Author Archives: James Roepe's Blog

Creation and Consumption

Leave a reply

I would say in terms of creation the web has made creation much more accessible and cheap then it was. Before the internet and creation tools people would have to buy expensive art supplies to make animation or pictures. Animation was tedious and time consuming, even the smallest error could cost hours of work. Now we have free animation tools with the ability to press ctrl z to undo the largest mistake. Photoshop maybe expensive but not compared to the same supplies in real life. Consumption of creation is also made easier by the web. Instead of having to go a museum or art exhibit to view someones work one can simply click a link or search a name. But this accessibility also leaves room for piracy and copyright infringement. Our consumption is almost instant which maybe makes us used to instant gratification which can cause expectations to be unreasonable when one is faced with consuming something that takes longer to achieve. Consumption fads are also much easier to find and follow which leads to large fads that sometimes take a long time to die. There also appears to be fads that come in flashes like the harlem shake (thank god it’s gone). So, in the grand scheme of things I think cultural views of creation and consumption have benefited and will continue to benefit greatly from the web.

Future of Communication

Leave a reply

I will touch on a few issues and  changes that will happen to communication in the near future. Right now we view ISPs as pseudo-monopolies that provide a service with barriers to entry. I also believe that cellphone companies will disappear. My guess is that in the future internet will be viewed as a public good because we will grow to depend on it more and more. It will be like sewage or public roads. I also believe the internet will be accessible from practically everywhere. The government will probably spend money on contractors to build the infrastructure. You will be able to download terabytes worth of data in little time. If our species really grows and we inhabit other planetary bodies (mars, our moon, and maybe some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn look like good candidates) we will have to worry about the latency from near light to light speed travel of data. For data to get to mars traveling at the speed of light it would take a few minutes. For data traveling to Saturn it would take approximately 70 t0 80 minutes. So communication to and from earth will not be as instant as it is now. I believe most of the social media will still be in place but my guess is that it will be more consolidated then it already is. Lastly I believe cryptocurrency will be just as popular as real currency.

Future of Communication

Leave a reply

I will touch on a few issues and  changes that will happen to communication in the near future. Right now we view ISPs as pseudo-monopolies that provide a service with barriers to entry. I also believe that cellphone companies will disappear. My guess is that in the future internet will be viewed as a public good because we will grow to depend on it more and more. It will be like sewage or public roads. I also believe the internet will be accessible from practically everywhere. The government will probably spend money on contractors to build the infrastructure. You will be able to download terabytes worth of data in little time. If our species really grows and we inhabit other planetary bodies (mars, our moon, and maybe some of the moons of jupiter and saturn look like good candidates) we will have to worry about the latency from near light to light speed travel of data. For data to get to mars traveling at the speed of light it would take a few minutes. For data traveling to saturn it would take approximately 70 t0 80 minutes. So communication to and from earth will not be as instant as it is now. Our brains might start to be interfaced directly with the internet kind of like google glass except for without the glasses. I believe most of the social media will still be in place but my guess is that it will be more consolidated then it already is. Lastly I believe crypto-currency will be just as popular as real currency.

In Search of Cyber Peace A Response to the Cybersecurity Act of 2012

Leave a reply

http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/cyber-peace

^link to the article

This article is about the Cyber Security Act of 2012. The article start of by breaking down the various kinds of cyber threats into 4 categories: cyber terrorism, cyber war, cyber crime, and cyber espionage. The articles states that cyber crime and espionage are the two serious problems. Cyber terrorism and cyber war are harder to find and are generally rarer. An interesting quote in the article said that cyber criminals stole approximately 1 trillion dollars in 2008. The article also goes into another form of cyber crime that doesn’t involve money, hacktivism. Anonymous and other similar groups carry out cyber crimes with large numbers of hackers. They usually go after websites that they find are against what they view as right. The act does not require cyber standard for private companies. Private companies should have their own standards on cyber security. One important thing to note about the act is that it doesn’t give the president an internet kill switch, which presumably in a time of crisis would be used to cut off private internet access across the country.

Cloud Computing: An Overview

Leave a reply

p2-cto_overview

^PDF of paper

This is another article published by the ACM. The article starts off by going into why cloud computing is becoming more popular. The main reasons are that it’s low in cost and easily accessible to individuals looking to store or retrieve information. They divide cloud computing into 3 areas: SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. They stand for software-as-a-service, platform-as-a-service, and infrastructure-as-a-service. The article goes into how multitenant data centers are far more cost effective for companies then single tenant centers. Cloud computing internally in a company is efficient because of its low cost to IT infrastructure and high benefits and accessibility. The article continues on talking about the pros of cloud computing. At the end it goes into cloud computing security and gives tips about how security measures should be implemented.

What is Bitcoin? Strengths and weaknesses of the leader in a new generation of emerging cryptocurrencies.

Leave a reply

p40-hobson

^PDF of paper

This article written by Dominic Hobson of the ACM talks about the pros and cons of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. The article starts off by going into how your money transactions over the internet are far from clandestine. Grocery companies analyze characteristics about you to make better advertising. Services like PayPal have even been accused millions of times of taking money. One of the reasons Bitcoin is interesting is that it gives someone more anonymity to the owner when they purchase something online. Hobson goes on to explain that Bitcoins record no information about its owner. Owners of Bitcoin do require wallet addresses but users are encouraged to have many addresses. If an owner loses or deletes their Bitcoin there is no way to replace it which is one of the downsides. Hobson then goes on to explain “mining” which he explains in a 4 step process. Mining is trial and error and the more people you have mining the greater the chance is that you will find Bitcoins. The rewards for Bitcoin are halved every 4 years so no more then 21 million Bitcoins will exist. He explains that because there are so many people mining there is less of a likelihood that someone would be able to hack. He then goes into the weaknesses of Bitcoin. The main weaknesses are that the general public doesn’t understand how they work and how to use them safely, that it is a very volatile asset, and that it can be used in the purchase of illegal goods and services online because of its anonymity.

Virtual Currency, Tangible Return: Portfolio Diversification with Bitcoins

Leave a reply

wp13031

^PDF of paper

My next source is about how well Bitcoin works at diversifying a portfolio. The authors are interested in analyzing Bitcoin because it has very high average return and volatility but it also has very low correlation with other assets which might make it a good candidate for someone trying to diversify their portfolio. They analyze Bitcoin from the stand point of a US investor who has diversified assets in world-wide stocks, hard currencies, and bonds and alternative assets like commodities, hedge funds, and real estate. They state Bitcoin is influenced only by supply and demand which is different from more traditional currencies which are usually controlled by a central bank. They find that Bitcoin would be an excellent investment for someone who has a very diversified portfolio. In investing, risk can be mitigated by low correlation with other investments which makes sense. Even though Bitcoin has high volatility, its risk can be mitigated because of its low correlation to other investments. They end by saying their key message is that virtual currencies deserve to be recognized by financial analysts.