Let’s go downtown and talk to the modern kids

I feel music and our own focus, extant to interest in the sound of songs, is akin to how when we dream we tell other people about them. People have fallen asleep to the droning on of how I was turning into an aphid, simultaneously developing Alzheimer’s disease, forgetting that I was ever actually human. And that museum I walked into turned into a mausoleum where I was doomed to inhabit for eternity.

Hell is other people, says Jean Paul Sartre. Maybe this is how we can advertise how good something is and yet have it fall on deaf ears. I think about how nicely existentialism aligns the constellation-al shape of this idea. Pull a stencil over the night sky and as you peer through the lace the light of a hundred years ago blinks back.

Sometimes I think about the mud and who has walked here before. The footprint of our ancestors trekked over these tracks a million billion times, and then maybe I think we know what is around us because we are afforded the animation of our own bodies. But maybe we are all dinosaurs and we have no idea we are extinct yet. Our little T-rex arms extending to reach out. Our minds, thoughts, habits, these outgrowths are extensions of the infinite permutations of evolutionary experience that may or may not serve us, but have not yet fallen away. We are still reaching out.

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Constant Gardening: The Art of Best Practices in Civic Applications Development Lead to Sustainable Future and Supplement Government Services

Abstract

This paper examines the history of open data and the evolution of local and national competitions of mobile application development. Designers and experts in the field provide insight on the initial short-comings of prize-driven exercises. Successful models that move past first generation limitations are expounded. New open data application development sites provide new platforms that provide feedback loops, along with sharable, free, and open source code, all of which are considered a key to long-term sustainability of civic applications.

Keywords: Generative space, Recursive depth, Civic engagement, Civic hackathons

 

 

 

 

H. G. Wells was an author, a scientist, and someone who predicted the way the world could be way back before there were television sets, computers, or complex surveillance systems that orbited the earth via satellite. H. G. saw possibility in tandem with small changes in order for our world to become great, but he also saw the way the world was simultaneously in the throes of utopian and dystopian societies. Author of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, Wells studied biology and Darwin’s theory of evolution, and much of his life’s work confronted questions of how man would creatively adapt and evolve in order to improve himself. “On 4 January, 1902, Wells gave a lecture at the Royal Institute in London, titled ‘The Discovery of the Future’” (Online-literature, 2015). What he said then is interchangeable with what he would have said just yesterday if he were still around today.

We are in the beginning of the greatest change that humanity has ever undergone. There is no shock, no epoch-making incident; but then there is no shock at a cloudy daybreak. At no point can we say, “Here it commences – and now, last minute was night and this is morning.” But insensibly we are in the day. If we care to look, we can foresee growing knowledge, growing order, and presently a deliberate improvement of the blood and character of the race. And what we can see and imagine gives us a measure and gives us faith for what surpasses the imagination.

It is possible to believe that all the past is but the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all that the human mind has ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening.

We cannot see; there is no need for us to see what this world will be like when the day has fully come. We are creatures of the twilight. But it is out of our race and lineage that minds will spring that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves, and that will reach forward fearlessly to comprehend this future that defeats our eyes. All this world is heavy with the promise of greater things, and a day will come – one day in the unending succession of days – when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, will stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and laugh, and reach out their hands amidst the stars. (Wells, 1913)

Recent changes in how information is shared has helped to expediently provide our society with tools that will propel us to a reality beyond our current baseline. When we see a thing, we must first have access to the resources to gain the thing. That is to say, if a person simply thinks about a thing, she cannot simply will it into being. If I envision a piece of chocolate cake, I must either muster enough will to leave my house and drive to the grocery store, or maybe call a friend to help me uncover this rock I’ve been hiding under so that I can roll the stone away with some assistance. After the removal of said boulder, I can then flee on foot to the nearest exit and move along with my cake procurement goals. We’ll hopefully circle back to that piece of cake soon.

In 2009, President Obama passed a measure that made free and open large collections of information. The President signed the “Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.” The act encouraged government departments to provide open data sets to the public. Such pieces of information included everything from “real-time crime feeds to test scores to air-quality metrics” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). However, by May 2010, nary a person had delved into the more than 272,000 datasets (Melissa, et. al 2016).

Out of local and federal initiatives sprung competitions that helped spread awareness of the need for using open data in creative ways. “Governments have positioned civic hackathons as an effort to engage the public in two ways; first the hosting of a participatory event, and second, through the creation of new apps designed for citizen use, based on government open data (Johnson & Robinson, 2014).

Jake Levitas is a community organizer and founder of Our City, a non-profit organization that empowers people “to build the future of their communities” (Levitas, 2016). In 2013, Levitas defined the term civic hacking as “the act of quickly improving the processes and systems of local government with new tools or approaches, conducted with cities, by citizens, as an act of citizenship” (Johnson & Robinson, 2014). “Civic hacking is the new civic engagement – and it’s here to stay” (Johnson & Robinson, 2014).

Civic hackathons provide an immediate incentive to developers to construct something meaningful from the data. “According to a 2009 McKinsey report, the number of innovation competitions with prize purses of more than $100,000 has risen more than three-fold from about 100 prizes in 2000, to over 300 in 2009” (Desouza & Bhagwatwar, 2012). “Government agencies have adopted this ‘prize for innovation’ template to solve problems ranging from medical industry problems to complex space challenges, with prizes ranging from $75,000 to $50 million” (Desouza & Bhagwatwar, 2012). “The four main uses of prize-based competitions in the public sector are for developing new technologies, leveraging R&D investments, promoting entrepreneurship, and raising awareness of problems and solutions through community engagement” (Desouza & Bhagwatwar, 2012).

In a 2014 article in Review of Policy Research, Peter Johnson and Pamela Robinson discuss the hopes vs. reality of this new movement. “Civic hackathons tap into the current zeitgeist of social innovation and entrepreneurship by connecting civically minded hackers and coders to governments seeking to present a more open, transparent, and connected face to their citizenry” (Johnson & Robinson, 2014).

Despite efforts early on, there was an ever-present disconnect between our realities and open data. Johnson and Robinson find that the one-time “limited event” may not truly “enrich citizen-government relationships” (Johnson & Robinson, 2014). “[T]hough money was never refused, most developers believed the amount was not enough to provide application support, maintenance, and sustainability over time” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016).

As Jonathan McKinney of Cab Corner, an app providing a cab-sharing utility, said, ‘Our reason for participating is to be recognized enough to get serious funding. Not $10,000 or $20,000, but someone who will give you a quarter of a million dollars or so and really get involved and bring more people in. The prize money is not a game changer. The real reward is when someone calls you out of the blue and says they have real venture capital for you. Then you can get things done. (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016)

A 2016 article in Communications of the ACM outlines the limits of computer app competitions. “Early initiatives suffered from a lack of civic benefit, in both government and the public” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). “Though efforts were made to open data throughout all types of government, developers tended to incorporate only a small range of it, including overuse of certain datasets” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). “Even within the datasets that did receive attention, developers often failed to envision solutions that would greatly complement provision of municipal services” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). As a result of contests in Amsterdam, 12% of apps were created to foster tourism (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). Lack of public knowledge and the inability for people to understand the value of civic applications were some contributions to apps being created to serve a consumer market over community improvement (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). Betsy Scherzer, an organizer of New York City’s Big Apps contest, explained the disconnect:

I think a lot of it depends on what developers are interested in and what seems useful. For example, we get a lot of data from the Office of Management and Budget. That data does not match or lend itself easily to apps. Not too many people want a municipal budget app. (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016)

A 2015 article in Information Polity discusses international challenges with open data. In countries without government-driven competition projects, businesses struggle to find meaning in open data. “In Sweden a study found a number of barriers (18 in total) to open data innovation and to the development of viable services using open data (Susha, Grönlund, & Janssen 2015). Similarly, in the Netherlands an article in a national newspaper voiced concerns over lower-than-expected rates of open data adoption and signaled the end of the hype stage in open data (Susha, Grönlund, & Janssen 2015). These countries have been ranked in the top ten by various open data indices, including Open Data Barometer and Global Open data Index (Susha, Grönlund, & Janssen 2015).

Part of the limitation is the expectation that the applications will render a profit. Compounded with this search for funding is a lack of sustainable public interest (Susha, Grönlund, & Janssen 2015). For example, if there is a useful civic application that serves public good, but either no one knows about it or no one is willing to pay for a subscription, the front-end, business-driven financiers will not see a return on investment, thus making these projects unattractive to prospective backers (Susha, Grönlund, & Janssen 2015). The money, data, and public interest problems will hopefully improve by second and third generations of iterated projects.

The major lack of public interest is easy to explain when one considers the way that most information gets to the greater public through mass media consumption or through radio jingles, TV commercials, and Internet pop-up ads. Despite all our deepest desires to know, one’s ignorance may be the muslin curtain that separates a person from the cataract of not knowing. Short of spelling it out for you, sometimes the wizard must pull back the drapes to reveal an enlightenment of sorts.

A hopeful example of improving consumer participation is the idea of inclusion. In an article in National Critic Review, Thomas Bryer exemplifies the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Facebook page as a successful model of civic engagement. There is a posting policy that encourages users to be concise, respectful, and relevant. The result is an elevated experience, wherein the user creates a civic-minded post, and more people contain their responses within that style of communication (Bryer, 2013). The MTA Facebook page provides a live feed of user questions and comments, and project administrators respond by posting follow up comments (Bryer, 2013). Users also contribute to the open data by inputting their immediate experiences online. For example, if the train is running on time, participants submit their “on time” ride, and the information is used in the data set (Bryer, 2013). The idea of immediate feedback, coupled with users being vital to the process, may be a winning formula to robust improvements in online civic participation.

A 2014 article of The Information Society analyzes the ideal environment for civic applications to flourish. Ron Eglash and David Banks, department heads of Science and Technology studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, say the space for future programs to take hold happens in something called a generative space (Eglash & Banks, 2014). Generative space is the network of digital devices and human ingenuity that allows freedom of innovation (Eglash & Banks, 2014). Three correlates for generative spaces include open source software, virtual-material value, and social power (Eglash & Banks, 2014). Open source software often means that one can play around with the program, easily re-create the code, change the program, and share it with others openly (Eglash & Banks, 2014). This makes it easy to connect other people to and means that the information will not be isolated from people, but rather it will be available in communities to be shared, used, and improved by citizens.

The second part, virtual-material, means that something is accessible by online as well as offline. This might take the form of a community garden that has its own Twitter feed. People can Tweet when they arrive at the garden to water it. There is an online record of the space and how people use it, as well as the actual physical space itself. The third variable for success of generative spaces is social power, or the extent to which people may be transformed (Eglash & Banks, 2014). Within these three correlates of generative spaces, there may be varying levels of recursive depth.

Within generative spaces, one may find recursive depth. Recursion “can be generally defined as a circular flow of information” (Eglash & Banks, 2014). One can think of this idea in terms of a “self-sustaining community,” “positive feedback loop,” or a “public that is vitally concerned with the material and practical maintenance and modification of the technical, legal, practical, and conceptual means of its own existence as a public” (Eglas & Banks, 2014).

Application repositories, or marketplaces, provide a venue for civil servants or developers for sourcing existing solutions. The Civic Commons is such a marketplace, created to facilitate code sharing (http://theciviccommons.com/). This collection of civic apps promotes their use and reuse, providing value capture for developers as their markets increase and savings for cities as they choose to adapt, rather than create, completely new solutions. (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016)

            Another example of generative space is Boston’s Office of New Urban Mechanics (NUM), an internal agency with strong management of its open data initiatives (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016).

NUM invites all actors to report their needs and suggestions for improvement, including citizens, government employees, academic institutions, nonprofit organizations, and private businesses. NUM then evaluates them based on their potential for improving civic services, filtering them on targeted areas like urban development and education. NUM follows a five-to-seven-month timeline for development of solutions, whether for a mobile app or more complete business based on the technological solution. (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016)

This format is a departure from early app competitions because it provides “lasting civic benefit, value capture, and solution sustainability” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016).

“One example of a NUM-developed app is Street Bump, which collects data about road conditions as users drive on the roads (http://www.streetbump.org/)” (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). Instead of using civil servants to examine each road, the app takes the cost and time otherwise deployed to government labor (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016). The app sends the real-time data to the city, which then fills the pothole (Melissa, Almirall, & Wareham, 2016).

The compilation, maintenance, and repair of open data is useful and will continue to have value within generative space. With the ability to share, change, and reuse code, programs can connect to the needs of citizens. With social power, effective programs will have the capacity to transform the individual. This process of reaping the benefits of sustainable progress reminds me of the trimming of weeds from a garden. Even the weeds are needed to ply from the ground unwanted vegetation. This pruning primes plants to grow to the greatest version of themselves, strong, well-fed, and able to feed and nourish the population they serve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annotated Bibliography

Bryer, T. A. (2013). Designing Social Media Strategies for Effective Citizen

Engagement: A Case Example and Model. National Civic Review, 102(1), 43.

doi:10.1002/ncr.21114

Bryer talks about the intersection of government services and social media. The author interprets the results from a study performed by the study of 55 projects that were either funded by the federal government or other projects in big cities. The survey weighs the theory that government service projects accompanied by social media sites improve the value of the project to the citizens. The ranking of each project was rated on the frequency of posts by the project, frequency of posts by citizens, frequency of project feedback to citizen posts, and quality of citizen comments. The authors conclude that the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Los Angeles’ Facebook page exemplifies winning strategies in implementation and participant policy. Their noted list of expectations on clarity, respect, and civility provide a penultimate example of best practices when combining social media and government services. Bryer suggests that expectations and policy on social media improves the quality of participants’ comments.

Desouza, K. C., & Bhagwatwar, A. (2012). Citizen Apps to Solve Complex Urban

Problems. Journal Of Urban Technology, 19(3), 107-136. doi:10.1080/10630732.2012.673056

Desouza and Bhagwatwar review the trends of citizen applications. Modern-day citizen apps use open source data and user feeds to update and enhance the effectiveness of the information. The article discuss the need for sustainability in the computer application prize-driven culture. Desouze and Bhagwatwar write that the prize incentives drive only temporary ideas for computer applications. Once the contest is finished the applications are not completed and some projects are completely abandoned. The authors conclude there needs to be more private funding of applications in order to promote long-term vitality of the programs.

Eglash, R., & Banks, D. A. (2014). Recursive Depth in Generative Spaces:

Democratization in Three Dimensions of Technosocial Self-Organization. Information

Society, 30(2), 106-115. doi:10.1080/01972243.2014.875775

Two professors at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute discuss the idea of open source software, online programs, and social power that are connecting points on a scale of effective computer programs that have a meaningful and lasting impact on citizens.

Johnson, P., & Robinson, P. (2014). Civic Hackathons: Innovation, Procurement, or

Civic Engagement?. Review Of Policy Research, 31(4), 349-357. doi:10.1111/ropr.12074

Johnson and Robinson discuss the ethical issues facing applications competitions. Among the moral dilemmas are reciprocity and proportionate compensation for the engineers, as well as the extent to which citizen engagement is enhanced or restricted by participation in computer application development contests. The authors examine if the civic apps help to eliminate the need for government-provided services. The article defines civic hacking as the new civic engagement.

Levitas, Jake. (2016) levitas.org.

Jake Levitas’ website provides links to his TedTalks and information about his non-profit Our City, which helps people to build community infrastructure through innovation and online connectivity.

Melissa, L., Almirall, E., & Wareham, J. (2016). Open Data and Civic Apps:

First-Generation Failures, Second-Generation Improvements. Communications Of The ACM,

59(1), 82-89. doi:10.1145/2756542

Melissa, Almirall, and Wareham analyze the history of open data and the subsequent race to develop civic applications. The authors reflect on the formula for computer application development competitions. Limitations of monetary compensation by way of reward are discussed. The authors conclude that private sector funding and small business investors are needed to finance applications for long term sustainability, maintenance, and support. The authors also discuss redundancies in engineering, misuse of data, the inability to use data to solve problems, and other shortcomings of the computer application design process. The article cites a contemporary civic organizer, Jake Levitas, as defining the term civic hacking as the new civic engagement.

Online-literature.com. (2015) H. G. Wells. Online-literature.com. Jalic Inc.

http://www.online-literature.com/wellshg/

This page discusses the life and work of H. G. Wells. His young life as an impromptu author, formative years studying Biology and Darwin theory of evolution is examined. His books, essays, and associations are analyzed.

Susha, I., Grönlund, Å., & Janssen, M. (2015). Driving factors of service innovation

using open government data: An exploratory study of entrepreneurs in two

countries. Information Polity: The International Journal Of Government &

Democracy In The Information Age, 20(1), 19-34. doi:10.3233/IP-150353

The authors examine the creation and design of application in an employment setting. The limitations of application development are explored, as well as from a research and development perspective what extra work is needed in order to ensure success of long-running computer application lifespan. The authors note that a lack of motivation on the part of the user to use and continue using the app may cause otherwise innovative applications from surviving past its first year of implementation. Susha, Grönlund, and Janssen conclude that the user must be more carefully studied in order to maximize the effectiveness and lasting existence of application technology.

Wells, H. G. (1913). The discovery of the future.

This is a lecture that H. G. Wells recited to the Royal Institute in London. Wells outlines an idea of the slow progression of humans. H. G. talks about evolution: the steady, incremental procession that has been and the future trajectory of enlightenment that humans will enjoy in the years to come.

Half-time Report

If I had an egg timer for every thoughtful thing I ever had to say about someone I hip checked during a soccer game, it might lose count, not because counting minutes is obsolete, but rather because you never really stop feeling guilty for getting caught. Not because I cared so much for their well-being, but because in hind sight, I stopped games, I committed fouls, I was caught kicking the astro turf which was supposed to be green grass that ended up actually being the goalie’s big toe.

That I still recall those well wishes today says something that I cannot yet speak to, but I feel is a close metric to the ways in which children learn not through purely altruistic purposes, but rather through shame, hurt, and embarrassment that something they did was wrong. If some behavior is found to be unacceptable by peers and authority figures, the upper lip in disgust curls up. That creeping feeling of of being found out and shamed or humiliated by one’s own worst practices in the name of bad manners or unsportsmanlike conduct is something normal people grow out of or learn never to repeat by one-time open retribution, including but not limited to the cheer leaders throwing out a little pom-pom heavy haiku about you at half time in order to reform your better nature.

You are either with us or against us, that’s who, but what’s who? The royal who in this scenario is the thoughtful premise of the social contract that includes us in our own collectively agreed upon levels of acceptable progress, and throws us out on our own commonly held standards of bad acts. If one were to draw a line in the sand, no one would want to be voted off that island, the one with real people on it. No man is ever an island. I cannot imagine being in a place whereby some kind of lord of the flies directive turns us into targets of retribution for all our unsound achievements, but our collective contract on which the bargain of civilized behavior stands is buoyed offshore in that island’s shallow water. It is in these depths that we are all born out of. The low culture of our collective bad decisions piles up, in our mind’s collective bank accounts, accruing interest for some obscure rainy day fund in which it is entirely acceptable to reminisce about past mistakes.

Whether you are with one other person or in the company of thousands, there is a kind of catharsis to it, the admission of old bad deeds. There is a quality that exudes a connecting warmth that I might compare to the Catholic guilt at confession. What you can share you can shed, in the shame that took years off your life, or in the freedom that now permits you to speak freely about it. If we do not have opportunities to confess, the guilt binds us to guilt and shame and as it builds it may, as it might, manifest itself, through the years, in the form of a speeding ticket, a court summons for not paying said speeding ticket, and to subsequent time spent in jail for failing to appear in court. (As a side note, this is not an autobiographical admission of guilt, it is just a random sampling of one possible outcome from bad decisions.) What you did today you might not do tomorrow, but nobody who said that magically reversed the course of history.

That being said, all we can do is reflect on our bad decisions, learn from them, and make different choices. The story of shared guilt spills out over our own internal narratives to modern day NBA in one of my favorite teams, the Boston Celtics. During a 2015 season game between the Cavaliers and the Celtics, Kelly Olynyk accidentally popped out Kevin Love’s shoulder. In response, Kelly tried calling Kevin “multiple times”, reaching out to apologize time and again, but to no avail (Newport, 2015).

Kevin Love was interviewed as saying he did not return any of Kelly’s calls, saying, “Oh yeah. I’m over it. I’m just trying to get healthy” (Newport, 2015).

A bit of back story on Kelly Olynyk. He is known in the league as the Canadian mamba. The alias is rooted in the mash up of the meaning behind what a poisonous snake can do to a person and the lasting impression a Canadian can make. See also: Black Mamba in the Quentin Tarantino film, Kill Bill I and Kill Bill II. Played by Daryl Hannah, she is distinguished by the patch she wears over one eye socket. Uma Thurman’s character pulled out an eye with her bare fingers in the first Kill Bill.

Black Mamba is also annotated by the snakes she leaves in the homes of her victims, who lie in wait to poison and subsequently snuff them out. Although Kelly Olynyk is none of those things, neither possessing only one eye nor sicking snakes on his competition, he is from Canada, and he is distinguished not only by his potential, but also his noted passiveness when running to the hoop. In a 2014 Bleacher Report article, Michael Pina wrote about Kelly Olynyk in the following way: “But once his assertiveness catches up with his still-growing talent, Olynyk will be one of the most difficult matchups in the league” (Pina, 2014). For a young man in the NBA, one who is a bit shy on offense, can be also talented, in spite of himself.

Although there may be snakes lying at our feet in any doomsday scenario, there is always a risk of regressing back to the days when you thought the rapture might take you up, away from your worries, so you would not have to face a fate worse than losing a game, or potentially being so embarrassed you would kindly let the floor swallow you whole. These daily conundrums might become less and less depending on the day we are having, working through our anxieties, our doubts, our own sense of self-defeat. The rows of thoughts we line up like chairs in a stadium that are all there to look at you to see you be the best you can be. When we fail, we are bent so low, trying to find the words that are missing to account for what went wrong. It is in the redemption of shared forgiveness that one can forge ahead alongside other people’s rows of chairs, filled with people who came to watch you win.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Newport, Kyle. Cavaliers’ Kevin Love Won’t Accept Celtics’ Kelly Olynyk’s Apology

for Injury. Bleacher Report. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 7 May, 2015. Web. 4 Mar. 2016. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2457245-cavaliers-kevin-love-wont-accept-celtics-kelly-olynyks-apologies-for-injury

Pina, Michael. How Kelly Olynyk Can Become the Star the Boston Celtics Believe He

Will Be. Bleacher Report. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. 28 Nov., 2014. Web. 13 Mar. 2016. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2281596-how-kelly-olynyk-can-become-the-star-the-boston-celtics-believe-he-will-be

 

me likey

I have never been part of a focus group, but I have an idea in my mind of how one would work. In one of my favorite TV shows, 30 Rock, Alec Baldwin’s character leads a focus group asking which new name would be best for The Girly Show wherein Jack Donaghy flashes a carton of hot pizza in front of a group of people, saying,

“If you say you like TGS better, I’ll give you some pizza. Everyone likes pizza.”

And herein lies the focus group: there is a point on the Venn Diagram in which what you want to hear and what they want to know correlates with free food.

Changing the headline

When I think about security, I wonder about how things are affected by it. Simply from the appearance of something feeling safe, one might do a number of things: take a walk at dusk; let a baby pet a pit bull; use a zip line over a thirty feet drop over rocks. At one time or another, someone decided these things were OK to do so they did them. Without the appearance of something being dangerous, someone still might reflect on those risks and brave the consequences. You don’t have to be brave to do them, but knowing what you do can result in injury is one component that someone may or may not consider before doing anything.

I know a girl who rode a zip line in Vermont who fell onto a pile of rocks. She suffered a concussion that changed her ability to process loud noises. For a year and a half after the fall, she could not read or use the computer for more than minutes at a time. She could not be in the same room as two other people who were speaking in regular volume. Indoor lights bothered her, so she wore sunglasses during the day. Before her accident, she was able to process sound, read books, and log onto Facebook without experiencing illness or needing to wear protective eyewear. She could run, jump, and yell and she was like a wild animal, but her injury changed her, if for a moment.

I feel like people know so much nowadays, about the dangers of things. The risks involved in anything are so great. We know how in an instant all we thought to be guaranteed might vanish or somehow slip away. This is not unlike how when we use the computer, we assume things will be secure. The simple click of a button affords us this. Now and again I realize how with simplicity I rely on convenience to be there, technology never to fail, and people to go on how they did the day before and the day before that.

Because as people we are reliant on our past experiences to help predict future outcomes, since yesterday was somehow fine, I am confident that tomorrow will be the same way. This is a human error, how we can be so over-confident on the future based on past results. This is how people can do seemingly silly things based on the appearance of security, the mark of one day being measured by the prior day’s success. What we can see with our failed logic is a pattern that reads similarly to a gambler in a casino, or a thrill seeker in life. The measure of security is not from the precautions we have taken to assure we are immune to threat, but the ignorance of real attacks that might happen in the absence of any precaution whatsoever.

The inability for people who use wireless technology to protect their connection is a gamble that everyone takes. In a study published in the Communications of the ACM, Chenowith, Minch, and Tabor used a college campus to study the behavior (Chenowith, Minch, & Tabor, 2006, p. 135).  The study examined “wireless user vulnerabilities” and “security practices” in an attempt at measuring the users whose connections are not protected (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135). The study also tallied the wireless devices “compromised by malicious applications”, such as viruses, worms, and surveillance software (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135).

Our goal was to directly investigate how well wireless users are securing their computers and the threat level associated with wireless networks. Using a university campus wireless network, we performed a vulnerability scan of systems shortly after users associated to campus access points. The scans were performed using Nmap (www.insecure.org), a popular open source scanning tool. The results of the Nmap scans were used to determine the proportion of wireless users not using a firewall, the prevalence of malicious applications, and the proportion of users with open ports. (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135)

The reason the surveyors used the population they did was its direct representation of use of wireless networks by the general population. Other than user authentication, there are no security measures (such as WEP) in place on the wireless network, although users agree at login that their system patches are current, that they are using an anti- virus program, and that they understand they are subject to university computing policies (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135). If users desire additional security, they must provide it themselves (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135). This environment of minimal network-level security and heavy reliance on user initiative makes the campus wireless network reasonably representative of public hotspot-based wireless networks in general (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135).

Subjects for the study were authorized users of the campus wireless network. The total university population includes 18,599 students and approximately 2,100 faculty and staff. The university is a commuter campus with a non-traditional population of 15,779 undergraduate students (average age 26) and 1,663 graduate students (average age 36), with 54% female and 45% male (1% unspecified). Most students live off campus, and many have part-time jobs or full-time careers, often with one of several local high-tech firms. We view the non-traditional nature of the student subjects as a positive factor for the study as we believe it makes them more representative of the general public and workforce than traditional students would be. (Chenowith, et al, 2006, p. 135)

Since the study is a mirror of the real world, the results are used as a measurement of the steps people take or do not take to secure their wireless connections in the general population.

The results of the study are illuminating. The data of the Nmap scan shows that 304 computers (9.13% of the 3,331 computers) were not using a firewall (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136). Even with a firewall enabled, systems can have open ports (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136).

Since any open port is a potential security risk (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136), the study measured open ports, and found 287 computers (8.62% ) scanned had at least one detectable open port (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136). Of the 287 computers with detectable open ports, 189 (65.85%) had at least one open port with well-known vulnerabilities. Of the 287 computers with detectable open ports, 98 (34.15%) had no open ports with well-known vulnerabilities (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136). Simply put, when a user had open ports, more than 65% of the time at least one of these was a port that posed an important security risk (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136).

The most frequently open ports are also some of the most dangerous. The top three open ports were designed for file and print sharing across computer clusters and can potentially be exploited by attackers through null sessions. (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136)

Individual systems can use “null sessions” (no username or password required) to establish connections between computers using these ports. It is well known within the security community that it is possible for an attacker to exploit null sessions and gain access to a system through one of these ports. (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 135)

Malware can do a lot of things, including keystroke logging, username and password detection, and online monitoring of web activity. What this does is allow someone else besides yourself to silently view and capture your personal information, including credit card accounts, personal emails, google search history, and social security number.

A total of 17 computers (0.5% of the computers scanned) had at least one malware application installed. Although a small number relative to the total number of wireless users, the existence of malware is important because any one of these infected systems may be used to launch attacks against the larger client population. (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136)

Many infected computers had multiple malware applications present. Of particular interest, and somewhat alarming, is the presence of network monitoring and packet sniffing applications. Of the 17 infected computers, 12 also had at least one network monitoring/packet sniffing application. The most common network monitoring tools found were Nessus, Bigbrother, and Netsaint. (Chenowith, et al., 2006, p. 136)

Are the vulnerabilities in a system consistent within every user? No. However, on shared networks, the connection is only as secure as its most vulnerable link. In the cases where 17 computers were already infected with malware, these hubs were bastions for potential attacks on every other computer in all 3,331 computers. If everyone is as ignorant as the least protected user, then everyone is under threat of attack.

Is the technology worth the risk? This question is asked in a more meaningful way, especially when users who also carry work laptops and mobile devices with them outside of work expose their company to security breaches. The threat is real, but the question remains. Is it worth it? Do you feel lucky? I am reminded of so many things when I think about this risk, among them an episode of the NBC TV show 30 Rock. In one episode, Tracy Jordan (Tracy Morgan) and Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) are talking about how to change the public’s perception of Tracy.

Jack:

Everyone thought Prince Hal was a drunken wastrel. But when he became king he transformed himself into a wise and just ruler. He changed the headline. That’s what you have to do, Tracy. If you’re open to it, I’m very good at giving advice. For instance, with your obit[uary] problem. You’ve spent years creating a certain public image, but you can change that. You just have to do what Prince Hal did.

Tracy:

You know something, Jackie D? That thing I said earlier about Prince Hal got me thinking. I have to change my headline.

Jack:

Yes, that’s what I just said. Now if I can help you…

Tracy:

No, no, no Jackie D. I don’t need your help. I’m Tracy Jordan. When I go to sleep, nothing happens in the world. (Gentlemen’s Intermission)

Sometimes we all want to be Prince Hal. If we go to sleep, nothing happens in the world. We are not at risk. Nothing bad happens. This is the same approach that so many take when securing their computers at home. If the risk never comes to bear, it all might be best left to chance.

References

Chenowith, T., Minch, R., & Tabor, S. (2010). Wireless Insecurity: Examining User

Security Behavior on Public Networks. Communications of the ACM, 53(2), 134-138. http://eds.a.ebscohost.com/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=043d2ad0-0c4c-47a3-b75a-0d0faef42c18%40sessionmgr4004&vid=1&hid=4210.

Gentleman’s Intermission. (2015). Retrieved from

http://www.30rockquotes.net/seasons/season_5/30rockquotes_gentlemans_intermission.cfm.