Journal #14 - Where do I go from Here?

                Before taking CIS 115, I knew that I wanted to do something with computer networking because it is what I did for the United States Army for 4 years and it is what I studied in college before I joined the military.  I enjoyed the experience I had with the Army building computer networks and brainstorming of new Information Technology methods.  This class gave me the insight to go deeper into the computer networking field and study Cyber Security.  It seems that Cyber Security is a major topic of discussion in today's society and I would like to go more in dept with it while attending Kansas State University.  Cyber Security experts are in high demand with the government, and this is the reason why the government has poured a lot of money into the Cyber Security Department at K-State.   This money allows the university to give out grants and scholarships to students who want to peruse a degree in cyber security.  As one of these students who is interested, I want to take advantage of this opportunity in the semesters to come.  The Cyber Security Department is small at K-State and so that means that I would have a lot of quality time in class to share my thoughts and ideas with the professor and my peers.  I will get the opportunity to build a professional relationship with my professor and my peers and this will make the knowledge easier to grasp and working on projects easier.

                After I graduate from K-State, I would like to be a hacker and work for the government.  I think being a hacker would be an adventurous career and no two days will be alike.  I will use all of the knowledge that I would have learned from the Cyber Security Department at K-State to outsmart the enemy and come up with new and innovating ways to stop and neutralize the threat.  I will hack the government's own network system to find exploits that the enemy can use and fix them so they are no longer a threat.  I have fought on the front lines before when I was deployed in Iraq, and I have a feeling the next World War will be fought will be in cyberspace.  I will be on the front lines again, but instead of staring at the battlefield from iron sights I will be staring at it from a computer monitor.

Journal #13 - Making Meaning

                Blown to Bits by Abelson, Ledeen, and Lewis gave me a whole new perspective in information security.  This book gave me the idea that any form of technology can be used help us, or be used against us to invade our privacy.  Chapter 2 talks about GPS and how it can be used to help people find their location and maybe even save them from being lost.  GPS can even be used to find important geological and cultural discoveries. This same technology can be used by hackers or criminals to infiltrate our privacy and stalk us.  Chapter 3 warns us of who we send PDF and Microsoft Word Documents to.  This chapter explains that the information we erase from a document can easily be brought back.  Technology provides convenient solutions to programs but in the wrong hands can be used to exploit society.

                This book has tons of valuable information and shouldn’t be taken lightly by anyone, especially CIS students, and especially CIS students who plan to go into Cyber Security, like myself.  This book is relevant to anyone who signs onto a computer, uses GPS to get directions to a destination, has a Facebook account, and everyone who has ever Googled something.  All of the information being inputted is going somewhere.  The big question is “Where does it go?”.  Chapter 4 educates the reader on how search engines know what you are going to search before you even finish typing it in.  For instance, when bring up Google on your web browser and you start typing in the question “Who won…” and all these suggestions pop up like “Who won the Vietnam war?”, “Who won top chef Seattle?”, “Who won king of the nerds?”.  This makes us feel like the entire world is at our fingertips, but in reality Google has already made a profile of your interests based on millions and millions of bits of information obtained from you and other users.  This is information obtained without permission from you and stored somewhere where Google can access it anytime.  You are not anonymous on the Internet.  You have a number associated with you.

                I found a huge amount of interest reading this book because a major topic in society right now is the Counter Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).   CISPA is a bill that if passed would allow the sharing of Internet traffic information between the U.S. government and technology and manufacturing companies.  The government already tracks your activity on the Internet for the purpose of Homeland Security (another department that strips us of individualism and humanity), but this proposed law will allow companies to access your information.  This information then can be used to manipulate the way you think, interests, purchase patterns, and eventually how you act.  Your freewill will dissipate over time.  Propaganda will be designed specifically to you and your morals.  You will believe anything if it you think it is morally correct and the idea promises progress.