Students at Swarthmore College, during this passed fall, came across a large number of emails, as well as memos, that were from the Diebold Election Systems. The emails consisted of information about weak security in their databases and the increased chance of being hacked. The students used this information publicly and put it on their school web page. This however was a bad choice on their part. Soon enough, they were threatened with being charged for copyright infringement by the Diebold Company and were forced to take the information off of their school web page.

            As you can see, copyright is becoming extremely knotty and out of control. Every little thing is being copyrighted these days. One could draw on a napkin and it would be considered copyrighted as theirs. Even the Girl Scouts, which has become a very big profit lately, even has copyrights. They get what we call royalties for singing around a campfire. Imagine getting benefits just for having your scouts sing around a campfire. In another incident, the author of “Gone with the Wind” is suing another author, author of “A Wind Gone Done”, which is the slave’s perspective in the same story, for copyright infringement.

            Usually, in order to abide by copyright rules, one must wait at least twenty years before they can copy something from an author who has passed away. Recently, that number has been changed to seventy years. One cannot copy something from a dead author or inventor until seventy years after their death.

            This copyrighting problem is only continuing to grow. Things like Limewire and Frostwire are both big ways to download music for people all over the world, and many people do this. In the future, it will get so bad that people will only be able to lease songs and e-books and even then they would not be able to copy and paste anything, or burn a song and play it on their stereo. Otherwise, it would be considered copyright infringement.           

            Many people are coming up with solutions to the problem. One solution is to take money out of tax dollars in order to make companies happy and people at the same time. This would allow people to download or write what they please and not be punished for it. It would also keep the companies happy.

            The future of copyrighting is nearing a cataclysmic fork in the road. It can go either way for us. Either we lessen the idea of copyright and learn to share and benefit equally, or we keep going the way we are. If we were to do so, in a few years we would be paying for everything. We would pay to read per sentence or per paragraph. Our essays would be that much more difficult to write. Only time will tell what will become of copyrighting.

            School finally lets out after a long day of bullying. You figure to run as fast as you can to get home, running away from the torment. At last you are in the one place where you think no one will hurt you, safe at home. No bullies here. Up the stairs and to the right into your room, you put down your book bag and turn on your computer. You open up your email and your instant messenger. An IM comes up, someone you don’t know. They begin to say demeaning things to you. Not knowing what to do, feeling a little bit tougher behind your computer, you fight back. Things begin to escalate and they begin to threaten to beat you up tomorrow. Realizing the same kids who bully you at school everyday are violating your personal space in your own home, you reach a new level of fear.

            Cyber-bullying has become a swiftly rising problem as the years go on. Bullies are finding ways to threaten and make fun of people online in the safety of their own homes. You don’t have to be a scrawny ninth grader to be bullied by people online. The fact that the bully is anonymous online, versus in a face to face confrontation, powers them. They find strength in tormenting people within a safe distance.

            This cyber-bullying is usually found in the teen to young adult range. Many of these kids are being cyber-bullied frequently. Whether it is sexual or physical harassment, kids all over the nation are being put down constantly at school and online. We see it more and more these days, in movies and television. Movies like Cry Wolf are examples of how people can be threatened and stalked by cyber-bullies. Bullies usually end up growing out of their teasing ways but it is known that, later in life, they are known to have some sort of violent tendencies.

            There are many ways in which you can defend yourself against these awful people. Always remember, when dealing with cyber-bullies, one of the most important things is to ignore them as best you can. By ignoring them, it cuts off their power. Cyber-bullies almost always take control by feeding off of reactions from their victims. Keep your information online limited as well. Don’t put up your full name, address, or phone number(s) anywhere online. Also, be careful as to who you give your online contact information to.

 If you are being cyber-bullied for quite some time, it is always good to talk to your parents or guardian about it. Taking that step means taking the next step towards being safer. If things escalate even further, it is wise to contact your local police and see what they can do. A very important thing to do is to save and print your conversations with these online predators for further evidence to prosecute them.

            With all the problems this country is facing today, cyber-bullying is being well ignored. Before it is too late, people must act to stop online predators before movies become reality and we are neck deep in a slightly more violent society.

Internet technology has come a long way in a short amount of years. Search engines, more specifically, have evolved greatly since their beginnings. What makes a great search engine is how deep the search engine crawl cycle can go. The deeper it goes, the more results and accuracy you will get for your search. This is vital to having a top notch search engine. For a while, Yahoo was the top dog, owning much of the search engines. In February 2004, Yahoo dropped Google and was coming along the way to being a great search engine.

            Soon after, Microsoft created their search engine in 2005. It is believed if Microsoft unattached themselves from greed to produce a safe, accurate search engine with the ability to crawl deep into the web, they would no doubt knock out Google from their place.

            Teoma/Ask Jeeves is another great search engine that is up there with Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. They have a great search engine and say that they are going to work on making their crawl cycles better to deliver better results to their users.

            Google is a great search engine for good reasons. They reduce the amount of ads that come up on their searches. Although they have a limited amount of ads, the ads that do come up when a user searches for their desired subject are all somehow relative to the search and not merely farfetched result ads that have no purpose but to annoy. This is a new way of advertising and it is making Google a lot of money.

            It is speculated that Google, with all its power over other search engines and searches alone, will take over the internet in many aspects. If other search engines fail to come up to Google’s par, things can become very bad. Soon enough, we will have to upload our websites on Google servers and be run by them. This would crush the web and the idea of having the web is a place where users can be somewhat independent with their sites.

            Google, because of this, was given the Big brother award. There are many reasons as to why they received this award. Unlike other search engines, Google records user’s access to their search engines. They track the IP address of every user who access’ Google. Also, they update their tool bars without the permission of the user who has it. This could cause major security risks for the user. Lastly, Google Hires National personnel to work for them. They do this so that they have connections to Washington and to extend their assets to them.

            With many privacy issues and unsecured actions by Google, it is scary to think of what might happen if they become a super-power in the web. The independence of the user is greatly at risk as well as their security. Hopefully, other search engines like Ask Jeeves or Microsoft’s search engine will rise to the top and compete with Google for a good cause. Let’s just hope that if one of them were to rise to Google standards that they would not turn their backs on the users of the web and do the same illegal and unsecured actions that Google has done thus far.

            Many people found this as a bad thing. Google and Amazon.com are among the numbers who are fighting for net neutrality. Prioritizing certain traffic through the internet could cause many problems. One of them, and possibly the biggest, being that if certain traffic from certain sites is prioritized, then other, more simpler and smaller sites will be subjected to a lower-class standard. In the long-run, these small websites would be overrun and ultimately be kicked off the internet because of lack of visiting. This could lead to a small number of sites on the internet and total loss of freedom by users. However, people in opposition to this say that new regulations on the internet would lead to the event of innovation and new ideas for and on the internet, not only from broadband companies but from users as well. This idea, of course, is in great speculation by the population.

            Senators Snowe and Dorgan wrote the new bill, almost identical to the first, so that prioritizing on the internet is allowed only if it is done for every kind of that certain content being prioritized. And most importantly, it would be allowed to do this without billing or feeing the sites being prioritized.

            This idea is becoming widely accepted by users all over the globe. The internet is something users have that they are free to use. Prioritizing will only make users pay more for what they use. If Verizon were to prioritize videos from you-tube that are sent through their pipes, this could lead to users paying more money for their internet services.

            The last bill that the pair of senators set out for net neutrality had a vote of 11-11. This meant that they lost by only a couple of votes. Hopefully, with this new bill, they will get more votes and have the bill passed through legislation.

            I feel as though net neutrality is a great idea. Using the internet requires freedom. You can go on crazy websites and watch funny videos, go on your myspace or facebook account, or even go to Google to do research on something you heard about with your friends. If I couldn’t use these sites because I would have to pay more for them, there would be no point in using the internet. Sure prioritizing is also safe. You can feel safer about paying your bills online because it would be safer. But who cares honestly? Go to the bank to pay your bills or mail them for crying out loud. Net neutrality is the only way we are going to keep our internet the way we like it, without having gatekeepers watching our every move, making us pay for what they feel like getting profit out of.