LIS3353 - Technologies for Information Professionals

Welcome to the course!

The first front page - in Canvas - is the primary source of material for this course; everything you need for the course will be available here. Many links go through http://jrm4.com (including a mirror of this page for backup and emergency purposes); feel free to browse that as well. Links to all tools and readings will be available from the front page.

The official methods for contacting me are in person during class, or via email, at jmarks@fsu.edu .

Note: I'm also a big fan of Discord. It is in no way required, but I will make my semi-private (non-profit) Discord server available to you all, with a channel dedicated to this class. You may use this for class-wide discussions, as well as a meeting point for team work.

No textbooks are required, and nothing is due for the first class. Feel free to browse the assignments and readings on the side (or below if you're on your phone), but unless they are LINKED DIRECTLY FROM THIS PAGE, they are from the previous semester. This means they are likely to be similar this semester, but may change and should not be relied on as official. If you'd like to browse regardless but you can't see them now, go here and look: https://jrm4.com/FSU_Courses/LIS3353.html

Here is the Official Syllabus - but About the Class is probably more useful to you.

See you in class!

Week 11 - A&M II, weird internet money

https://jrm4.com/slides/Mo-Milkshakes.html

WOW. I've never seen an article that so directly gets at what I'm going to be talking about, and this one just came up. Score one for algorithms? - https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/02/outdated-and-misleading-is-it-time-to-reassess-the-very-concept-of-money?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

https://www.npr.org/2022/12/29/1145297807/crypto-crash-ftx-cryptocurrency-bitcoin

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_bitcoin_works
http://www.engadget.com/2015/01/21/cryptocurrency-explainer/
https://jrm4.com/Journal/2021/06/16/Why_Cryptocurrency_is_Here_to_Stay.html

https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html
https://bravenewcoin.com/insights/how-to-identify-a-crypto-pump-and-dump-scheme

https://cointelegraph.com/news/memecoins-from-memes-to-multibillion-dollar-pumps-scams-and-rug-pulls

https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2016/04/17/why-many-smart-contract-use-cases-are-simply-impossible/

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbwj5/what-are-nft-explainer-meaning-crypto
https://nftgamef.com/nft-problems/

The following is 100% ONLY MY PERSONAL OPINION and should not be relied upon as legal or financial advice.
https://jrm4.com/Journal/2021/06/16/Why_Cryptocurrency_is_Here_to_Stay.html

Week 10 - Freely Available Information

The basics:
https://web.archive.org/web/20190320125534/https://www.gameacademy.com/the-four-types-of-intellectual-property-protection/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/27/theres-endless-choice-but-youre-not-listening-fans-quitting-spotify-to-save-their-love-of-music?utm_source=pocket-newtab

CURRENT:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/stable-diffusion-copyright-lawsuits-could-be-a-legal-earthquake-for-ai/

https://slate.com/technology/2023/01/streaming-libraries-dvds-blu-rays.html

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pa7jxb/archivists-are-trying-to-make-sure-a-pirate-bay-of-science-never-goes-down
https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2016/05/31/why-sci-hub-matters/

https://www.wired.com/2016/04/stealing-publicly-funded-research-isnt-stealing/http://computationalculture.net/article/book-piracy-as-peer-preservation
https://techcrunch.com/2011/01/15/lets-compete-on-innovation/

https://www.eff.org/wp/unfiltered-how-youtubes-content-id-discourages-fair-use-and-dictates-what-we-see-online

Piracy?
https://gizmodo.com/the-eu-suppressed-a-300-page-study-that-found-piracy-do-1818629537

Browse : http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html
(Take special note of the "fifth" fair use factor)
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/10/07/fair-use-decided-who-has-most-money

TRADEMARK

https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbaker/2022/07/28/penn-state-trademark-case-produces-potential-problems-for-sport-teams-and-merchandisers/?sh=3e451e7a23f6

GNU GPL
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.txt
https://opensource.com/article/17/9/open-source-licensing

https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/28/23617624/pluto-tv-dmca-mpa-github-playlists

Week 9 - From Compression to Thinking Machines

https://web.archive.org/web/20200901073754/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/10/18/why-we-still-need-to-study-the-humanities-in-a-stem-world/

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-does-file-compression-work/

So. I couldn't find a solid, but simple, explanation of image compression. So I just asked ChatGPT to explain it to a highschooler.
Image Compression, by ChatGPT

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-conversational-ais-like-chatgpt-work-ivan-voras/

https://weaviate.io/blog/how-ai-creates-art
Longer:
https://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-stable-diffusion/

https://futurism.com/singularity-explain-it-to-me-like-im-5-years-old
vs
https://aeon.co/essays/your-brain-does-not-process-information-and-it-is-not-a-computer

Week 8 - Privacy and Social Media

https://jrm4.com/FSU_Courses/LIS3353/2023-Fall%2015%20-%20LIS3353-Social%20Media.pdf
https://jrm4.com/FSU_Courses/LIS3353/2022-%20LIS3353-PrivacyFULL.pdf

Privacy, broadly
https://robindoherty.com/2016/01/06/nothing-to-hide.html
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/09/the-clouds-my-mom-cleaned-my-room-problem/245648/
https://www.philzimmermann.com/EN/essays/WhyIWrotePGP.html
https://jacquesmattheij.com/if-you-have-nothing-to-hide

Little Brother?
https://eyes.daylightingsociety.org/
https://defaultnamehere.tumblr.com/post/139351766005/graphing-when-your-facebook-friends-are-awake

Social Media Is a Denial-of-Service Attack on Your Mind
Death of the private self: how fifteen years of Facebook changed the human condition | Facebook | The Guardian
Taibbi on Facebook: Can We Be Saved From the Social Media Giant? - Rolling Stone
As Buyers Circle, Could Twitter Be Better Off As A Nonprofit? : All Tech Considered : NPR
Facebook fake-news writer - I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me
Battling coronavirus misinformation in the age of social media | Coronavirus | The Guardian
For Rogue Twitter, You Need Burner Phone, Anonymous Email
Why RSS Still Beats Facebook and Twitter for Tracking News
RSS Is Better Than Twitter

https://www.dailydot.com/debug/tiktokers-speculate-meta-tiktok-ban/

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-11-facebook-dystopian-whistleblower-leaks-experts.html
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/29/22752850/mastodon-trump-truth-social-network-open-source-gab-legal-notice

https://www.wired.com/story/tim-wu-explains-why-facebook-broken-up/

Week 8 - Anonymity and Social Surplus

In the news:
http://mashable.com/2017/03/31/isp-claim-wont-sell-browsing-history/#t0iFiYqefiqw
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/28/so_my_isp_can_now_sell_my_browsing_history_what_can_i_do/

Tor
http://lifehacker.com/what-is-tor-and-should-i-use-it-1527891029
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/4/4802512/nsa-failed-to-compromise-tor-network-but-exploited-browser-vulnerabilities

Anonymity?
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/09/21/why-pseudonymity-is-such-an-important-concept-and-what-anybeat-is-doing-about-it/

Voting:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/06/estonians-get-to-vote-online-why-cant-america/

https://biznology.com/2018/01/online-communities-best-thing-internet-not-worst/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/technology/how-the-internet-is-saving-culture-not-killing-it.html
https://www.wired.com/story/why-teens-arent-partying-anymore/

Playing with toys while people are dying?
https://medium.com/@mode7games/playing-with-toys-while-people-are-dying-f8ed35ef8b25

Social Surplus
http://www.niemanlab.org/2010/06/clay-shirkys-cognitive-surplus-is-creating-and-sharing-always-a-more-moral-choice-than-consuming/

Flashmobs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_mob
http://www.smartmobs.com/2006/10/03/ice-cream-politics-flash-mob-in-belarus/
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/twiki/bin/view/CompPrivConst/HereComesEverybody (read only the Chapter 7:Faster and Faster bit)

Networked Production
https://www.wired.com/2017/02/craigslist-is-ugly-janky-old-schooland-unbeatable/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/media-copyrightlaw/benkler_3487.jsp

"Slacktivism"
http://www.meta-activism.org/2013/03/its-not-slacktivism-if-it-changes-culture/

Week 7 - Algorithms and Milkshakes

https://jrm4.com/slides/Algorithms_and_Milkshakes.html

this just in...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/15/encryption-lose-privacy-us-uk-australia-facebook

How Encryption Works
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/05/how-internet-encryption-works

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/encryption3.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function
A little more on SSL
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_key_certificate
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6088583/which-symmetric-key-algorithm-does-ssl-use

Summary of NIST's Rules — surprised?
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2016/08/18/nists-new-password-rules-what-you-need-to-know/
https://www.govtech.com/security/Widely-Used-Password-Advice-Turns-Out-to-Be-Wrong-NIST-Says.html

Apple's Method
http://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2014/10/why-cant-apple-decrypt-your-iphone.html

Hashing for Verification
http://www.howtogeek.com/67241/htg-explains-what-are-md5-sha-1-hashes-and-how-do-i-check-them/

https://tiptopsecurity.com/what-is-cryptographic-hashing-md5-sha-and-more/

Week 6 - Advanced Linux, Languages, and Tech

https://jrm4.com/slides/LIS-3353_-_Linux,_The_GUI_and_the_Command_Line.html
https://jrm4.com/slides/LIS-3353_-_Beyond_Linux_-_Languages_and_Platforms.html

https://opensource.com/resources/virtualization

https://www.dell.com/en-us/blog/emulation-or-virtualization-what-s-the-difference/
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/virtualization-vs-containerization/

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

For the Practical ☺
https://adtmag.com/blogs/dev-watch/2016/07/bash-salaries.aspx
https://alexpetralia.com/posts/2017/6/26/learning-linux-bash-to-get-things-done

https://www.codecademy.com/resources/blog/what-is-bash-used-for/

https://www.ubuntupit.com/snap-vs-flatpak-vs-appimage-know-the-difference/
https://www.linux.com/topic/desktop/how-install-and-use-docker-linux/

Week 5 - The Internet

The history:
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/OR/ConsumerGuides/internet.html
http://sixrevisions.com/resources/the-history-of-the-internet-in-a-nutshell/

The barriers
https://www.publicintegrity.org/2014/08/28/15404/how-big-telecom-smothers-city-run-broadband

https://www.datafantic.com/how-much-time-do-we-waste-waiting-for-websites-to-load/

DIY? Mesh, et al
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37974267
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/how-a-diy-network-plans-to-subvert-time-warner-cables-nyc-internet-monopoly
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/08/man-who-built-isp-instead-of-paying-comcast-50k-expands-to-hundreds-of-homes/

The net; today:
https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/09/a-decentralized-web-would-give-power-back-to-the-people-online/
https://backchannel.com/the-end-of-the-internet-dream-ba060b17da61#.y01ca2r1d

Censorship?
https://web.archive.org/web/20220209053205/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/technology/8chan-cloudflare-el-paso.html

P2P
https://ipfs.io/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

Week 4 - Linux and the Command Line

https://www.linux.com/what-is-linux/
https://opensource.com/resources/linux

This week will be a bit different, we will focus on getting you a working version of Linux.

If you like VIDEO, this goes into detail on most everything: ../../Videos/VirtualboxInstall.mp4
(The virtualbox.org site is cleaner looking now, but the fundamentals are the same)

If you prefer READING and going on your own, see the below.

Default method: Virtual Install.

A "virtual install" is a completely non-destructive, completely reversible way to do "real Linux" on your computer. It's not much different from installing an app, though the process is a little more involved:

For a virtual install, you will need VIRTUALIZATION SOFTWARE and A LINUX DISTRIBUTION

VIRTUALIZATION SOFTWARE

Most of you can still use https://www.virtualbox.org/
New fancy M1 mac people, you can't, but you can use https://mac.getutm.app/ - watch for which type, usually you'll want the specific Ubuntu flavor
VMware and others are also acceptable; https://www.ubackup.com/enterprise-backup/linux-vm-on-windows-10.html

LINUX DISTRIBUTION

A "distribution" or "distro" is just a version of a full Linux Operating system, and there are a bunch of them:
Presently I recommend one of the following — but LITERALLY ANY WILL DO.
https://mxlinux.org/
https://linuxmint.com/
https://ubuntu.com/ as a last resort for new computers?

Or again — ANYTHING here, check the leaderboards!
https://distrowatch.com/