thelump.net

This Week in Lumps
#12 [07/08 - 13/08]

· Last Tuesday, during my summary of the Google topic, I talked briefly on three search engines, Hakia, Fisssh! and ChaCha. These three search engines are by no means your everyday run-of-the-mill search tools, as they cater for a specific market, be it guided, filtered, or meaning based. Like these examples, there is a growing market of search engines that, unlike Google, (which is more like an online jack of all trades, master of none) advertise themselves as being the best place to find and search a much more specific genre. It could be jobs, music or a significant other that you want to search around for, and they can help you.One that I have recently come across defines itself as a ‘personal search’, but can be better defined as a search engine for finding people, be it friends, relatives, or that hot girl who always gets the train the same time as you, and you only know her first name. Its spock.com, an acronym for for ’single point of contact (by) keyword’, and I’ve been signed up since Saturday, trying out what it has to offer, asking (apart from…does it actually work?) the two most valid questions : how and why. Brace yourself, this may get bumpy…

So the name of the game here is that once you’ve found the site you’re faced with a similar search bar as per normal. You type in a name, and it gives you a list of people with that name, with relevant tags underneath. These names, and the information provided about that person come from MySpace, LinkedIn, and a few other select sources. Before I signed up, I searched my name, as you would do. It provided me with a few other ‘me’s’ around the world, but lo-and-behold, there I was, about 3 or 4 names down the list… however according to Spock, I was apparently born in October, not November, and that my education only reaches as far as ’some college’, when I’ve never been educated in a college all my life. More strangely, I find that I have my own profile page without even knowing. This is where I start to get a little bit perplexed by this whole idea, so I go looking for some answers. The website itself states, quite clearly:

“Spock uses its special algorithm to crawl popular sites on the web and combines this with community tagging to create relevant and rich profiles for people.”

Straight away I’m starting to feel violated, and to make matters worse, a lot of the information that spock is showing off as being relevant to me is completely out of date. A dreadful feeling of a loss of security engulfs my being, as I find out that it has my job title, my star sign, my hometown, and my relationship status all openly available, yet I haven’t had this information “available” on MySpace since the end of last year, when I completely removed everything from my MySpace page, and covered it with a custom designed layout template. The reason behind this change was not because MySpace is ugly, (even though it is) but it was because of the popularity it had reached, and the feeling of vulnerability regarding my identity and what information I give out over the web: In other words, exactly what this site seems to be guilty of, taking information and using it for another cause. Feeling somewhat uneasy, I soldier on. I signed up, and it asked me to sign into my MySpace account. Once again, the feeling of perplexity sinks in, I’m giving my passwords away to a company I’ve only just heard about? I went looking for answers again:

There are several reasons why we ask for your logon credentials. The first is that it makes it easier to find people you know on Spock. Spock populates your favorites with people in your e-mail contacts list. Another reason is to claim any Spock profiles that may exist of you. Spock associates profiles with e-mail addresses, which verify your identity automatically.

Straight away its screaming “Ha, I’m actually a phishing website” right at me. The feeling of violation is not going away. Yes, okay, I admit, this information has, at some point or another, been entered onto MySpace, but not only has it not been there for a very long time, my profile page pre-December last year was always ‘private’, meaning nobody could see my page without being accepted as a friend. In retrospect, I’m lucky that this information isnt anything more serious, such as telephone numbers and addresses. I’ve read on digg tonight about a situation where a group photo was taken from sombodies friends profile, and used as his profile picture of spock, just because he was in it. This is no longer at the level of curiousity with the hot girl in the train station, this is following her home, creeping up to her window and watching her sleep. ARS Technica summed my view up in their review:

This naturally raises concerns from privacy advocates about personal information being organized, collected, and offered to others online without one’s knowledge or consent. And with Spock claiming to have already indexed some 100 million individuals—with another million being added each day—it seems pretty likely that a large number of those people are not managing their own profiles.

So why is this website gaining attention? It’s unique, I do admit, but that fact is overpowered by how scary it is. You seem to be safe if you’ve never had an online social networking site, but failing that, you’re probably on this site somewhere, and so is a lot of information about you that you may not be willing to give up so easily. Another point that needs to be raised is how unnecessary it really is. Sites like MySpace and Bebo all have search functions built in, powered by Google and Ask respectively, so what’s wrong with using that option? If I was feeling curiously stalkerish on any level I would find people via the actual sites themselves than rely on a third party site that only has the information because they’ve stolen it from somewhere else.
Spock.com should really have been called Stalker.com. It may be unique, but it’s not special, or clever. I predict that it won’t be long before its upsets someone, and its uniqueness is challenged by lawsuits and legal action. I for one would prefer that it didnt exist.

~

· According to Beijings English-language newspaper The China Daily, 13% of China’s 20 million Internet users under 18 can be classed as addicts. Measures are now being implemented to send extreme cases off to an ‘experimental summer camp’ to be treated for depression, fear, unwillingness to interact with others, panic and agitation, eventually weaning them off of severe Internet usage. According to numerous reports:

China is also currently deciding whether further laws are required on governing what types of online games are available to play. New Internet cafes have been stopped from opening for the moment. In a joint effort with the camp, Shanghai’s education commission has organised a volunteer group to patrol the city streets and stop minors entering internet cafes.

This isnt the first time that addiction from the Internet or computer games has come under scrutiny in Asia. In 2004, a 13 year old jumped to his death after playing 36 continuous hours of World of Warcraft, and in 2005, A Korean couple faced criminal charges after leaving their 4 month old baby to die from neglect and suffocation as they spent 5 hours at an Internet cafe playing the same game.

It isn’t just limited to Asia, either. In Monday’s Metro Newspaper there was an interesting article on this subject, mentioning other countries, such as the US, Holland, and yes, the UK. In the US apparently, 8.5% of gamers could be classed as addicted, while in Britain that rises to 12%. The article continues on to mention an American husband, who “continued to play [EverQuest] in the delivery room while his wife gave birth”.

As a part-time gamer and a self confessed geek, I’ve defended video games and consoles countless times against people who say that it encourages violence and crime. I vividly remember an hour long verbal death-match I had with a Christian woman over the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, about how she was convinced it was “corrupting our youth”. Now I’m adding the Internet into future discussions. Sadly, discussing how addictive the Internet, or some MMORPGS actually are could last a long time, and will almost certainly have many tangents and counter-arguments. If however, you do feel you are addicted to games, your safe bet would be to check out this website, and if addicted to the Internet, slap irony right in the face and try this quiz. Question 10 is a hoot:

How often do you block out disturbing thoughts about your life with soothing thoughts of the internet?

All the time, your Honour, all the time…

~

· The Godfather, one of the greatest films (if not, THE greatest film) of all time, ranked #1 on IMDB for as long as I can remember, a ranking of 100% on rottentomatoes.com, and a film the DVD shelves of every movie fan the world over. It didn’t really need an introduction, but I gave it one anyway. Now this masterpiece of film has become a masterpiece for your wall, at a stupidly low price. For a mere $13.99 (£6.95 ish) you can have this stunning piece of artwork in your household, courtesy of LA Pop Art. The poster takes the entire script of the movie, and turns in into an epic portrait of Marlon Brando, as his character Don Vito Corleone. It has to be seen to be believed, and has to be a strong consideration for an upcoming birthday for anyone you consider worthy enough. Even if you’re not a fan of The Godfather, there’s other films, songs or speeches to choose from on the website, the red wine artwork has my attention as well.

~~~

That was the week in lumps, a week in which: UWB gets the A-OK in the UK, Big Ben is going to be quiet until September, Joy Division announced a best of album to coincide with the UK release of Control, but was overshadowed by the sad news of the death of Mr. Manchester: Tony Wilson.

You may have thought I’d be ending this week with the picture of the Bolivian dog with two noses, and that I’ve thought up some witty pun to go with it. Well, no, you’d be wrong. Instead I’m closing this week with a picture of proof that geeks do get married, and how they decorate their car with the ‘just married’ look.

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