5 point summary of our possibility findings:

• In order to educate people and provide people a deep understanding of how creepy when you exposed your personal information public, I generated the idea around data visualisation, which will be present through an interactive design; emphasise the feeling that lost data.
• Improve the possibility of finding where you lost your data, and be aware of how to protect your data successfully from specific website/online network.
• A data trust system can help people build the trust between user and website
• App / program for user to input locations of risk-build a database
• Improve the understanding of online privacy with info graphic poster, promote and educating people online privacy knowledge

Proposal

Based on what I got from the five-point summary of the possibilities, I’m going to work on the third idea. As a designer, I decided to build a service design system reflect on a Third Party Platform (TPF) involved in a data trust system,  which aims to help people protect their personal information not be used from commercial website.

According to the old blog post, I have interested in how design project visualise social issue and how can it help people realise the importance of the social issue that happened today. The service design system are designed specific for when you register a new website, it’s replace the function of sign up with personal information. You can scan QR code and sing up without submitting any personal information.

After scanning, the tips will pop out to ask you “whether you want use TPF to manage the website”, you can chose yes or not. If yes, all the information from the website will directly go into the TPF inbox, and you can check all the message here. On the other hand, a data trust system is embed in the TPF, it will help you analysis your data and check where your data has lost.

On the one side, online business still can get the information of users (email, and name), on other side, users can have a safety internet environment. So the project has balanced the relationship between users and companies, as well as help young teenager’s protect their personal privacy.

Post 7 – Issue Mapping

Co-creation has always been a slightly terrifying concept. However, it is also sometimes a relief. This post will explore my experience with co-creation in mapping controversies and actor profiles, in the data privacy sector.

The first task to work through was yet another mapping exercise around data privacy and its stakeholders. Except this time, in pairs. While this was an easy enough task to complete, both of us had slightly different understandings of what we were to do. With our previous individual and group maps by our sides, my partner was just recreating it with the same stakeholders, while I was trying to be more specific. Who exactly interacts with data and online privacy, and what specific parties are affected by all its facets. Part of this process was helpful as it provided me with a different perspective on the issue and those involved, but the other part of it was also difficult as no two people think alike, so instructions got lost in the mix.

Remapping the stakeholders

The next task was to map the controversies surrounding the topic of data and privacy. This task was a better use of the co-creation as it really explored many different facets of the topic. While my research was looking into ownership and the internet of things, my partner’s research was delving into personal data, especially with regards to mobile applications. Therefore, many different specific issues were being covered, and the controversies–or polemic–map could be all inclusive. What worked the best here was just writing it down on the paper. What do they feel? What do they feel that way? What would the opposite side of this polemic feel and why? A confirmation that is was relevant to the topic was often stated, however the process just called for as many controversies as were possible. This ‘no-judgement’ policy was accepted throughout the tasks.

Polemic map

Following the polemic map, the co-creation took on a more hands-on approach with the mapping of a particular polemic. ‘Ownership’ was the chosen polemic, as it had more possibilities in terms of where it lied in context, and who it affected. This stage of the co-creation workshop proved to be a little difficult. It was excellent to have another person’s ideas and train of thought, however, like earlier, we had slightly different notions on what was to be mapped. A conclusion was made here that even though it was a ‘co-creation’ task, someone needed to take the lead to keep the thoughts flowing, and pens moving. So while I took charge over the task, the ‘no-judgement’ policy was still in effect. However, the process of mapping the stakeholders, emotions and motivations to a specific polemic assisted in the development of a facet of data privacy. In other words, it helped develop an understanding of a specific situation.

‘Ownership’ polemic map

The next stage brought in another couple, building the co-creation group. While this initially seemed like a worse outcome giving the slight problems of just being in a couple, it actually proved to be easier. The conclusion early on was that the more hands (or brains) the more possibilities that can be created. And in terms of the task itself, it was enlightening to think of all the actors that play a role, or are affected in the data privacy sphere. Selecting the polemic of ‘ownership’, the task was to categorise all the actors present in the issue in terms of objects, emotions, representations, identities and other groups. What was interesting with this process was that it was thinking about the same human and non-human stakeholders, but going beyond what they are and looking at what they do. As Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín and Kil explore in ‘Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe’, controversies should be taken as the starting point, and from there the focus is on the struggle, the action and the movement (p. 16). In other words, going beyond just what the stakeholders are, and looking at how they affect or are effected by particular polemics. It was also interesting to think of this map as a connection between human and non-human actors. As Rogers, Sánchez-Querubín and Kil pharaphrases Latour, ‘map not just human-to-human connections or object-to-object ones, but the zigzag from one to the other.’ (p.17). And that is where the interesting lies.

‘Ownership’ actors map

 

The following and final task further expands on the actors’ map, however more puts us (the researcher) in the shoes of an actor. The task: to choose an actor, and portray them through certain characteristics. Who do they associate with? What are they responsible for? Whose values do they align with? This exercise certainly put you in the shoes of the actor you choose, mine being the hacktivist group Anonymous. While I had some idea of who they were and what they did, having the platform of co-creation helped develop a good character for Anonymous, and discover things that generally wouldn’t have been common thought such as their feelings, communications and motivations. Below is the collection of all actors mapped out in our group.

Specific actors maps

The particular section on social mapping in the ‘Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe’ reading also assisted in understanding this task. It was the paragraph about the two types of actors: the intermediator who is predictable and doesn’t transform anything, and the mediator, whose outcome is unpredictable and includes transformation, distortion or translations of meaning and elements. Such things as hardware can generally be called an intermediator, but change something about it, or alter its state, and it can become a mediator. This is known as an ‘action to create change’. In terms of data and privacy, as well as ownership, this action could be that further education is needed in to the issue. This could be in the form of a poster or flyer, or even an additional screen before application logins that explicitly asks whether you want to be tracked or not. It could be an opt-out form that allows you to no donate data you don’t want to. The action to create change could be as simple as a login screen or a blocking product, or as complicated as a system or service that acts as a data trust to protect your data that you ultimately create. The possibilities could be endless.

 

REFRENCES:

Rogers, R., Sánchez-Querubín, N. & Kil, A. 2015, Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe, Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam.

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Following the completion of this class and mapping exercises, I wanted to go back and try some of these tasks again. Further along in the process, my focus in data and privacy was becoming a little clouded, so I used these tasks to bring myself back into focus. Below are image of those efforts.

Remapping the stakeholders

Remapping the stakeholders

Remapping the stakeholders

Remapping the stakeholders

Post 6 – Scraping the web for data; Twitter

Twitter is an interesting program and media. It is a global source that is accessible to anyone that has the internet or a mobile phone, and due to this it redefined the time span for news to be spread or broken. If you want to get a story broken, or spread news about a particular topic, Twitter is your best friend. You aren’t following your particular recipient? No problem. As long as you have an account you can opinion-ate or inform anyone’s eye off–even if it’s not amongst the popular topics of pop culture, technology, breaking news, or politics. Through its hashtags and trending topics, Twitter is easy to navigate, and files everything into neat little boxes–fitted with further hashtags acting as sub-topics.

But what makes Twitter unique? What steps it away from every other social media that keeps people connected and allows sharing? Twitter users are restricted to a 140-character limit in every post. This may sound easy to overcome, but not so much when trying to condense complex readings into a short sentence. Generally used to spread breaking news, natural or human disasters or popular issues, this restriction allows for the point to get across immediately. While keeping it concise means your attention is grabbed instantly, the challenge is shaping the post so that is still makes sense. There is nothing worse than a post with very important words, but nothing connecting them. But the tone of the post also contributes. Most of the posts on Twitter can fall into two categories: opinionated (and biased), or informative (and educated).

With all of this in mind, it was time to undertake the web scraping task. Originally, the Twitter Advanced search paired with the Twitter Archiver Add-on seemed like the ideal program or tool to use. Not only was this task needed, I wanted to use it for my benefit, and expand on my knowledge of the Internet of Things and data privacy in general. The process of scraping the data with the Twitter Advanced search and archiver were simple: the words ‘data’ and ‘ownership’ must be present, and ‘privacy’ was a keyword that could pop up. However, this didn’t turn up much, and it felt that the search was moving away from the original intended issue. A few posts back, the Internet of Things was the focus or specific issue within data that was being investigated. In trying to get back on track, more secondary research was conducted, as well as a repeat of previous class exercises. By doing this, I would hopefully get back onto an issue that was talked about more, and that I could possibly create some visual design responses for.

So here comes the tool Brand24: an online program that business can use to monitor what social media users are saying about their company, with the additional feature of being able to respond to them. With a new focus in mind, a new process was developed–heightened by the added features and functions of Brand24. The first step is for the tool to search the internet for any posts with the exact phrase ‘Internet of Things’, and the added keyword ‘privacy’. From here, the process is to only search through Twitter posts, and then play around with the keywords. Based on the results previously, some key words could be added in to narrow the outcomes further, or another way is to input excluded words to hopefully specify target users or situations. The next stage of this process is to play around with the added features of the influence slider and the emotion scale. The influence slider allows you to see which tweets or people held the most influence in the search in terms of visits, retweets, comments and likes, while the emotion scale allows you to accumulate positive, negative or the default neutral posts. These extra features could aid the process–as well as the type of results–as I could see whether the tool was accurate in its findings, and get to the point straight away on what were the most popular tweets surrounding the issue. The final stages of the process is to visit the top sites tweeted about to expand my understanding of the issue further, and to revisit the saved search often to view the developments.

Proposed process

Below is a flow chart that demonstrates the process that was actually taken in this web scraping task.

Actual process undertaken

The process itself along with the Brand24 tool proved to be a good combination. The detailed and generative process that was designed was enhanced through the features and added functions of the web scraper. The combination allowed me to explore within a topic that was both specific but also broad. I could begin with the broad spectrum such as the Internet of Things, and narrow it down by ‘privacy’ keywords. Also, having excluded keywords such as ‘business’, ‘company’ and ‘patient’ allowed the search to zero in on more generalised posts that were hopefully more targeted to the everyday social media user. It was interesting to see what posts were collated when these aspects weren’t included.

The parameters

This exclusion did work, however, I felt that the results were very informative and unemotional. Although this was a very common nature with all of the posts gathered. Furthermore, the influence slider was both an advantage and disadvantaged it turned out. It was an advantage because it could narrow down on the most popular tweets in the search, eliminating a lot of the retweets, however it was also a disadvantage, because as the slider was increased, two things happened: mostly all of the results were of about 5 original posts retweeted multiple times, or some of the less retweeted and original content was eliminated–ultimately, a loss.

Examples of results with a low influence value

Examples of results with a high influence value

As implied previously, a lot of the posts were just statements or the name of the article / document attached to the tweet. Or if they were of an opinion, they were direct retweets of the original opinion. This result became difficult as I was hoping to discover some original posts that game an opinion on the privacy issues. However, these were far too rare and possibly due to either the broader spectrum of data and privacy, or the platform of Twitter as its character limit restrictions. Overall, this facet was a little disappointing.

Examples of the expansive retweeting

In terms of the Brand24 tool, it seems to make the decision of whether the post is positive, negative, or neutral, however, it often gets it wrong. If there is a negatively associated word in a positive post, then it will only judge the post on that word. Or if there is a link in the post, it just generally puts it as a neutral post. The same outcomes occur if the post is a statement and not an opinion. Therefore, the tool gets it wrong a lot of the times, skewing the results because it possibly lacks the human decision-making element.

Negative tweet categorised as neutral

Possibly positive tweet categorised as neutral

With these results in mind, there are a few visual design responses that could arise–however strictly initial concepts. Firstly, a response could be a set of posters or a service design that aims to educate and inform users of the lack of or hidden, privacy in the Internet of Things. Along the same line, the response could be a system or service in the IoT, such as an app that acts as a VPN. It could be a new login screen on social media apps to opt-out of the monitoring. Or another response could be a flyer that is in the boxes of new appliances and products to warn people of its connection to the internet or iCloud.

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Since this post was so large in content, ideas and data, here are my findings–of the web scraping and the task altogether.

1. Twitter allows for short posts but this also restricts what a person can say, conveyed through the extensive retweeting occurring.
2. With such a broad, new and big topic such as the Internet of Things, most of the posts are informative, and rather statement-based.
3. It is best to search around for a web scraper or tool that works best for you as it could make the process easier.
4. Even though the process didn’t work the first time around, I kept trying and changing the parameters until I found something that was both interesting and collated reasonable results. Playing around with the parameters meant that different dynamics could be explored.
5. When working with data and web scrapers, the task doesn’t always go to plan. Computers don’t think like us humans; they don’t see the emotional side.

 

REFERENCES:

Featured Image:

Twitter_cover n.d., Theme Expert, Google Images, viewed 12 September 2016, <https://www.themexpert.com/images/easyblog_articles/270/twitter_cover.jpg&gt;

Post 7: Issue mapping – online privacy

Written by Jiahui Li (nancy)

Since this semester start, collaboration are introduced into our design project process from week 2-week 5.  In terms of collaboration, we consider team composition, communication, distribution, knowledge-sharing and co-ordination that help us build understanding of collaborative exercise. As a group, we were asked to collaboratively map the issue of online privacy, as well as continue brainstorming the ideas of stakeholders involved in our topic. The collaborative exercise start with work in pairs and turn to as a four people groups, we built connection with others and gain a lot of insightful thoughts from the peer’s perspective around online privacy issue.

In week 2, we first work on the brainstorming section, which are list all the possible stakeholders of online privacy around “shared values”, “public and private”, “ human and non-human” and “political and proximity”. As I mentioned in my previous post, these maps presented how specific stakeholders deal with online privacy, as well as the line drawn between their different positions. Thought from peers in my group are quite different with my position, its expand my understanding of data/ online privacy, especially on big data and Wihileaks.

Afterwards, we generated “word associations” in week 4 class, we again shared the ideas around online privacy. The exercise expand the findings of possibility of online privacy, from broth one side and opposite side. We come up with some unfamiliar words such as HDI – Human Data Interaction and DDOS, most of them are well-known, so most of people picked the worth. Besides, the recombination of individual words to sentences, quite fun and understandable; it showed me the alternative and optional thought from others and collaboration exercise to help me further develop the project (Image 1).

(Image 1: week 4 mapping)

In week 5, we are introduced into controversy mapping; a controversy is a disagreement, a typically prolonged, public, and heated debate. As in pairs, we start with the stakeholder map we generated in week 3, bring forward them to explore the specific relationship between each stakeholders, how they affect each other to deal with online privacy (Image 2).

(Image 2: week 5 controversy mapping)

On the other hand, we created a chart that reflect on the corresponding points between controversy, emotion and motivation. It help us found point in this network, put possible things into the space, and then we can draw out the creative change based on these maps. Then we worked on the specific controversy – data ownership, and come out with some different findings. For example, we have the emotion of “non-opinion” and opposite way “ over-powering”; teenagers are non-opinion based, because they think they don’t car who own the data; for data mining companies/adults, they feel they are over-powering, they don’t want their info to be used (Image 3.4).

(Image 3: week 5 controversy mapping)

(Image 4: week 5 controversy mapping)

At the last stage, we as a group four has completed the “Controversy Actors” surround Hierarchies, issues, associate, politics, values and capacities.  Findings and thought provide me more alternative ideas and find way to shift this issue in many different ways (Image 5).

(Image 5: week 5 controversy mapping)

Reflection

Collaboration workshop withy groups and peers help us further understand the topic and identify what we missed within our research. Fortunately, four of us in our group are focus on different topic around online privacy such as “ownership of data”, “Wihileaks” and “commercial data use”. So the different opinions from the same issue opened our mind to look at “online privacy” from quite discriminating perspectives. For example, thought from my pattern in “data ownership” help me gained a deep understanding of who do you think they can own your data, how data has been collected or what’s people’s attitude (age: 18-25) with data ownership – most of them don’t care who’s using and who own it. Look into the 5 weeks research, mapping exercise, I’m currently work on “ online privacy issue happened in commercial web development”. As I mentioned before, we need draw a line that can balance the relationship between online commercial and user privacy. So combine this ideas with the insight/understanding from co-creating task, I start clarified my approach in both side of human and non-human :

What need to deal with:

• commercial website use user’s personal information without the user’s consent (human)
• collect personal information (non-human)
• teenagers (18-25) doesn’t care where there information go and any… (human)
• the education level of privacy

Possibilities for action to create change:

• From human side: a creative idea to educating people around the issue.
• From non-human side: A third party platform to visualise information and deal with specific point around the issue.

The things we explored are still broad; based on the starting point, I will further build a deep insight of my design project.

Post Seven: Mapping to create change

Working in pairs groups in the week 5 tutorial workshop, many maps were generated that not only showcased different aspects of the data security/online privacy issue but also looked at the issue in greater depth. Drawing on the maps created in earlier tutorials, these new issue maps were able to incorporate new pieces of information as well as tackle new problems that had arisen.

Task 1 – map A

Data stakeholders map incorporating human and non-human actors

The first map revisited work completed in an earlier tutorial when we mapped out the stakeholders for our overall topics e.g data stakeholders. This updated map however was much more specific and included the human and non-human actors in each sector as well as the beginnings of how these sectors relate to one another. We found that a lot of the stakeholders intertwined with each other and shared many of the same points or human/non-human actors. For example, personal users, hackers, and government agencies made use of the technologies available in the cloud and government agencies often worked alongside hackers to better the online lives of personal users.

Task 2 – map B

Polemics map discussing the controversies surrounding terms and conditions

This polemics map discussed the controversies, debates and disagreements while incorporating the main stakeholders involved. The map highlighted the main actors/stakeholders, where the tensions occurred as well as the emotions and motivations of these main actors. Initially this mapping task appeared relatively simple, but once we began to break down the actors/stakeholders and find the relationships between each one the map became extremely busy. However, we were able to use this map to understand that in the real online world, the actors/stakeholders are always intertwining, merging and changing, so we understood that we were getting more informed on topic as a whole.

Task 3 – map C

Data privacy map discussed through an actor template

This map was created in a group of four and used an actor template to categorise a chosen area of data privacy/online security. The information was categories into the following groups: causes, people, objects, emotions, behaviours, identity, laws/regulations, assistance, networks, representations, politics, emotional climate and barriers. Looking at the issue in this way we were able to really seperate the issue and focus on one small aspect at a time – thus, breaking down the issue further created space for an important academic conversation.

Task 4 – map D

Intelligence agencies mapped against categories to determine their actions in society

The final map followed on from the information explored in map C above but focused on just one actor and mapped that actor against hierarchies, issues/challenges, capacities, associates, politics and value alignments. Choosing intelligence agencies as the main actor, we were able to put ourselves ‘in the mind of an intelligence agency’ as such and understand the purpose of this actor in the data security/online privacy world. Similar to map C, this brought up a new conversation and we discussed the purpose of intelligence agencies and the benefits they have on society.

Reflection

Working in groups can often prove challenging (be it in the initial stages or throughout the process) but it is only in a group setting that the conversation can develop and ideas begin to be thrown around leading to relevant design ideas. As I had only been really focusing on my research idea alone, it was important to go ‘back to the drawing board’ and listen to the ideas of others. Each member in my group was also researching the same topic but the discussion came from very different perspectives, relative to each person’s individual research idea or area. In this scenario I found it critical to actively listen to each member and ask open ended questions to keep the conversation flowing.

On the surface, all the maps created in this class relate to my project as they all fit directly into the category of data surveillance and online privacy. Delving deeper into my refined idea of spam/scam emails and how users interact with these emails, there is still a relationship between the two but it is not as strongly defined as I would have liked. This is possibly due to the fact that the maps were created in a group setting; not everyone had the same research idea and therefore the conversation was not on one idea alone. The techniques and methods used to create these maps however, can be re-used again on my research idea to investigate the topic in greater depth.

By creating these maps the huge benefit in mapping ideas with the techniques used became clear. They create thought-provoking avenues of conversation within a group setting and by doing this, change can occur through any direction or topic discussed. The maps become the starting point as a regular  mind map does and each map created becomes more and more detailed until design problems and solutions are highlighted and the research aspect of the design process can begin.

References

Rogers, R., Sánchez-Querubín, N. & Kil, A. 2015, Issue Mapping for an Ageing Europe, OAPEN, Amsterdam.

Header image
Google 2016, Google Maps, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://www.google.com.au/maps&gt;.

By Chloe Schumacher

Post Six: #NigerianPrinceScam

This post will explore the use of Twitter as a web scraper. Twitter was founded in 2006 by a small team of people (Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass) and is an online social media platform for built for users to create messages of 140 characters or less as well as read them from other users on a timeline; this makes Twitter a great platform for news highlights. Twitter has been made into a very responsive website and app which can be viewed and used on all technological platforms; computers, iPads/tablets, smartphones and the Apple watch. Twitter users can only interact with other twitter users but the platform works well for images shared seamlessly from Instagram to Twitter. The main features of a tweet are outlined below.

[Sydney Morning Herald 2016] Example of a tweet incorporating a news headline and link to external article

Twitter’s re-tweet function, whereby users are able to share another users’ tweet on their own timeline, is one of the main functions available aside from actually tweeting. Similar to many other popular social media sites, Twitter incorporates a like or favourite button as well as a trending sidebar which lists the hashtags or topics that are being tweeted about the most. Direct messaging is another function on Twitter whereby instead of tweeting publicly, one can send a tweet or message privately to another user. In terms of unique qualities, Twitter was the first social media platform to incorporate the use of the now incredibly popular hashtags; by way of searching for topics and interacting with other users tweeting about that same topic. Another unique quality is Twitter’s Moments panel which provides the latest or most shared information in categories such as ‘today’, ‘news’, ‘sports’, ‘entertainment’ and ‘fun’. After a while, these moment’s articles become tailored to the individual user and the topics they interact with the most. Although Twitter limits tweets to 140 characters or less, many users live tweet or create a tweet thread with their thoughts by replying to one tweet over again to create a thread of messages.

[Twitter 2016] Twitter’s Moments page displaying the latest in daily news

Twitter has a very wide audience, mainly younger generations who are more frequent on social media sites, and can be accessed by anyone who can reach the site through mobile or online technology. As mentioned above, due to the character limit per tweet, many news platforms have taken to Twitter to share stories as the tweet length is perfect for news headlines for those without time to read the full story. These headlines entice people in to continue to read the rest of the story through the provided link. It is through these news stories that hashtags are generated and users continue to discuss the events often providing their own opinion. Tweets can range from news headlines to personal thoughts and inspirational quotes to including imagery such as memes, selfies, general photography and fashion – thus, almost everything can be tweeted about by almost everyone.

[Common White Girl 2016] Example of a tweet incorporating an image or meme

[Kinsella 2016] Example of a tweet using a trending hashtag

Other than the main purpose of tweeting, Twitter can also be used to generate large amounts of information on particular topics. By a simple word search the archiver can pull hundreds to thousands of tweets from Twitter and categorise them in a spreadsheet. Using this web scraper, I decided to inquire about the common Nigerian Prince email scam that many people receive. I firstly did a broad search on Twitter using the general search button and received the results below.

[Twitter 2016] Initial Twitter search of ‘nigerian prince scam’

Although the initial Twitter search of the phrase ‘nigerian prince scam’ did generate many tweets on the topic, I decided to investigate further using the Twitter Archiver to ascertain if the results would be starkly different. A flow chart of the main steps is pictured below.

The search dialogue box is pictured below and the main phrase was used as well as additional words (‘email’, ‘fake’ and ‘money’) to further refine the search results. I also decided for the results to only include tweets in English as I would be unable to make sense of them in any other language.

Creating a search rule through the Twitter Archiver using additional terms of ‘email’, ‘fake’ and ‘money’

After creating the search rule, the Twitter Archiver began to generate the results and plot them in the spreadsheet opened. Although the actual tweets in the spreadsheet were the same as those I found in the initial Twitter search, the layout of the information was majorly different. Information such as each users’ screen name, full name, tweet, the app they tweeted on were displayed as well as that users’ Twitter bio, location of the tweet and basic statistics (number of followers/follows, retweets, favourites) as shown below.

Twitter Archiver’s search results displaying in a spreadsheet with added information about the tweet and Twitter user

The most recent (and the majority of) tweets using this Twitter Archiver appeared to show tweets from the USA in response to a news article regarding Donald Trump and due to these in-depth results, it was then interesting to look at the Twitter bios of these people to possibly determine why they are tweeting about the topic (e.g is it a topic they are involved in in some way as many of these users were) and this led me to pinpoint two of these tweeters, and investigate their initial tweets – one of the great features of the Twitter Archiver.

[(((AG))) 2016] Tweet referencing the ‘nigerian prince scam’ but in relation to the recent USA Presidential campaign

[¡Ay, yi No me gusta! 2016] Tweet using the ‘nigerian prince scam’ but in relation to online fraud through dating websites

Other than visualising this information in a spreadsheet, it would be very interesting to see how these tweets look on a world map. This would display where in the world each user tweeted from and in doing this one could then determine why some countries appear to discuss the issue more or less than others. Another visualisation is to display the dates of each tweet on an actual timeline as there could be many months where no-one would tweet about the topic, and some with an influx of tweets. This could be a result of government activity (as seen with the Trump tweets above) or even if there is a large amount of online email fraud occurring at one particular time.

Summary

1. The Twitter archiver displays the same search results as using the basic Twitter search but the layout of the information is much more in-depth (displays users’ screen name, full name, tweet, the app they tweeted on were displayed as well as that users’ Twitter bio, location of the tweet and basic statistics).
2. There are a variety of different ways to display the search results from the Twitter archiver including in a basic spreadsheet, on a world map (pin-pointing the location of each tweet), and displaying the tweets on a timeline (showing the when the topic was most discussed). 
3. It was interesting to see that the majority of the tweets mentioning ‘Nigerian prince scam’ did not use the phrase in a hashtag.
4. Many of the tweets displayed in the results were sent as a reply to a main tweet, creating and continuing the conversation which meant the tweets were mostly in response to the same single topic. Easy to see different points of view and watch the conversation move in different directions to gauge a common public opinion.
5. The Twitter archiver does not enable the user to easily see and click on images/links. After completing the same search on Twitter itself, I found that the majority of tweets using this phrase did not actually include images but for the few that did, it would have been great to see them incorporated into the spreadsheet to easily map the results.

References

(((AG))) 2016, ‘Trumpkins are the people who send money to a Nigerian Prince, then get mad at you for pointing out it’s a scam.’, Twitter post, 30 August, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/AG_Conservative/status/770304527056658433?lang=en>.

¡Ay, yi No me gusta! 2016, ‘Nigerian prince scam IRL: fraudsters are infiltrating dating sites to fleece people out of their savings’, Twitter post, 1 September, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/rajesh_v/status/771282670722711552>.

Common White Girl 2016, ‘I already lost the headphones just by lookin at the pic’, Twitter post, 3 September, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/CommonWhiteGrls/status/771862274856411136>.

Kinsella, C. 2016, ‘#HowToConfuseAMillennial Destroy the housing market, Replace grad jobs with unpaid internships, Tell them to buy a house’, Twitter post, 4 September, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/TVsCarlKinsella/status/772422941715890176>.

Sydney Morning Herald 2016, ‘‘Significant breach’: ANZ to return $28.8m to customers’, Twitter post, 5 September, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/smh/status/772683227177820160>.

Twitter 2016, Twitter, viewed 5 September 2016, <https://twitter.com/?lang=en>.

Header image
Business Insider 2016, Donald Trump cast a gigantic shadow over the Fox News debate, viewed 5 September 2016, <http://www.businessinsider.com.au/donald-trump-fox-news-debate-veterans-event-megyn-kelly-2016-1?r=US&IR=T&gt;.

By Chloe Schumacher

Web-scraping technique: #Online privacy

Written by Jiahui Li (nancy)

In order to gain a border understanding of online privacy that happened in people’s life, I looked up Twitter with web-scraping technique. Twitter as a social network is simply bring people closer to their interests and it’s still evolving with various options for its users. The network let users like create a profile, choose whom you would want to follow and post tweets which allow you share your mood and insight on the platform, as well as engage people build conversation around the world. All the tweets of people you follow appear as a shuffled list on your main Twitter page. Businesses have found Twitter to be an effective means of communication with their customers. The network connects businesses with their customers anytime, anywhere. However, it still has limitation of message number, following and follower.

On the other hand, twitter has built a unique function called “ Twitter Advanced Search”, which allow user to tailor search results to specific date ranges, people and more. This makes it easier to find specific Tweets. It been used for people who looking for specific topics and areas that can easy focus on their conversation between same topic. Based on the research, people has started against “privacy information usage” to protect their own information, they believe this is the most expedient way.  Therefore, people share on Twitter with representative image, own experience, articles and videos to not only express their positions, but to encourage more people to protect their own online privacy. On the other hand, business also exist as a big part in Twitter Advanced Search that help people dealing with their privacy issues. (See the image below)

(Twitter Advanced Search with key words “commercial online privacy)

 

(Twitter Advanced Search with key words “commercial online privacy)

Get start of using web-scraping, I set up the key words as “ web personal online privacy”. Most of these tweets are surrounding suggestions and experience with how to protect personal information online to avoid commercial website. Besides, twitter doesn’t have much conversations to communicate the issue specific into the keywords I set up; most of them shared between 2009-2016. At the same time, I have identified how hashtags/key words trend over the time, between 2009-2010, most of people start think about their online privacy and ask for how can they protect the information not be used; after 2010, people described the issue and list “how to control”; in the most recent post, it listed “should you tape over your webcam? personal guide to online privacy”.

( Twitter Advanced Search,”keywords web personal online privacy”, 2016)

 

Then I reset the hashtags to “web use privacy”. In these tweets, it is clear that personal opinions and positions are significantly less than those advertisings, which are used to explain how people deal with privacy issue. In other words, few tweets posted the position of “People Limit Web Use Due To Privacy Concerns” happened in America. Concerns about privacy and security are discouraging people from posting to social networks, expressing controversial opinions, conducting online banking and shopping from online retailers.

(Twitter Advanced Search, “web use privacy”, 2016)

 

(Twitter Advanced Search, “web use privacy”, 2016)

It’s interesting to look at is there a video is shared on Twitter, which shows the online privacy secret that some big companies didn’t tell you. The video come up with creepy and strong music, the text put you in a serious atmosphere; engaging and warning people protect their online privacy.

       (Vidivo.com 2010)

At the end, the positions and insights from different people all strongly proved the wealth of suggestions and experience through social media. It can help us get a deeper understanding of the seriousness of the issues, as well as provide more viable solutions. For future exploration and my design project, I would like using this data -scarping  technique to generate a range of privacy data flow and make them visually express the seriousness of online privacy.

5 point summary:

• Twitter Advanced Search help people easily gather information and research on social media.
• People has stand out to against companies use their personal information without their concern.
• More effective solutions/suggestions surrounding online privacy can be found out with web-scraping technique

• Concerns about privacy and security are discouraging people from posting to social networks

• A commercial website need post a privacy policy if it collects personally identifiable info

 

Reference

Vidivo.com 2010, Online Privacy Secrets EXPOSED Commercial – What Google Isn’t Telling Us, video recording, YouTube, viewed 3 September 2016,<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYP_hZmcRgg>.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Post 5 -Approached to design for change, design-led ethnography

Since data, privacy and security have been the major issues that I have been investigating, I wanted to find out what people thought of when they are asked about privacy and security, and distinguish an opinion around how online sites might be allowed access to your data.

The first step to developing the probes were the interviews that were carried out with class peers. Starting off with general questions about personal data and online privacy, the questions were framed mostly around whether or not they valued privacy and were concerned with the direction it is heading in the future. With the two interviews that were conducted, there were very opposing views in the issue. While one interviewee was very cautious of how their data is being used, constantly checking privacy settings, and deleting their browser history daily; the other interviewee had a much more laid back position on the issues, happy for companies to have their data when they have nothing to hide, believing that there is worse content out there, and that companies would inevitably get it anyway. As stated before, very opposing views.

With these interviews in mind, the concept for the design or cultural probe was to simplify the questions and really find out how people felt about online privacy, security and anything they would questions themselves. The first part of the probe was a one-time activity of answering four questions. The drive for these were to find out how the users defined privacy and security in their most basic forms. The other questions were more open in the way they questioned whether they value privacy–as some users don’t care–as well a question they have always liked to know the answer to, related to data.

Design probe for data and privacy

In terms of the results from these questions, the two I received back were very much the same in views. They define privacy as freedom, keeping to yourself and not worrying about things being forced out of them, while security they define as the state of feeling safe, protected, free from harm, and not needing to be on the lookout for danger. It is interesting to see that although they have very similar definitions, they context in which they are used is different. Privacy is more of a personal state where we choose the level or lack of privacy, but security is the public state, where it is the environment we are in that defines it. The other questions portrayed more personal views on the topic, with privacy and security highly valued qualities, but not something explicitly sought after. An interesting point that was brought up through this part of the probe however, is the query of how large businesses protect their data and the data of their clients safe–an investigation for another time.

Probe activity about defining privacy and security

The other part of the probe was more of a visually recording and mapping exercise. Throughout the week–or just all in one day–the participants were asked to record with stickers every major site they frequent. With a focus on the concept of online accounts, and different coloured stickers, the participants recorded details such as the follow: whether the site required an account to view the content, whether the account was just suggested for better viewing, if the site didn’t require an account at all, or whether they already had an account with that site. The concept of this part of the probe was to determine the amount of sites on today’s world wide web, and whether this can be linked to the increase of personal and preferential data gathered and stored. The trick was that sites could have multiple stickers if the participants wanted to provide extra information. And just like I thought when developing the probe–or at least this part–most popular or frequent sites visited require an account to view the content. It is unclear as to why they require an account as I didn’t read the term and conditions of any new sites I signed up to, however it seems a plausible conclusion that though the account–and the subsequent terms and conditions accepted–that the company of the site now own any data that you create on the site. This observation would certainly require more research into why accounts first started and why they are used so widely today, however from the probe result it is clear that this could be a possible answer.

Probe activity based around online accounts #1

Probe activity based around online accounts #2

Even though this design probe was somewhat of a success with regards to the answers and results, there were some difficulties both in the development of the probe, and trying to receive them back. The initial concept behind the probe was to dig really deep into the participants’ mind and figure out some tough questions. However, with some of the results from the interviews, in-depth questions or probes seemed too hard to get the users to understand when not being directly instructed face-to-face. Therefore, it was decided that an easier probe would provide more cohesive and accurate results. The next trouble was how do I get designers to participate and interact with an activity when it is speaking about data and the digital space. In keeping it simple, drawing was the first thought but it didn’t match the activity, therefore the visual representation of the stickers provided a simple interaction while recording different types of the same data. Another problem that arose during this probing exercise was actually getting the probes back. I managed to hand out 5 probes in order to get a good range of results and really see a survey of the audience, however I only received two back–even after constant messaging. An improvement on this issue would be to hand the probes out slightly earlier so that I could receive them back first hand. That, and coming up with a simple and effective probe that was suitable for the issue of data, were really the only problems that were encountered. I wouldn’t change much if the exercise were to be repeated, only the method of sending and receiving, and possible the type of task explored. The original plan was to stay away from privacy setting and recording sites that asked for access to your information, however with data this was always going to be a sub root. Although I did manage to spin it in a different way.

Some results and insights from this exercise I already knew or guessed, however some were also quite surprising and interesting to see. These insights can be reduced down into the following five points:

1. Privacy and security are valued even when not explicitly sourced.

2. The definitions of privacy and security are similar however they operate in different contexts; privacy is the private sector, whereas security is the public environment.

3. Most popular or frequently visited sites on today’s web require an account to view their content.

4. A reason for the overpowering number of sites requiring or suggesting an account could be so that they then own any data that you create or is stored about you.

5. Participants in design or cultural probes may not act as you expect or want.

Blog Post 5: Interview & Approaches to design for change, design-led ethnography

Online Sharing and Responsibility of Ownership

 

The commercialization of social media hugely influenced our cultural growth. Since the globalization of social media, privacy and responsibility have been one of the biggest issues in our generation. When every time I observe different types of social media platforms, the access of countless overshared and infringement of copyrights contents were released to public. Through this, I was curious about ownerships and privacy issues hence, I wanted to learn how the system works and how our responsibility on online sharing must be controlled. Interesting thing is people are oversharing their privacy and still complaining about the opened access at the same time. On the other hand, no one is actually in action to solve or learn such notable situations.

In my opinion, the issues of online privacy and content cannot be completely controlled yet, finding the fundamental factor which is reducing the amount of individual’s sharing and self-education and awareness could be the practical solution for every social networking users. Thus, it could imprint the users that everyone is responsible with our privacy issues. Through the research I have collected, providing the idea of basic duties of a user and suggestions to improve our online behavior is the main purpose of this task.

 

Interview Script

 

 

In my exercise, I wish to provide ‘Facebook’ as an example. Based on the interview from week 3 and my previous researches from children to young adults’ behavior on online, people irregularly yet, spend large amount of time on Facebook. According to the probe, and my first week’s research, a person approximately access or active at least 7 contents per day. Most of the social media platform is opened access. Once someone leaves an activity on content, the access causes the risk of sharing up-loader’s private content by random people. Social media platforms and applications were meant to be key point of communication. However, this should not allow people to share someone’s content without any relation or knowing each other. Sharing daily life with friends and family is beneficial action but, these often stored and used without owner’s knowledge. Since many network platforms are free access, the only practical challenge is be more aware on what we do and knowing what happens to my data.

 

 

Different Approach: How Other Countries’ Control the Privacy Issue?

From the week 1 research, I found that some countries offer their citizens to use their own ‘resident registration number’ to get an online access. The resident registration number is a collection of citizen’s data, which contains current address, finger print, phone number and detailed personal information. Most of Asia countries (such as Japan, Korea and China) were known to be strict with their online access. It is a responsibility to use their own ‘resident registration number’ to create an account, get an access and enter the most of the internet activities. This allows government to easily track down if there is a negative or illegal action through online. Compared to those countries accessing online without own resident ID, Asia citizens are more aware to avoid cybercrime and copyright infringement danger. Moreover, such system effectively forces people to realize their responsibility themselves. This is one of the different approaches (or system) that shows the possibility in balancing data and cautions of privacy issues.

Inocencio R., 2013,'World's overlooked countries to buy second citizenship, residency', CNN, Viewed 29/8/2016, <http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/28/business/world-overlooked-countries-second-citizenship/>

5 Point Summary

1. Most social media users are unaware on what they do
2. Information access needs to be stricter and users is responsible to know what happens to their data
3. Sharing without knowledge in copyright can be a potential criminal
4. Social media platforms allows people to share and communicate, yet this free access is opened risk for hackers and cyber crimes
5. Based on my point, there are two solutions; 1: self-knowledge in copyright and ownership (limiting an individual’s sharing) , 2: increase the safety and reduce the freedom of expression (limiting the access)

 

Blog Post 3: Mapping the participants and constructing an image archive

 

Online Privacy

Charlie Wonchan Jung
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We have listed out the relation and stakeholders in data and online privacy through this mapping exercise. The first image shows the big categories of organizations, government and group of individuals those use data and the internet. Basically, it is divided into 2 different categories, which is ‘1: those take advantages’ and 2: those get disadvantages’. Mostly tend to show it has effect in both sides. However, we found that more than half of the positions are taking disadvantages in our issues.

The second mapping is the relation path and each group’s affection of direction. We drew out the biggest groups (those highlighted with rectangle) that directly relate or mostly hold the data and privacy issues, such as Government, Terrorist, Population, Bank, Tech companies and Data seekers. This was to show how data & privacy was used positively or negatively through stakeholders hence, we settled up the government as positive side in reason of social & technological advance and duty of protection, and the terrorists as the largest negative side for the reason of hackers, and cyber terror. Some of them are showing very clear result of that how the affections end up with. For example, when the miner groups related to privacy issues are strongly relate to homeless people.

Based on the mapping, the stakeholder that has the most relations is technology companies and the government. They are dealing with the huge amount of data and information yet, where has the most responsibility to protect it. Therefore, the stakeholders of the data & privacy carry various types of ethical issues. It clearly shows what brings positive or negative vision based on how they take their responsibility or purpose on it.

 

 

 

 

IMAGE 1

My first image is a visual metaphor that represents the internet as a fishbowl and user as a fish inside the bowl. Our internat usage, data and all the information always remaining on online. The illustrator used ‘facebook’ as an example to criticize our recent social life. Social network has become the biggest communication tool in the world. There are thousands of applications and programs that allows people to share and talk. On the other hand, such connections created interferences and negative issues in our generation. Like the image above, our network and current system of data collection and protection is such a limited task to solve. It has become an accessable information for anyone to share and observe.

Tyrsina R., 2012, ‘White House to Pass Bill for Online Privacy Protection?’, Techpp, viewed 21/8/2016, <http://techpp.com/2012/02/23/white-house-unveils-plan-to-protect-online-privacy/>

 

IMAGE 2

The second image is another visual metaphor of keyboard. Pressing enter key is physical and serious responsibility to share content or opinion. Sharing is one of the most important marketing tools in recent industry. Which means, it is not just an individual’s right yet, this could bring some serious ethical problems between business and organization. There are millions of shared contents, comments and opinions by users without any cares on the copyrights. Recently, it is so much easier to observe those uncomfortable creations of exhaustive and unproductive online debates or conversations on any socializing websites. This image reminds me as a suggestion for those who are sharing illegal contents, oversharing and various other negative movements to realize their own responsibility and ownerships.

Hamel S., 2012, ‘Responsibility & Accountability for Online Analytics’, Online Behavior, viewed 22/8/2016, <http://online-behavior.com/analytics/responsibilities>

IMAGE 3

It is true that the social networking, internet, data and other digital supports and tools created our life handiness. However, as people acclimatized to it, we tend to forget or realize the opposite side of it. Data is such an easy access in the present. It allows searching the history of usage, other information, and even someone’s detail. On the other hand, it means others can access own privacy as well. Whether it is official of not, data leak is an unexpected obstacle problem. This image is presenting such possibility of information leakage and a safeguard against the possible loss.

Cox J., 2016, ‘Kickstarter Campaign to Scan and Publish 11 Million Pages of CIA Files’ Russia Insider, viewed 22/8/2016, <http://russia-insider.com/en/society/11-million-pages-cia-files-may-soon-be-shared-kickstarter/ri12631>

IMAGE 4

Nowadays, most of the transactions are proceed through the net banking. Since the creation of smart phone (iPhone, Samsung, etc…), it has been much easier to trade our needs through online. At the same time, the new field ‘phone banking’ has opened to hackers as another achievement. Cyber terror can directly relate to target’s worth, it is strongly relate to property issues and our recent online and data protection is not in advanced level. There are broad ways people can get hacked by someone through mobile services or programs such as random advertisement, illegal websites and black webs. It may seems very natural and unpredictable like water flowing down for victims to realize.

‘Save Money By Avoiding Electricity Leaks Around the House’, 2016, Buck$Coop, viewed 22/8/2016, <http://www.buckscoop.com.au/bargain-blog/save-money-by-avoiding-electricity-leaks-around-the-house/>

IMAGE 5

This image is call ‘Privacy free country poster’ designed by design company Zazzle’s designer ‘Groggie’. It is representing the privacy issues from the globalization of data, internet and social networking. They used CCTV as a visual metaphor to signify unknown watchers on online. We are all able to share our daily life and hobbies on online. The problem is some people overshare their own issues and events to the public. This could be observed and shared by either acquaintances or random people. Hence, it has relation in invasion of private life. However, this cannot be blamed since the publisher opened up the access to community spaces. This image is criticizing on such types of oversharing situation.

Groggie G., 2016, ‘Privacy Free Country Poster’, Zazzle, viewed 22/8/2016, <http://www.zazzle.com/privacy_free_country_poster-228857215053226833>

IMAGE 6

This constructivism style ‘facebook poster’ was done by designer ‘Ben Barry’ in 2013. He promotes concept call ‘Hackathons’ through this poster. Hackathon is an action of hacker’s hacking programs in certain amount of time. He says this was “ways to visually represent Facebook’s famous hacker culture”. Interesting thing is hackers do not really need to put many efforts to get someone’s detail anymore. Compare the recent hacking from the past, it has become so easier to get personal information. Those social networking applications such as Facebook, Instagram and twitter, everyone can just access the other’s personal detail with just clicking their pages. This poster design is including all those implicative meanings on social networking.

Barry B., 2013, ‘Facebook Poster & Ephemera’, Office of Ben Barry, viewed 25/8/2016, <http://benbarry.com/project/facebook-posters-and-ephemera>

IMAGE 7

As my concept is more related to copyrights and responsibility, anonymity is a big part of it. The poster ‘Anonymity poster’ was done by Groggie. Relate anonymity to our mapping, it is close to hackers. Intrinsically, anonymity supposed to be people’s guaranteed right to protect themselves from cyber terror. In fact, hackers and cyber criminals are more likely to be getting an opportunity through anonymity offers.

Groggie G., 2016, ‘Anonymity Poster’ Zazzle, viewed 25/8/2016, <http://www.yourdreambuilt.com/product/anonymity_poster-228107743344412423.html>

IMAGE 8

For some reason, this image reminded me of people’s facebook terror when a person’s account is been played by someone. People often make mistakes with logging in or creating account. The cases are uncountable, yet there are few situations that many people may face from their carelessness. One of the cases is forgetting to log out their account once finished using the website or application. I have seen people leaving without logging out their facebook account after finished using computer from university, office, PC café and many others. More importantly, those people tend to think someone hacked their account when they faced such types of situations.

Dias J., 2016, ‘To Fight Cyber Crime, KPMG Launches ‘Cyber Kare’ Toolkit’, NetWorkInDia, viewed 25/8/2016, <http://www.networkedindia.com/2016/04/02/to-fight-cyber-crime-kpmg-launches-cyber-kare-toolkit/>

IMAGE 9

Online game has become one of the greatest online cultures in the twenty-first century. It has become the biggest business marketing and black market for individual players those who are trading their accounts or items to others with real money. Indirectly, it influenced various people’s worth and privacy. ‘World of Warcraft’ is the largest and most famous online game in the world. Once it was able to sell account and items through e-bay. There were thousands of hacking issues and illegal trades going on. In relation to privacy, there was various indirect cybercrimes. The victim’s personal detail such as email address, house address and etc… was exposed to hackers. This game requires user to put their email address and few personal details to create an account.

‘Ex World Of Warcraft Dev: “Old Servers Would Bring Back Community’, 2016, WCCF, viewed 25/8/2016, <http://wccftech.com/world-warcraft-dev-servers-bring-community/>

IMAGE 10

‘Pokemon Go’ was the trend and sensation of mobile game in 2016. This was provided as the biggest interaction for users to searching location and communicating each other. The system was based on GPA tracking, yet this could occur the risk of player’s location tracks being monitored. This also whispers the privacy concern that the Pokemon Go makers can take over its users’ address and Google account.

‘Participate in the Pokémon GO Field Test!’ 2016, Pokemon Go, viewed 25/8/2016, <http://www.pokemon.com/us/pokemon-news/participate-in-the-pokemon-go-field-test/>

 

 

 

Post Five: Are junk emails trustworthy?

To appeal to a target group of 18-28 year olds, a set of five questions were devised in order to determine how much knowledge a member of this said target audience has on the topic of data surveillance and online privacy. These questions, acting more as conversation starters than direct questions, provided a much more personal insight into the data world in relation to the secondary research carried out previously.

Interview Questions:

1. Have you ever received a scam email? Describe its contents.
2. How did you know this was a scam or a legitimate email? What features gave this away?
3. Do you think people should have the same level of privacy for their belongings and assets online as they do with belongings and assets in real life? 
4. Who should be at fault if someone falls for a scam email or similar? The person who clicks the links, or the person who creates the links?
5. Do you go to any lengths to ensure your privacy/safety online? (e.g using separate emails, not using location services, covering webcams/microphone).

The interview questions were asked to a peer not currently researching data surveillance and online privacy and therefore the answers were somewhat cautious and guarded as they could only relate to personal experience or what they had seen recently in current affairs rather than in-depth secondary research on the topic. This garnered a much more ‘real life’ response to the questions and issues presented which is extremely useful to understand and consider when investigating the topic of data surveillance and online privacy as a whole.

Interview Responses:

1. Haven’t received any to my direct inbox, only to my junk mail inbox. They usually say “you’ve won money” etc.
2. I didn’t recognise the sender of the email and I hadn’t entered my details into anything that related to the email. It’s all about reliability.
3. Facebook and Google are all about tailored advertising which is creepy and an invasion of privacy – people should be asked if something is going to be seen elsewhere on the internet. However, the same people are usually those who illegally download so I guess it works both ways.
4. If it is something recognisably fake or something that looks explicitly like a scam then it’s your fault as you should be more aware. But if the scam looks real then it isn’t so much your fault but there should be more privacy awareness around the issue – just depends on the situation.
5. I have an AdBlocker on my laptop which prevents a lot of things like tailored advertising etc. Always have social media accounts on private. I try not to use geotagging on images on Instagram or Facebook. I don’t visit untrustworthy sites.

From these responses, I decided to investigate the scam email issue further by attempting to discover if people actually trusted any junk emails they were sent. I conducted a probe kit to be filled out over a week and garnered the response shown below.

Instructions provided for the scam email probe kit

Response from the scam email probe kit after one week

After receiving the probe kit back, I realised my instructions could have been more detailed and should have included a section to write why the particular email was deemed trustworthy or not. This would have provided a better insight into the aesthetic features of emails that some are so quickly to write off as scams. Despite this minor failure, I was able to understand that people do have the ability to determine whether or not they trust an email or not and this opens up a whole new argument of why some users are so well-informed in this area and why some users are not informed at all; an area which I will be researching further.

Five Point Summary:

1. People definitely have the ability to determine the trustworthiness of an email.
2. The emails the user marked as trustworthy were from well-known senders which obviously influenced this tick of approval.
3. Junk/scam emails are definitely more common to receive in the junk email folder than ‘trustworthy’ emails (as suspected). I’m interested to know if there is an algorithm that determines this.
4. Junk emails aren’t always scam emails – the probe kit should have asked the user to actually determine if the email was a scam email (fraudulent etc) not just a junk or spam email.
5. The probe kit should have specified to include a reason behind why they listed an email as trustworthy or not – this would have then been great to test on other groups to see if the reasons were similar.

Header Image
Email sourced from a personal account

By Chloe Schumacher

Post Three: A world of hackers

After an initial brainstorm session and then in-depth research surrounding data surveillance and online privacy, it can be seen that the main stakeholders appear to be government agencies, personal users, online/cloud, social media users, businesses, hackers and law enforcement groups.

Although there is a much larger audience for such a topic, these stakeholders appear to cover the main groups and provide an overview of the data privacy/surveillance topic. By mapping these stakeholders, it becomes easier to gain an understanding of the topic as a whole with each stakeholder critically influences the next, especially the ‘hackers’, who definitely hold the strongest ties to each group mapped below.

Data surveillance/online privacy stakeholders map

The following ten images relate to or represent an aspect of data surveillance and/or online privacy in some way or another. Through researching and archiving these images a different aspect of the topic is showcased which leads to a much more in-depth knowledge of the issue overall.

Image One

[Slane n.d.] The Privacy Trainwreck

A political cartoon, this image portrays two government officials (or so they seem by their formal work attire) ‘stealing’ both online and paper form documents as well as wire-tapping calls without cause. Many law enforcement and government agencies monitor public and personal online activity without informing the individual user and without any real reason to do so in the hope they find something of any importance – a clear invasion of privacy. Current news articles do explore this issue but without blatantly placing blame on any party and always ensuring there is a reason behind the online surveillance search, whereas this cartoon displays the opposite.

Image Two

[Screenshot of personal email] No lies, no scams.

This image was sourced from a personal email account in the junk mail folder. Clearly a scam email, the content explains how to receive ‘earnings of $498,651 per month’ by clicking on certain links to complete online surveys. This email is the most detailed representation of a scam email as it includes all the warning signs that many newspaper or journal articles explore; multiple links, details about large sums of money, rhetorical questions, words such as ‘fake’, ‘profits’, ‘scams’, ‘millionaire’. Even at first glance this email appears extremely fraudulent; the sender ‘Become a Millionaire’ and the subject line alone ‘no lies, no scams’ are enough to determine this.

Image Three

[Big Data Partnership 2016] Data protection and privacy

This image is possible one of the first images to appear on a Google search of ‘online privacy’ or ‘data surveillance’ and therefore is the most stereotypically common thing to think of when imagining these topics. However, nothing about this image directly relates to data privacy. The hooded figure, supposedly a hacker, appears behind lines of ‘code’, which is actually binary numbers mixed with the word ‘password’ in red. The purpose of the image is to create an aura of fear with password protection. Although this image is not a reliable source at all in terms of data surveillance or online privacy, it does provide a commercial or public overview of the topics as something to be feared which hopefully leads to people being more cautious online.

Image Four

[Breen n.d.] Data Mining

This cartoon uses modern day technology ‘necessities’ to show that the more devices one owns, the less privacy you have. These days it is almost a form of high status or class to be in ownership of the latest technological device.The man in the cartoon appears to be so involved in obtaining this high status that he is very ironically unaware of his surroundings, more specifically the ‘data mining’ headline on the newsstand. Devices such as smartphones, smartwatches and Google Glass, as pictured in the cartoon, do have their personal benefits (allowing the user to work better, organise their life, keep in touch with friends and family, etc). But in terms of privacy and data surveillance it is quite easy to say that people who own these items have very little (if any) online privacy.

Image Five

[Maheshwari 2008] Anonymous Data

Anonymous Data makes light of contracts to emphasise how many online contracts almost force the user to accept the contract otherwise they will not be able to make use of the website or service. It also touches on, in some way, how clueless many users are when it comes to submitting personal information online. The cartoon portrays an online user reaching a privacy policy but instead of the usual ‘I agree’ or ‘I disagree’ options, both state the former. It provides a ‘dumbed down’ version of an everyday online privacy policy, one the user is forced to accept or they cannot make use of the online service.

Image Six

[Slane n.d.] Three Bears

This cartoon uses the age-old children’s tale of Goldilocks and the Three Bears to represent online privacy in a more relatable fashion and in a very modern context. In this cartoon, ‘Goldilocks’ has trawled through the bears’ computers terminating their online privacy, rather than making use of their bed, porridge or chairs as is told in the original story. ‘Goldilocks’ in this cartoon could be pinned as government officials, law enforcement agencies or hackers but this is left to the viewers’ own imagination.

Image Seven

[Nimmo 2013] Federal judge rules NSA surveillance legal

An almost direct play on Shepard Fairey’s 2008 ‘HOPE’ poster designed for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, this image almost reverses the positive influences of Obama and makes very public claims of the governments’ relentless and unnecessary wiretapping. As the original image was so iconic and well-known, this poster becomes incredibly eye-catching and therefore is a much stronger and instant representation of a somewhat corrupt government than is portrayed in news articles.

Image Eight

[Stahler 2010] Online Privacy

This cartoon focuses on online privacy in a social media sense. Using the iconic ‘Facebook’ webpage, the image portrays a regular user on the website but in a fish bowl. The purpose of the fishbowl is to represent the fact that there is no privacy when it comes to social media, much like there is no privacy for a fish in a glass fish bowl; every move is being watched and monitored. The views presented in this image do not differ much from what is being represented in current news articles but in an image form, the moral or message becomes a lot clearer in this visual form as shown above.

Image Nine

[Golden Frog 2016] Internet privacy concerns affecting online shopping, banking habits

This vector image of a shadowed hand reaching for a credit card through a tablet represents the increasingly common issue of online fraud. Those who shop online or who willingly add their bank details online are at risk of online fraud as many do not take the required precautions to ensure their privacy, and even those that do are still not safe as hackers are almost always smarter than the system in place to stop them. Although in a vector format which usually takes away a lot of emotion, the image is still powerful and therefore is a better representation of this online fraud than a text article. This is because looking at an image to gain information over an article is often a much quicker process.

Image Ten

[Skipper 2013] Declassified FBI files detail secret surveillance team

This photograph, similar to image three is a very visual representation of a hackers’ world. Much more reliable than image three, this image portrays what can be assumed as an FBI employee trawling through the online world through multiple screens and devices. The image as a whole has a very threatening appeal and therefore does differ from a lot of current news or text articles available on the topic of online privacy and data surveillance. Often articles fail to bring across the element of fear when the content requires it but in an image form it becomes easier.

References

Big Data Partnership 2016, Data protection and privacy in big data: how to healthcare and banking handle sensitive customer information, viewed 28 September 2016, <https://www.bigdatapartnership.com/2016/03/15/data-protection-privacy-big-data-healthcare-banking-handle-sensitive-customer-information/>.

Breen, S. n.d. Data Mining, viewed 28 September 2016, Creators, <https://www.creators.com/features/steve-breen>.

Golden Frog 2016, Internet privacy concerns affecting online shopping, banking habits, viewed 28 September 2016, <https://www.goldenfrog.com/blog/internet-privacy-concerns-affecting-online-shopping-banking-habits-us>.

Maheshwari, A. 2008, Anonymous Data, Brainstuck, viewed 28 September 2016, <https://brainstuck.com/2008/06/24/anonymous-data/>.

Nimmo, K. 2013, Federal judge rules NSA surveillance legal, Prison Planet, viewed 28 September 2016, <http://www.prisonplanet.com/federal-judge-rules-nsa-surveillance-legal.html>.

Slane, C. n.d., Three bears, Slane Cartoons, viewed 28 September 2016,  <http://www.slane.co.nz/slane_privacy_sampler1.html>.

Slane, C. n.d., The Privacy Trainwreck, Slane Cartoons, viewed 28 September 2016, <http://www.slane.co.nz/privacy_cartoons.html>.

Skipper, J. 2013, Declassified FBI files detail secret surveillance team, RT News, viewed 28 September 2016, <https://www.rt.com/usa/fbi-epic-stingray-cell-942/>.

Stahler, J. 2010, Online Privacy, TechPP, viewed 28 September 2016, <http://techpp.com/2012/02/23/white-house-unveils-plan-to-protect-online-privacy/>.