What Is a VPN and How Do I Use One?

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) is a service that secures your connection to the internet by assigning you another IP address and masking your real one. Then, while connected to the VPN, all of your internet traffic is sent through a secure (encrypted) tunnel that no one can gain access to. So, that means all of your internet activity is hidden from view and since your actual IP address is hidden that means no one can trace your internet activity back to you.

Usually when we connect to the internet and type a website name into a search browser, what’s happening is our computer sends a request to that website’s server directly and the website will respond by loading the page. This works fine most of the time but it can get risky if you’re doing anything related to sensitive information online. When you connect to a VPN and try to access the same website, your computer has an encrypted connection with the VPN and sends the request to the VPN then the VPN sends the request to the internet server. The VPN is similar to an old telephone/switchboard operator in the sense that they’ll do the work of getting you connected to the right place, but the place you’re connecting to doesn’t get to know your actual location and data.

Connecting to open networks (credit: askleo.com)

This is how your computer connects from an unencrypted network, which is any WiFi or hotspot that doesn’t require a password to connect. Sniffing is a term used for when someone is monitoring your internet traffic in order to capture sensitive information.

Connecting through WPA encryption (credit: askleo.com)

This is the path your data takes when it’s connected to an encrypted network, which is similar to your home WiFi that requires a password to connect. The only encryption takes place from your device to the access point, then from the access point everything is sent to your Internet Service Provider, and finally to the internet servers.

Connecting with VPN (credit: askleo.com)

Though the path your data takes when connected to a VPN service adds an extra hop in between getting you connected to the internet, it shows your data remains encrypted all the way to the VPN (because you’re using it through an app).

What I think is beneficial about VPNs is that my internet traffic/data can’t be tracked and the information being sent is encrypted, meaning if someone were to gain access to it they would see a bunch of writing that is indecipherable. Some VPNs also give you the option of choosing where you want to be seen as “connecting” from. For example, if you’ve ever been traveling outside of the country and wanted to watch a show, then you go to the website that hosts that show and get a message saying ‘this isn’t available in your country’ or something along those lines.. If you connected to a VPN and chose an IP address originating in the U.S. you could watch that show because the website will think you’re connecting from the states. For this reason, VPNs are also beneficial to people living in heavily regulated countries where the government censors information online.

Connecting to a server in France using Nord VPN service

Connecting to a server in the United States using Nord VPN service

There’s lots of different VPN software available that offer pretty competitive rates and different features, so you can always find one that works great for your needs. Living in today’s age where we are always connected to the internet through mobile phones, laptops, or other devices, and connect to public WiFi whenever we get a chance, using a VPN service is a good step to take for your security & privacy online.

Weekly Play: Pet Peeves

For this week I looked through the Daily Creates in the DS106 Make Bank. This is #tdc2512 about Pet Peeves. I could make many more of these but I settled with two because I’m very picky about things I imagine coming to life and I would be spending hours (that I don’t have) trying to perfect these little memes.

Because being aware of protecting your own privacy is no longer enough..

Because the wave is slowly dying..

Innovation and Remixing

As mentioned in A New Culture of Learning, for something to be considered a “remix” you have to change 3 major components of the work and you have to make it better. I agree with this and see no issue in remixing work in order to promote innovation, as long as proper credit is given to the original work.

In Kirby Ferguson’s “Everything is a Remix” series, he brings up examples of remixing and copying throughout the ages and I had a huge problem with what Led Zeppelin did in terms of copying other artists’ work without giving any credit to the original content which they sampled from. Not only that, but they didn’t even modify any of the songs enough for them to claim it was their original content. It’s terrible and I’m glad I have never listened to their music.

It’s clear that creation requires influence and that’s why everything is a remix. We experience life and take bits and pieces of what we like and, if we’re lucky, we can create something that ends up being better than what was done before. Especially in today’s age, we often have to be inspired by something that came before in order to create our own unique mark in the world. Artists in the music industry or anyone in the entertainment industry is often asked “who are your inspirations?” or “what inspires you?” because we don’t just come up with these things on our own. It’s a nurture aspect in life rather than nature.

American Computer Scientist Dennis Ritchie, creator of the C programming language

To relate this type of remixing to my personal interests, in terms of computer programming, C is a programming language considered to be the “mother of all” programming languages. It was created by computer scientist Dennis Ritchie, who also created the Unix operating system. The programming languages that are heavily influenced by the C language, if not derived from, include Java, Javascript, C#, C++, and Python. These programming languages were created with the help of Dennis Ritchie’s C language creation; they were able to copy, transform, and combine information into new and more efficient languages that we still use today. Thanks, Dennis Ritchie, and all who came to remix after him. Without remixing and acquiring inspiration from those who came before us, we would often be caught at dead ends with burnt out bulbs.

Education in the New Culture of Learning

Getting through a little over half the book A New Culture of Learning by Douglas Thomas and John Sealy Brown, they make a point that the twenty-first century belongs to the tacit. This is because in today’s world we can learn almost anything by searching for ourselves and gaining experience from trying it. The process of changing a tire or a headlight isn’t frightening to me; I can do a quick Web search and after filtering through some blurry/old tutorials, find one that works and go through the process of changing it myself! We’re able to learn by trying and make implicit connections that also help us to become more curious and accepting of learning experiences in the future.

It’s a while since I’ve been in grade school but I don’t think that the current system has been able to successfully integrate how we’ve been taught to learn with how we want to learn and how we are successful learning. A principle of the new culture of learning is that “Students learn best when they are able to follow their passion and operate within the constraints of a bounded environment.” Aside from the static subjects that need to be taught explicitly in the classroom, such as physics or chemistry, there should be room for play and creativity in other subjects. It would be interesting to see schools implement some sort of “capstone” elective classes, where students can choose to learn about something of interest and become somewhat of an expert on the subject by the end of the class. They would be able to learn by doing research, experimenting, experiencing, becoming part of the collective online, or other ways related to the subject. The important part is that kids would be learning how to learn and building critical thinking skills, rather than the traditional way of memorization/recall. There wouldn’t be a set curriculum or explicit information that needs to be taught, except for the information on strategies for learning online. Then possibly a portfolio to present what they’ve learned.. This idea is starting to sound similar to Digital Literacy..

Mediated Writing: Women in AI

For my mediated writing piece, I decided to workshop a research paper from a software engineering class last Spring. I used Sway to make this paper come alive and it was surprisingly easy to navigate because WordPress seems to have switched to a similar format in regards to block-writing and inserting media. The previous paper had no images, interactive media, hyperlinks, or anything. Performing this revision on the paper really made it something exciting to read.

I tried to add a hyperlink to any source that I found on the web, which will make it more simple for readers to be able to check sources and read more about what I discussed in the paper. I was able to add an image for each subject discussed, which really helped give a face to the name and possibly make a stronger connection to the writing. And I added a couple of videos that I had watched previously when I was doing my research for the paper, but unfortunately couldn’t use them for my assignment.

I hope my audience will have a more enjoyable time reading this research paper and will be able to make a connection with what they read and what they see. It was really cool to do this because I did a lot of research for this paper last Spring and I had to find a way to describe what these women were doing well enough without using any other type of media, and also staying under a strict character limit.

Overall, using Sway was a really great experience and it would be cool to see professors or teachers begin to accept some papers created by Sway. We’ve come a long way from trying to insert a photo in Microsoft Word and having half of your writing shift 2-pages down and the other half disappear.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure how to embed the paper into WordPress so I will include the link below and anyone who is a student at UW will be able to access it.

https://sway.office.com/w6SSpmShDcdD0GdD?ref=Link

How Do We Decide What to Feel About Algorithms?

From the Pew Research Center, writers Lee Rainie and Janna Anderson analyze some pros and cons that algorithms may provide, in the article “Code-Dependent: Pros and Cons of the Algorithm Age”. Usually, I don’t like thinking about the pros/cons of algorithms (at least in today’s machine-learning/AI use of the word) because I find myself completely split on whether I have more positive feelings about it or negative. But now I’m more comfortable with that feeling because I don’t actually have to pick a side when it comes to this; at least this way I’m aware of other views rather than being fixated on an opinion one way or another.

Look, algorithms may seem like a big buzzword these days (similar to machine-learning), but they’ve been around forever and we use them to solve problems every day in our lives! I love algorithms; they are made to make our lives easier. If you follow a specific routine every morning, that is an algorithm you created, which is the most efficient way for you to wake up and get started with your day. If you want to drive somewhere you’ll have to follow the algorithm for starting and operating your car, then making the correct turns in order to get to your destination.

When I think about algorithms in today’s age, I can see the concerns from an ethical point of view while also noting the benefits from a consumer point of view. I’ll try to reflect on these thoughts throughout this post.

Concerns I Have About Algorithms

The biggest concern I have about the future of machine-learning and algorithms alike doesn’t necessarily come from the algorithms themselves, but rather from the people creating them. In the Pew Research article, Justin Reich, executive director at the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, mentions that algorithms will be created mostly by white and Asian men. I feel that without conscious efforts to limit bias, especially in machine-learning/AI, the algorithms may have adverse or unintended effects for people who are neither white nor Asian men. Research from Carnegie Mellon University showed the bias in Google’s recommendation algorithm by finding it was more likely to recommend high-paying jobs to men rather than women. A more general example comes from how certain voice-assistants are reinforcing gender-stereotypes because of decisions made to have them voiced by a female with a female-sounding name. “ALEXA! Now go schedule my meetings, turn off the lights, and tell me I’m pretty!”

Another concern I have about algorithms is about the lack of transparency by organizations who use them for better “user-experience”. What information is being collected? How is it being collected? What’s happening with that data and where is it going? Can I opt-out/opt-in to this “experience”? Why not? How much are you profiting from gathering this data from me? Can I profit too?

In this case it’s up to the user whether or not they want to use the service and weighing the benefits of the service with the drawbacks.

What I Appreciate About Algorithms

I’ll end this with a bit of an appreciation-style post about algorithms. I LOVE the different types of algorithms we use in computer science. Need to find shortest path to take given a number of different connecting points? BOOM Dijkstra’s Algorithm has your back. Need to find a certain value in a data-set? Send it in through a Binary Search algorithm and you’ll get your answer in a fraction of the time (if it exists). Need to sort a data set? There are countless sorting algorithms to suit you depending on your needs.

Lastly, shout out to Netflix’s film-suggestion algorithm, which reduces the amount of time I have to spend searching and scrolling through different movies and shows.

Privacy in the Digital Age

Reading about privacy this week got me all jazzed up, and I began to think about my own efforts to protect my privacy in today’s tech-fueled world. Big data collection is a huge effort in-and-of itself because you have to be consciously thinking about every choice you make or website you visit online and what is happening with that data (or metadata). There are a few more concrete changes I was able to make in regards to my internet habits and would like to share them so they can help others as well.

Protecting Your Privacy on the Internet

First off, while I will say that I think these things are really important when you’re trying to take the first steps into protecting your personal information, I’m not going to go into depth on each topic. So feel free to do your own research and come to a conclusion for what you think is important for yourself on the internet!

• Use LONG & SECURE passwords! Do one better and also make sure to change them every few months or so. I use a password manager called LastPass for all my password generating/storing needs!
  • Test out how secure your passwords are at howsecureismypassword.net (just make sure to disconnect from the network before you do it)
• Become familiar with the privacy settings on your phone, internet router, and any other website you use.
• Become familiar with the settings for Wi-Fi in your home and customize it to work with your comfort level.
  
  • Most routers come with the same login name and password set up from the get-go, so you have to manually log in to your router and change the password.
  • I suggest having guests log-in to your guest network Wi-Fi and have a different password for the main network that is kept secure.
    
• Use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when connecting to the internet, especially when you’re connecting through a public network.
• Create throwaway email addresses that you can use to sign up for any websites that don’t need to be tied to your personal/professional email addresses.
  
• Do not cross-contaminate your accounts! Meaning if a website gives you the option to “log in through (insert social media site here)”, stay away and create a new account with a throwaway email address.
  • This is because logging in through a social media account will give whatever website you’re logging into access to your personal information from that site and it may receive other hidden permissions as well.

Hopefully these tips help!

Hogwarts Train to Civic Engagement

After reading and learning about the good work of the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), I was still completely shocked that I had never heard of it before. I’ve read the books multiple times, watched the movies even more times, and have also visited the Wizarding World of HP. This is something I could completely see myself supporting through advocacy and volunteering. The approach of using “cultural acupuncture” (Slack, 2010) to create a bridge between Harry Potter fandom and civic participation makes becoming an activist seem more approachable. It’s also a way to find and meet other people in your community, who all share some common interests.

I peaked around the HPA website a little bit and found the campaign A World #WithoutHermione to be particularly interesting. This specific campaign by HPA advocates against gender inequality in the classroom by partnering with She’s the First, an organization that works on helping to make sure girls graduate.

They also include information for donating to withouthermione.org, that is used for sending girls to school and activists out into the communities!

Meet & Greet: Women in Tech

Weekly PLAY!

https://streamable.com/s/uisk9/qmxztu

The Cost of Being Constantly Connected & Available

This past year I realized how much time I was spending every day scrolling through the feeds of different social media platforms, closing them only to reopen a minute later hoping to catch a new post! I decided to make a change and immediately deleted the Facebook app from my phone; it was draining my battery enough running in the background constanty and I didn’t use it much anyway. Instagram and Snapchat were too important to get rid of, I thought I could never do it. So I went into the apps and turned off push notifications instead, this way I wouldn’t be forced to check them everytime I got a notification. These small changes helped me adjust to changing my habits and led to the eventual action of deleting the apps off my phone entirely.

Being connected to social media commits you to always being “on”. If you get a Snapchat and don’t respond immediately, that person will know you opened their message and ignored it. Or if a friend sends you a funny post on Instagram and grows agitated because they need you to see it right NOW and join in on the laughter they’re having. It’s part of an expectation in society that because we are afforded this wonderful technology at our fingertips, we should always be available to experience it.

Now on the other hand, always being connected isn’t necessarily a bad thing! I get equally flustered leaving my house having forgotten my phone as I do having forgotten my wallet (I usually forget both). In chapter 9 of Superconnected, Chayko brings up the unintentional power a cell phone can have you’re walking alone and fake a phone call with no one on the other line just to give off the perception that another person is aware of your location. It provides “vicarious protection” (Rich Ling) “which signals to the world that we are safely connected and not alone” (Chayko, 2018). If you think about it, I’m sure it would have been impossible for Liam Neeson to track down his daughter in Taken had he not been on the phone with her AS she was being abducted! Though that would be a sad outcome, because then we wouldn’t have been gifted Taken 2 nor Taken 3. (disclaimer: I have seen neither Taken 2 nor Taken 3).