Personal Blog Post #8 Anonymous Activities

Finally, I am proud to say that this is the very last blog post I will ever be doing for this class. It has been a long ride on this roller coaster and I am glad to be finishing with a very interesting topic for my final post. In this blog post I will be speaking on a hacktivist group called group called Anonymous. I had first heard of this group in my SRA 471 class when they had most recently tried to shut down Facebook in November. I will get back to that specific event after I have gone over the background of the group. They are defined as an international hacking group, spread throughout the internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. The group itself originated in 2003 on the image board 4chan; basically in an online community. Since 2008, the Anonymous collective has become increasingly associated with collaborative, international hacktivism, undertaking protests and other actions, often with the goal of promoting internet freedom and freedom of speech. Actions credited to "Anonymous" are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution. After a series of controversial, widely-publicized protests and distributed denial of service attacks by Anonymous in 2008, incidents linked to its cadre members have increased. In consideration of its capabilities, Anonymous has been posited by CNN to be one of the three major successors to WikiLeaks.  

I find this group very interesting because they create civil unrest and achieve their political goals through extreme circumstances. Below, I am going to discuss one major event that this group has made the news with in this past year. The first event was against the Bay Area Rapid Transit System in San Francisco. According to Anonymous:

“Anonymous will take the following actions over the next 48 hours.

1) We have begun at once a massive Black Fax and E-Mail Bomb action, where we will fill every inbox and fax machine at BART with thousands of copies of our message that this outage was unacceptable.

2) Tomorrow, Sunday - August 14, 2011 at High Noon Pacific Time we, Anonymous - will remove from the internet the web site of BART located at www.bart.gov for exactly six hours. That's twice as long as they shut off the cell phones for.

3) On Monday - August 15, 2011 at 5:00 PM Pacific Time there will be a physical protest at the Civic Center Bart Station. Expect us !

We sincerely hope that this series of actions will serve as a warning to BART and every public organization in the USA to NOT engage in this sort of dangerous and human rights violating behavior”.

After seeing Anonymous in action I started to follow them a lot more closely and hoping to hear them in the news whenever I possibly could. The time I heard of an Anonymous attack was when they had threatened to shut down Facebook because they told the public the government was getting information from Facebook, and that was violating privacy. Below is a video on this attempt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6crH8qmyZ8

Personal Blog Post #7 Shaky Feelings in State College

The next event that I wished to speak about was one that took place in Virginia, but almost everyone in State College, Pennsylvania as well as many other states could relate to. I still remember when it happened; we were sitting in SRA 471 when all of a sudden the ground began to shake from three stories up. Our initial reaction to this was we have seen construction workers working by the IST building recently and they must just be using jackhammers. We began to think otherwise after the shaking had not ended for about an entire minute and got stronger before it had ended. Some people were scared that they had just felt their first earthquake, but I on the other hand was excited to have just experienced my first earthquake. It was a very thrilling for me because since I was born Pennsylvania had never received any earthquakes due to the mountains surrounding it. It was a shock to my system and I needed to immediately figure out what had happened.

The technology out today is so impressive and like all the discussions we had in SRA 397A I finally lived some of it. Within minutes of the earthquake social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter were booming with information about the earthquake. Some of the posts were simply people asking if that was an earthquake felt in roughly 6 different states, while others were descriptive posts telling exactly what had happened. Social networking has truly become an amazing tool in disaster relief. It was not till this moment in tome that I had realized what a key role it actually played in real life. Yet another important technology that we usually take advantage of until times of crisis would be the cell phone. Minutes after the earthquake I received almost 50 text messages saying either what happened, asking if I was alright, and most importantly informing me what exactly happened. The final important technology used in times of crisis for disaster relief is simply the internet. After minutes on Google we had found out that we had felt this earthquake’s aftershocks all the way from Virginia.

It turns out that the earthquake in Virginia was considered a 5.8 on the Rictor Scale and occurred on Tuesday August 23, 2011 at 1:51 PM. According to the reports from the USGS, “Moderately heavy damage (VIII) occurred in a rural region of Louisa County southwest of Mineral. Widespread light to moderate damage occurred from central Virginia to southern Maryland including the Washington D.C. area. Minor damage reported in parts of Delaware, southeastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. Very strongly felt (VII) at Boston, Bumpass, Kent Store, Louisa, Mineral, Rhoadsville and Summerduck. Felt strongly in much of central Virginia and southern Maryland. Felt throughout the eastern US from central Georgia to central Maine and west to Detroit, Michigan and Chicago, Illinois. Felt in many parts of southeastern Canada from Montreal to Windsor”. This was very interesting because earthquakes do not usually occur in this area. Below you can see more information on the earthquake in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXvoS8--mTE

Personal Blog Post #6 Open Source vs. Closed Source Mapping

Open source mapping is far superior to closed source in many categories in times of crisis simply due to the fact that anyone can edit the maps with all of the crisis information at that specific point in time. Closed source mapping on the other hand is basically useless in time of crisis because they are controlled by a select group of people that are the only ones able to make changes to the mapping system. Closed mapping systems are good for every day mapping when there is no emergency. An example of a closed source mapping system could include Google Maps. They are a closed type mapping system because no one can just go on Google maps like Wikipedia and just edit things at their own will; it requires having clearance to make changes to closed systems. The main reason I am writing this paper is to inform the reader that open source mapping is far superior to closed source mapping in times where crisis management is being implemented.

One of the reasons that open source mapping is so much better during times of crisis is because of its flexibility to quickly adapt to changes happening in the disaster area no matter what the disaster may be. This is essential because if the agencies using these maps were using a closed mapping system, they would not be able to receive help from professionals everywhere because the uses would be very restricted. However, when the maps are open sourced any average Joe that knows what they are doing would be able to help disaster areas from halfway around the world. A prime example of open source mapping being introduced in to the crisis management field would have to be during the massive earthquake that occurred in Haiti. Before this terrible event in the history of the civilized world government agencies and non-profit organizations found it very difficult to work together and share information with one another. Open source mapping stormed the scene when everyone shared information with one another at this point for the first time. There were programmers and many tech savvy people from every corner of the globe helping to generate maps for the victims in Haiti that were trying to either navigate away from the destruction or trying to receive medical supplies. The point is that without open source mapping many more people would have died in Haiti due to the fact that there would not have been that many people working on a global scale for free if they were using a closed mapping system.

I would have to say that my favorite type of open mapping system I have learned of so far through my schooling is Arc GIS. I have taken the Security Risk Analysis class on visual analytics which consisted of learning to use Arc GIS as well as one other program and using these programs in order to analyze physical situations more proficiently. The other program that we learned to use was called Treemaps and was a little less complicated to learn than Arc GIS, but at the same time was not quite as effective. This was used for more of a statistical base using charts and graphs more as a backup to the maps used in Arc GIS. However, when these two programs are used together they create quite the program that is essential for the field of disaster relief these days. I think that may have been one of my most useful SRA classes thus far at Penn State because we were allowed to use programs for free that usually cost thousands of dollars on someone’s own bill. This program was pretty complex and hard to get used to at first, but after you get used to it the program itself is exciting to use. You may download virtually any type of data and get it mapped out using the program. This is specifically useful for disaster relief and if I ever went into the disaster relief field I would most certainly suggest using Arc GIS. Below is a video describing the use of Arc GIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56u9f_Ba290

Personal Blog Post #5 Vietnam Floods September 2011

This will be the last entry that I will be writing involving disasters that I have learned from the website Relief Web. I figured that three different posts from the same website was enough to prove that is was a legitimate site and I suggest that others use this website it you get stuck looking for something to write about for your remaining blog posts. As for this next blog post I will be writing on the flooding in Vietnam in September of 2011 and the affects it had on the people inhabiting the area. Vietnamese authorities say 100 people are now dead due to serious flooding that has plagued the nation for weeks. The new death toll had included 17 people killed across central Vietnam, which has been decimated with heavy rains in recent days.

According to Bhupinder Tomar, a representative of the International Federation of the Red Cross who is based in Hanoi, “the flood waters are beginning to recede — at least in Vietnam's central region”. Following the flooding, more than 20,000 victims to the floods were taken away from their homes due to this disaster. According to a specialist in the field by the name of Tomar, “This will certainly aggravate the humanitarian crisis”. Statistics show that more than 800 people have been killed across Southeast Asia from unusually heavy seasonal monsoon rains. Tomar says the IFRC is trying to raise more than $2 million to help affected people with cash grants for such things as housing reconstruction, and the replacement of boats and fishing nets.

The aid in this situation is not as dire as compared to the event of a major earthquake such as the one we have talked about so much in Haiti. Instead, I felt that blogging about a flood would show a different angle to humanitarian efforts. Because the damage was extremely severe, but the circumstances are not as dire that they need to rescue people as quickly. Due to this reason for the circumstances, the use of many available technologies that we have hear about all semester were not necessary for relief efforts such use the use and implementation of social networking for disaster relief. For this particular incident, it was only necessary to send out the rescue teams large trucks and boats in order to venture through the flood in order to save people.

After looking back on this class, I feel that earthquakes and terrorist attacks are the worst events out there and these are the events that humanitarian efforts are the most prepared to deal with. I feel that this was a prime example of saying that this isn’t the worst thing that could happen so be thankful. Below is a link that describes events during this natural disaster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYcV_6JQPGU

Personal Blog #4 Turkey Earthquake October 2011

I have found that using the website Relief Web has given me a good look at what types of disasters are going on currently worldwide. It is an interesting website that shows different natural disasters and the intensity of these disasters on the website’s map. They use hot spot analysis in order to project these disasters on the map. The next natural disaster that I found interesting on this website was the earthquake in Turkey that occurred in October of 2011. This specific event occurred on Sunday, October 23 2001 at 10:41 UTC. The magnitude of this earthquake was measured on the Rictor Scale at 7.1. As far as the damage goes, at least 534 people were killed, 2,300 people were injured, and 14,618 buildings were destroyed or damaged in the Ercis-Tabanli-Van area. After the earthquake had hit, rescue efforts had been slightly delayed because telecommunications, electricity, as well as water services were disrupted. Some of the many areas in the regions that felt this monster included eastern Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran and parts of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. These earthquakes anywhere above a 6.0 have been causing a lot of destruction lately all around the world, thus causing rescue teams to get more practice in and be better prepared for the next big disaster the world throws at them.

As it turns out time and time again, rescue teams are not the first type of rescue that occurs during a natural disaster. The people who get to the scene first are actually the survivors of the disaster that are attempting to put their safety at jeopardy in order to help others. It is an interesting topic, that when human life is at stake people will bury their everyday selfishness and help their fellow man escape certain death, even if it may mean sacrificing their own life for the lives of others. This class has taught me that this is how humans are built and when put in this position they will always make the correct choice. In the reports on this event, it is said that the survivors began grabbing shovels and using their hand in order to dig out victims that were caught within the rubble and had only hours to live. This is the goodness in humanity that I have found this semester. After seeing all the hate and violence in the world that happens these days, it is incredible to see the true nature and character of humanity when something so terrible happens that it literally brings out the good in people.

Eventually the rescue teams came on the scene within the hour and began assisting the victims out of the rubble. They used a wide variety of technology in order to do this such as GPS and robot machines used for the digging. Below I have a video of this particular incident that shows what happened to these people and how they wer assisted to escape this terrible disaster in Turkey:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/23/turkey-earthquake-2011_n_1027092.html

Personal Blog Post #3 Himalayan Earthquake

For the next series of personal blog posts I am attempting to complete I have decided to use a website called Relief Web because I am out of ideas for personal blogs. Relief Web is a website that the instructor told us about one random day in class and I am going to take this to my advantage. Basically what this site does is keeps the users up to date with the latest natural disasters and terrorist attack all over the globe. It is updated on a daily basis so if you follow the site every day you will know what exactly is going on in the word. The topic that I decided to write this blog post on is the Himalayan Earthquake on September 19, 2011. After this 6.9 earthquake had concluded, 63 people were killed as well as 100,000 homes destroyed in Tibet, Nepal, and India. The biggest problem that was causing all of the excess damage after the earthquake was pouring rain causing huge mudslides. Due to the mudslides, rescue teams had to work much harder pulling people out of rubble and mud. This also caused problems with keeping the roadways open and making it hard to bring in help and supplies for relief efforts.

More than 6,000 troops were drafting in order to move concrete slabs and save people from the devastation. Within the first night after the deadly earthquake, 400 people were saved. Another strong factor that came into play was the fact that the clouds were so thick, that they stopped the use of helicopters to be used for the incident. After the first day the earthquake hot the was a lot of things wrong with the land in general. All the pipes had burst so there was no drinking or cleaning water, the earthquake took out all electricity in the area, and many of the roads were still collapsing after everything had subsided. There really wasn’t as much technology used during the aftermath of this earthquake like we have seen in this class in places such as Haiti and the 9/11 attacks. /I think this was because this was more of a remote location and they were clearly working with limited resources at that point. Overall, they still did a great job with the relief efforts, despite their lack of technology that was available to them at that point in time.

After reading about this deadly earthquake, I was actually quite interesting to see how disaster relief worked in places that had limited technology at their disposal at that point in time. We have been looking at huge events all semester that have involved a lot of different types of technologies. I really enjoyed learning about all that this semester especially how social networking can be used during disaster relief; however it was almost nice to see a disaster where only people were there to help one another, not so much computers. At the following link you can find a video on this particular earthquake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArIYMKZbTDU

Personal Blog Post #2 Centre County Dispatch

Personal Blog Post #2 Centre County Dispatch

Last week for our final project in this class, my roommate Evan and I took a trip to the Centre County dispatch office located in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in order to learn how a dispatch office truly works top to bottom. It was a great opportunity for us because it was only a ten minute drive from our apartment and we learned everything that we needed to learn at this orientation to the dispatch center. When we got there we were asked to walk through a metal detector because it was considered a government building. After we finally made our way through the security check, we met a man named Dan who was in charge if the 911 dispatch center here. He was very cool and gave us an in depth tour of the place and told us pretty much everything we needed to know.

It was really interesting and exciting actually going into the dispatch office and seeing what calls come in and how the people working there actually deal with the calls. The way things were set up in here consisted of 5 people altogether running the entire dispatch operation. One of the workers was Dan who managed the operation and makes sure on a daily basis that everything is running smoothly. The other 4 people in the room consisted of both call takers and dispatchers. When the 911 calls come in these are the people that both answer the 911 call and then dispatch whatever emergency service is needed in order to combat the disaster or crime. The 4 people in the dispatch room were split up into firemen, EMS, State College Police, and Patton Township Police. Altogether, these 5 people in the dispatch area are the brains behind what makes the police and all emergency services in the area able to do their jobs better.

After we learned how this all worked we were able to actually sit there and see a call in progress on one of the dispatcher’s monitors. It was very interesting to actually see how this happens because for any of you imagining what actually happens during a 911 call it’s completely different. I always thought they were there on the phone to simply keep you calm in case of emergencies; however it is quite the opposite. I never realized how much work they actually do until I saw them in action. I would have actually thought of taking this job after graduation if it paid more, they said it paid terribly so I think I am going to stretch my wings and look for other types of jobs after graduation. I still don’t really understand why people would want to work at the dispatch if they are so underpaid. Maybe they just enjoy serving the community and making decent money to do this as a college graduate. At the following link you can find out more information about dispatch centers in general and how they work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zR3SIzFJS4

Assigned Blog Post #12 Dealing with Technology and Crisis Responce

After taking this class personally I feel that I have learned a lot about disasters and the best ways to be prepared and combat them to the best our abilities. I feel that the SRA students that have taken this class have a head start compared to everyone else that has not taken the Crisis Informatics class this semester. We have covered so many different disasters in the duration of the class as well as the best solutions to these disasters. Some of the disasters we have covered range from terrorist attacks to hurricanes and finally to earthquakes. The point is that no matter the natural disaster you must realize that in a sense these are all manmade because man has a way to either prevent or mitigate these disasters no matter what type they may be. I think that is one of the most important things that we learned in this entire class.

I think that this class was made up of most if not all SRA majors compared to IST majors. I actually believe that there was one geography major in the class and I think she was lucky to pick up this class because we have learned so much this semester about disaster response. If anyone is looking to really getting into the disaster response field this was defiantly the class to take. Most people in the Information Science and Technology major are getting a hold of the latest technology that the Penn State campus and money has to offer. I have learned of many technologies such as Analyst’s Notebook, Arc GIS, ACH diagrams, and the Extreme Events Lab here in the IST building that have given me a good basis of things that are to come one day in the intelligence field and/or the crisis management field.

One of the most effective solutions to natural disasters that I have learned from this class would have to include social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is the most visited topic that we have hit this semester and its effect it has on disaster relief. I need no go into detail on how it works because we have all been learning about it this semester. May I say as well that if you have not taken this class and you are reading this blog I highly suggest learning from some source or another how social networking effects disaster relief efforts.

Overall, I would have to say that the Security and Risk Analysis students have a leg up on the competition compared to any of the Information Science and Technology majors and any other majors because of all the perks and technology we are able to get our hands on and learn for free. I feel that I have chosen the perfect major for dealing with new technologies that may emerge in the near future and finding ways to implement them for crisis management. At the link below you can find a video describing the importance of crisis management:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EQBVroYXck

Personal Blog Post #1 Joe Paterno Penn State Riot

It was the quiet before the storm on a normal Wednesday night in State College, Pennsylvania before the initial smack of reality hit every Penn State student that late evening. At around 11 o’clock PM on that Wednesday night an emergency press conference was held to determine the punishments for the allegations against children who were abused by prior Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky. That night the press conference confirmed that not only the President of Penn State was fired, but also the head coach of the football team record holder Joe Paterno would never coach another football game at Penn State. I could only imagine what was going through every students head; we would do everything in our power to stop this from happening and we would go down with a fight. This was war.

My three roommates and I quickly made our way to Old Main where the peaceful protest began. Little did we know this protest would not stay peaceful for very long. The police gathered at the Old Main building and began forcing students back with minimal force. At this point in the evening it was around 12 AM when the students rushed to Beaver Ave. downtown State College. At this point the peaceful protest was no more when police formed into lines with riot gear and began to mace students at will in order to break up the peaceful mob. At this point the students decided to fight back instead of run from this unbeatable force. I witnessed many students bring down light poles, throw rocks and other objects at the police, and it even got to the point of flipping news vans. We never thought that this is what we had in store for this night.

When the initial mace attack began students began to retreat and flee back to Old Main. It was at this point when the mob was moving as one the police were relentlessly using mace on students at will. At this point I was maced in my eyes, mouth, face, and arms. I cannot begin to tell you how painful this was, but all I could think about was finding water. One of my roommates and me raced to the HUB where I can’t my eyes under a sink for 45 minutes until the pain finally died away. At this point the police had called in for back up using the radios in their cars and radios they were wearing at the time, while the remaining students amassed on College Ave.  At this point the riot became worse and cars began to be flipped. I figured it was time to leave at this point and I am very glad I did. As we were driving home we saw a total of 7 cop cars racing down Atherton Street to the final wave of the riot. When we got home we watched students on the television being maced with no warning. I was glad the night had finally come to an end.

This is the video online now that was on the news that night interviewing students during the riot and seeing what they had to say:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXCZKUp45o0

This was a crazy night for all Penn State students and I’m glad I made it out safe.

Assigned Post #11 Geovisual analytics and crisis management

I am sad to say that I was about an hour late for this week’s class because I was at the hospital getting x-rays taken because I broke my finger playing football. From what I got out of the speaker from this week’s presentation it was more about Tweets. May I say that I am getting really tired of hearing about Twitter and all of its crisis management applications. Sure it is interesting, but I feel like this is all that this class has become for more than the last month. I feel like there are far greater thing that we could discuss besides Twitter every class period and a prime example is what my presentation is on tonight. Overall, the speaker seemed like a pretty interesting guy, but I wasn’t really interested in what he had to say about Twitter.

After the speaker had finished speaking we learned that we would not be presenting in class today. I was thrilled at this fact because we were instead given ample time to work on our final projects for this class. Apparently I missed an interesting beginning to the class where Professor Tapia bashed all of the students on the final project and explained to us all how bad we are doing. Because of this, we focused the most of the class trying to find out a new scope to the final project. The new scope that we have chosen for the project was to focus on the 911 dispatch center within the time frame of 24 after a natural disaster or terrorist attack in a heavily populated area. It took us most of the class to come up with this and then clear it with the professor to make sure that we were on the right track again.

I must say that tonight’s class was very dull for me because I ended up missing the speaker and I had an interesting speech to do that was skipped so that we could work on our group projects. My speech was on Geovisual analytics and crisis management. Some of the important tools that went along with this included the programs Arc GIS and Google Earth. I actually took a class last semester that dealt with visual analytics called SRA 478, in which we primarily learned how to use the program Arc GIS. I think that this will help me in the long run especially if I was to one day going into the crisis management field.

I didn’t think that today’s class was very interesting, but that may be because I missed half of it due to my broken hand. I think today made me realize that I want to get into a career later in life that involves using the program Arc GIS because it is very fun to use once you get good at it and also I feel that it has an impressive real world application. It makes me feel like I can go out and do some good in the world with this program to help people. At the link below you can find an interesting video on Arc GIS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp7vDUkf9PQ

Assigned Post #10 Extreme Events Lab and Twitter Usage

At the beginning of this week’s class we were surprised with an exciting event instead of simply listening to student presentations for the entire class. Within five minutes after the beginning of class we were off to the extreme events lab in the Information Science and Technology building in order to see a very interesting 3D presentation. I walked into this room and was amazed to see how cool this was. We were all given 3D glasses to wear for this presentation and it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. One day when I am rich from my awesome career I would like to have a room in my house specifically designed for this purpose for both work and play.

 I think that the coolest thing the professor showed us during the presentation was the 3D map of flights out of the LAX airport in California. The patterns that the planes flew were very interesting because you could see the elevations, different flight, and also different flight patterns. I also wish to see the other room the professor was talking about that has all four walls and the floor all as screens to give the true 3D effect. Overall, I believe that this invention is a great tool to be used at Penn State and anywhere else for that matter. This room is awesome and I think that any students able should take advantage of doing a project in this room.

The second half of the class consisted of student presentations by Jen, Tony, and so on. All of these presentations were all revolved around the topic of using Twitter for disaster relief and Humanitarian efforts. A study was done on Facebook during school shootings such as Virginia Tech where students were putting information online about the events before the police and news crews would even figure out what was going on. I think it’s really cool that his was happening even back then because we have been talking about this all semester. Later, as social networking became more prevalent, people began to use it more and more when disasters struck such as hurricanes and earthquakes. Another example of social networking being used was for wildfires and floods. Wildfires were harder to predict than floods and Tweeting actually worked better for geo-locations with the floods instead of the wildfires.

I think that the articles that we went over in class today was kind of a review of the articles and class periods that we have been talking about all semester, but it reinforced the information very well. I happened to find an interesting video on YouTube involving Twitter’s effect on disaster relief. The video is titled “Talking Twitter Hash tags In Crisis Communication/ Atlanta Flood 2009”. The link can be found below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpw9DNC9Hmk

This video was very interesting and I highly suggest watching it if you want to learn more about Twitter’s uses during natural disasters. Overall, this class was very interesting and I look forward to researching and presenting during next week’s class. 

Assigned Post #9 Earthquake in Japan

This week’s blog post may not be as interesting as usual because I was unable to make this week’s class session due to the movement of class days; however I am going to try my best to make my blog post as interesting and informative as possible. After reading the required readings that were due for this week’s class I have found that this information is on the earthquake that happened in Japan. This ended up being a ground breaking natural disaster because for the first time ever social media was implemented for humanitarian use in a developed society. Because of this natural disaster, social networking usage spiked in Japan as they began to be used for disaster relief along with playful activities. Beat Communication Co., Ltd. is the largest provider of social networking packages in Japan and made all of this possible. Thanks to social networking many lives have been saved in the last decade due to natural disasters.

I found an amazing statistic in the reading that said after the earthquake social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter went up 60-70% in total. Another type of new social networking that was used was called mixi. As quoted from one of the assigned readings, “Japan used mixi to confirm the safety of employees, friends and family, to learn more about the disaster situation (such as the damage done to modes of transportation and electrical grids) and to listen to public service announcements and press reports in lieu of television”. As you can tell from the quote above after every new natural disaster, humans are coming up with new innovative ways to make good use of new types of technologies such as social media in order to benefit those around them in perilous times.

As a result of the earthquake in Japan, many corporations have begun implementing their own social networking sites or simply using Twitter as a communication system in the case that there is a natural disaster. I feel this is essential because social networking sites have proved time and time again to be excellent when used in disaster relief. The better prepared people are all over the world for these disasters, the less lives will be lost when these disasters really strike. As I also read from the assigned article, statistics also show that people using Twitter in Japan received quicker and better organized information than others. I truly believe that social networking is the way of the future whether you are using it for work or play it is everywhere in today’s society.  

After reading these articles on Angel I thought that it would be beneficial to find a video about the earthquake in Japan and see first hand what it was like and also watch a video on how social networking affected humanitarian efforts. This video I found was titled “Japan Earthquake 2011- Twitter Messages” and can be found at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kq_q9tVTupI

This video gave a very good description of what happened in Japan that sad day and linked it with a social network aspect. Note, the music in the video was terrible and made me want to rip my ears off, however the pictures were solid.

Assigned Post #8 Patrick Meier and Crisis Mapping

Tonight’s class is the last class for the last guest speaker and I have been looking forward to it all last week. I have been interested to see if Patrick Meier can live up to the standards that the rest of the speakers set for him. At the beginning of the class we talked for one hour before we had to Skype the guest speaker for the lecture. During this hour we seemed to accomplish a lot of work. One of the things that we did was chose reading topics for the next few lectures. Another important part of tonight’s class was to choose our groups for the final project and then pick a topic that the group will focus on for the final project. Following the first hour we began our Skype lecture with Patrick Meier.

I feel that this Skype chat was a lot more productive than the last one we had around 3 weeks ago. This one was extremely clear and we could hear everything that the speaker was saying. I also thought that this speaker was the most interesting out of the four we have had. I would have preferred to see him speak in person to ask better questions, but overall the presentation was great. Patrick Meier is quite the expert on crisis mapping. He gave a virtual example of a map of Haiti that I thought was very interesting that showed an explosion to simulate the earthquake. Following this all of the earthquakes appeared slowing on the map to portray all the volunteers that worked on these maps. Patrick also showed us a global map in which the readers could see all over the world of the volunteers who translated Haitian Creole into English in order for rescue teams to be able to help. 

Volunteers have been proven time and time again to be the heart and soul of the humanitarian society. Crisis mapping is a critical step for humanitarian agencies because it makes it possible for them to see what things are like on the ground and what is happening around them without them actually being there. This allows them to find areas that need aid and supplies more than other areas that need less. Without crisis mapping the humanitarian workers on the ground would not know what to do and exactly where to go. By the use of connectivity combined with crisis mapping information is shared in order to save lives.

I thought that this speaker was one of the best that we have seen yet for sure. Following the class period I searched for some interesting videos on YouTube and found this interesting clip. It was titled “The Future of Crisis Mapping in Disaster Response” and can be found at the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_NguESRZ4g

The video was by the same speaker that we had in class this week and was very interesting. It reinforced the topics we covered last class and I highly advise watching it. This speaker was very impressive and I would like to hear him speak again someday.   

Assigned Post #7 Edward Granger-Happ and the International Red Cross

May I be the first to say that tonight’s speaker Edward Happ who works with the International Red Cross and also Net Hope was a very interesting speaker and had a variety of knowledge to share with the class. When the class began I found it very interesting that he has had three careers in his life already and he is still in the process of looking for two more careers before he wishes to retire. May I also add that the only disappointing part about this lecture was the lack of pizza. I think the next guest lecture should definitely include pizza. Overall, I think this was the best guest speaker we had thus far due to his massive amounts of experience in the humanitarian world. I think he was also the most famous that we have had the pleasure of hearing thus far. In any case after his introduction to the lecture I was already impressed.

According to Edward, his organization is based on three things; crisis, connections, and collaboration. Crisis in this sense is defined as the world stage getting more challenging. This makes sense because new disasters are always creating new problems to fix all over the world. The connections stage states that responding to crisis with technology is becoming more social. A good example of this is the use of social networking sites for humanitarian efforts such as Twitter and Facebook. Finally, collaboration was defined as different groups working together in order to achieve a common goal. The best example I can think of this was the earthquake in Haiti. Collaboration was at an all-time high during this disaster for government agencies, non-profit organizations, and even the victims themselves because everyone was sharing information.

Another event that I remember fairly well from the presentation was the earthquake in San Francisco, California in 1989. I was just a wee lad during that year and had no idea that it was even going on all the way over on the west coast of the United States. The earthquake conveniently hot at 5:04PM during rush hour, and we all know drivers in California drive fast to begin with. There was mass destruction including buildings being destroyed and many lives were taken. The speaker also brought up an essential point for us as a class; he said that in order for us to remember what his lecture was on he would tell stories to make the information stick. I think that is a genius idea and I will use that in my job in the future whatever that might be. 

Overall, I thought this speaker was the most interesting out of all the speakers thus far. He kept my attention easily and reinforced a lot of topics that we had previously discussed during class lectures. I found a YouTube video after class ended tonight on Edward and his work with Net Hope. It was titled Ed Granger-Happ on the Future of NetHope, and could be found at the following link:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUKP8qCdupg

This presentation was excellent and I am eager to see how the next speaker turns out.

Assigned Post #6 Andrew Alspach and OCHA

I would like to begin this blog post by thanking Professor Tapia for setting up this opportunity and also for getting us pizza and drinks before the class began. That was a great beginning to the class and we had an awesome introduction for Andrew Alspach. At the beginning of class before the lecture began we had individual discussions with the speaker to find more about his background. It just so happens that he is an Ohio State fan, which was kind of a downside. We quickly got over this fact when he began telling us his life story and all of the different places that he has worked over the years. He grew up on the farm during his younger years as a bee keeper, which surprisingly gave him a reason to get into the Peace Corps. Following this, he eventually became a permanent member in the United Nations and more specifically OCHA. Following this, we went around the room and some of the class introduced themselves and why they are taking this class and major. I believe that this as a great way to get the speaker acclimated to the class and to get us acclimated to him as well for the actual lecture.

                I would have to say that one of the main focuses of the speaker was his work in Haiti and different types of technologies used there. I thought this was pretty interesting considering we have been covering this topic for the last three weeks in class. He spoke of the reading Disaster Relief 2.0 describing the events in Haiti and how the events woke up the people in the United Nations. This was cool because we earlier read this reading for class a few weeks ago and this reinforced the topics of tonight’s lecture. Another topic that I enjoyed was innovation. Andrew played a video on innovation that basically explained that if people open up their minds and share ideas, the better ideas come out in order to form breakthroughs. This reinforced topics that had also been previously discussed in class in some of the past weeks. Haiti was a prime example of people from different organizations coming together to solve a common problem. Many new technologies were invented and implemented through civilians using their expert skills for the better of mankind and to help one another in times of crisis. The last thing that sparked my interest during the discussion was Relief Web. This is a website that is very good for finding crisis relief jobs and other careers of that sort.

            I thought that this class this evening was very interesting and productive. I learned a lot of new topics and Andrew reinforced a lot of older topics and made them clearer to me. Following the presentation I found an interesting video on the United Nations and how they helped to cope with the earthquake in general. The You Tube clip is titled UN Copes with Haiti Earthquake and can be found at the following link below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LjfwMnWxCo&feature=fvst

Overall, this was an awesome class and I hope that the next guest speaker can live up to the expectations of Andrew Alspach; he left a very hard presentation to beat. 

Assigned Post #5 Gisli Olafsson and Net Hope

Tonight’s class was probably the most interesting class we have had all year. It was a nice change of pace and scenery as well instead of being locked up in that little corner back room. As for our first speaker, Gisli Olafsson of Net Hope was a very intelligent man who cared a lot about connectivity. I actually thought he was pretty funny when we either had some down time during the question and answer period or whether the sound was messing up between our class and him. I believe that most of the topics the speaker went over were very relevant to most of the topics we have been going over since the beginning of this class. There are many different aspects of his lecture that I would like to go over, but I will simply cover a few for this blog.

To begin the class, Olafsson defined Humanitarian Reform as old models of collaboration no longer working so they designed a new way to deal with large scale disasters. An example where this was implemented was the Earthquake in Haiti that we covered in last week’s class. He would also later go on to say during the lecture that the disaster in Haiti was the greatest test of their skills with connectivity. Following this, he went in to speaking on cluster models and the 7 principles that these models following. First, cluster models are defined as putting different organizations together to work towards connectivity in order to improve disaster relief efforts. Now that we know what cluster models are, the 7 principles they follow include innovation, collaboration, openness, interdependence, integrity, self-organization, and finally sustainability. Together these 7 principles make connectivity simple and effective for humanitarian relief efforts.

Another interesting point he made during the presentation was on mass collaboration. He defined this as taking a large number of people and get them to work together in order to meet common goals. This is an essential part of disaster relief that we have been going over for the past few weeks. I thought this was a key point and really wanted to get it up in this blog because this point comes up every week. He also covered another topic we went over in class which stated, “Collaboration does not happen between organizations and they cause a big problem when disaster strikes because they just want media time in order to improve their fame”. I believe it is stupid and pointless that big time relief organizations are sometimes more interested in their money, popularity, and information than suffering people in countries all over the world which require aid immediately.

I wanted to bring up a quote that really hit me during the presentation this evening. It stated, “The best weapon of a dictatorship is secrecy, but the best weapon of a democracy should be the weapon of openness”. This quote reinforces the idea that organizations are much more effective if they collaborate with one another and take advantage of connectivity.

 In the link below I found a very interesting interview on YouTube with Gisli Olafsson:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ak6hMhhycQ0

Overall I thought the night was very interesting, although the volume level over the computer did not work very well. Tonight was a great class and I can’t wait until next week!

Assigned Post #4 Earthquake in Haiti Technology Advances

Tonight’s class was specifically focused on the Earthquake in Haiti and the emergency response tactics after the earthquake hit. There were a lot of topics thrown around during the entirety of the class, but there was one fact to point out that was more important than all the rest. This select piece of information stated that with crisis mapping many people that were trapped in the disaster areas were tweeting, which were being read by thousands of translators and responders. At a more in depth look responses came in Haitian Creole; the responders had to translate this into English so that they could translate the tweets, categorize them and plot the areas that needed to be responded to. Following this, the most important information could be sent to the responders who would then use the information to go and save lives in the places they believed needed the most help. Another important thing to remember was that a lot of pressure was put on the translators, not as much on the responders because they had to pick out what the important information was compared to the information that wasn’t so pressing. This is not how it was in the past and makes this a very important first and unique occurrence.

Going into deeper and more exact levels of the technology is the next thing I would like to focus on now that the main point of my blog has been put out there. One example of important technology that was used for the post Haiti response was SMS text messaging. SMS text messaging was the main form of communication after the earthquake in Haiti. Unlike the 9/11 attacks the infrastructure did not fail due to the fact that there were not enough people in Haiti to bring down and flood the network with their cell phones. This was an excellent opportunity for emergency responders because it gave them exact GPS locations on the victims and they were able to help them and send them back information on where they could go and get help. Another important piece of information that happened for the first time after the Haiti earthquake was the collaboration between different agencies and organizations worked very well during this disaster unlike in the past such as 9/11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. This is because they developed a new way to share information that worked very well. This was also the first time the government used social networking sites to help in the disaster relief. Surprisingly this worked very well with the concept of silos working together.

After class tonight, I was in the mood to look up other new technologies specifically designed to help with the Haiti relief efforts. After looking briefly in YouTube I found a very interesting video called New Solar Water Purifier Saves Lives in Haiti. This video can be found at the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHw7WXPG0g

This video was pretty interesting and was a little bit different from what we covered in class. I advise watching the video if you are interested in different types of physical relief in Haiti. Overall, I would have to say that tonight’s class was very interesting and everyone that spoke did a very good job. I especially enjoyed the puppies on the screen.

Assigned Post #3 Hurricane Katrina Relief Tactics

In yesterday’s class the major topic at hand was disaster relief for Hurricane Katrina. In order to begin my blog I wanted to bring up a quote that really inspired me during a presentation during class. It stated, “The preparation for and response to Hurricane Katrina showed that we are still a very analog government in a digital age”. To me, this quote meant that our government has the potential for so much more, and yet we were not well enough prepared when this terrible disaster hit New Orleans. The government needs to create better crisis mitigation plans for a lot of different possibilities, which can be very difficult at times.

I also feel that one of the most important things to take away from the Hurricane Katrina incident was the system NIMS. The National Incident Management System is a system used in the United States to coordinate emergency preparedness and incident management among various federal, state, and local agencies. Basically, NIMS wanted to get all the government agencies to come together and work as one unit, which failed terribly during Hurricane Katrina. All of the separate government agencies are too stubborn to coordinate with one another because they do not wish to share information with one another, due to the fact that they would all like to keep their own secret information. Because of this, disaster relief can never be maximized and just creates a sloppy mess during any type of disaster because information is not shared between the agencies.

It is for this reason that the government was overwhelmed when the Hurricane Katrina hit, which left the emergency response in the hands of the individuals and nonprofit agencies. One of the ways civilians attempted to help was to put up many different websites to either get or supply help for the hurricane victims. One very bright person decided to invent a program called PeopleFinder, which is still up and running till this very day many years later. PeopleFinder linked all these sites people were building to help one another during Hurricane Katrina, but had the problem later that they couldn’t remove their information once it was created. This program was very useful during and right after Hurricane Katrina, but years later it created havoc because it left peoples information up when they didn’t want it to be for everyone to see. This led to bad occurrences such as identity theft and so on.

I also wanted to discuss a little bit about one of the articles that was do for last class called “How high-tech is coming to the rescue”. The link can be found below and is on Angel:

https://cms.psu.edu/section/default.asp?id=201112FAUP___RSRA__397A001

In this article, I found a few new technologies that could be very useful at a disaster relief site. Some of these new technology prototypes included three foot long robot planes and helicopters that could survey and send wireless footage back to rescue teams. Two others included night vision sensor systems and triage sensors. All of these technologies worked well and I believe should be implemented into permanent use for disaster relief situations. I also believe we can learn from the mistakes we as a nation made at Katrina, and develop better layers of protection and mitigation in the future.

Assigned Post #2 Technology Advancements After 9/11 Attacks and Better Preparedness

I felt that yesterday in class we had a very productive evening. In this week’s blog post I would like to discuss two of the most interesting topics I heard in class which included viewing how the people react and get through natural disasters opposed to the government doing everything and technology changed after the 9/11 attacks. After leaving the classroom last night I feel that an interest was sparked in me that made me want to read parts of the 9/11 Commission Report.

One of the views of the public is seen as a powerful, self-organizing, and collectively intelligent force and they have a better understanding of how citizens respond to a disaster. I agree with this argument over the argument that people are not intelligent and scare easily during a terrorist attack or natural disaster. I think that it is a false statement for the most part that people just freeze up when in the face of imminent danger. On the contrary human beings frolic to danger; for example, if a plane crashed outside of the IST building I am sure at least half of the class if not more would go out and either get a closer look or attempt to help the crash victims. This goes to show that it is in human nature to want to help each other in times of danger and crisis.

The next topic that I wish to talk about is whether or not I think that we would be more prepared for another terrorist attack in New York City drastically similar to the 9/11 attacks. First and foremost, there would be no stopping the main sources of communications due to the fact that everyone would be on their cell phones, therefore overloading the system. This would render cellphones as useless pieces of junk and another source of communication would be necessary. As we all know, all of the telecommunications infrastructure were down from the crashes that day, but there were a few ways we could have been better prepared for the blackout. One example would have been to implement fiber optic cables instead of copper wire bundles because they have a single point fail point, which would make it easier to lose power. This proves that we as the United States could have been more prepared and had better mitigation planning to deal with these terrible events.

The following link was used in my presentation during this week in class:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzjWvn9oEBg&feature=related

This video was presented by FEMA, which is the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In this video, they tell the importance of a disaster mitigation plan, what steps need to be completed before the disaster occurs, and how the disaster can be mitigated after it occurs and finding the best possible ways to save as many people as possible. I thought the video was very interesting because FEMA was the main source of disaster relief during the 9/11 attacks, and this video had a good representation of what FEMA does and how they function. After watching this video I learned just how vital it was to having a good mitigation plan for disasters.   

Extra Credit Blog #1 National Geographic Commemorates 9/11 Attacks

For this extra credit blog I followed the link in the e-mail that the professor sent us for information on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. When I went to this site I found many interesting videos that gave a good tribute to this time period where instead of invoking terror on the United States Americans pulled together and became stronger as individuals by aiding each other.

The First video was entitled Finding Bin Laden and was found at the link:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-finding-bin-laden.html
I thought this video was really cool and showed a lot of detail that I have been craving to see since the night it had happened. I can still remember the night President Obama was set to make an important announcement to the nation. After finding out Osama Bin Laden was killed that night my roommates and I went downtown for the biggest random celebration Penn State has ever seen on East Beaver Ave. I will never forget that night and the sense of nationalism that was flowing through our campus and most likely the rest of the nation as well. Not until today did I get to witness the actual video of seal team six actually going in and killing Osama. However, I thought the minuscule amount of defense Osama had set up was surprising considering the seals got right in and took him out with little to know trouble at all.  

The next video I watched was titled President Bush looks back and was found at the link:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-the-president-looks-back.html
This video was very interesting and I was surprised the President kept his cool after hearing that a second plane hit the second tower. When the President was told that we were now going to be at war the look on his face was priceless. Yet he kept his cool and finished out the meeting he had with the students at the school in order to keep his good image. That day will live in infamy in the hearts of all Americans.

The last video that I watched was entitled True Heroes and the link was found at:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/national-geographic-channel/specials-1/remembering-911/ngc-true-heroes.html
This was the most touching video of the three that I viewed, I also remember when this happened all those years ago because this plane crashed very close to my house. It was very sad listening to these paramedics talking about wanting to help these people, but there was nothing left of their bodies to help. The people on the flight who killed the terrorists and flew the plane knowing it was to their deaths into an open field truly know self sacrifice and will forever be remembered forever.

After watching all of these videos I realized that National Geographic brought with them a strong message and sense of nationalism for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Hopefully these videos inspire others as they inspired me into getting into a good field and helping our nation out any way they can with some type of counter-terrorism.

Assigned Post #1 Humanitarianism

Today's class began with the very interesting topic of humanitarianism and how it affects the ever changing world around us and the people we care about. It is defined as an ethic of kindness, benevolence, and sympathy extended universally impartially to all human beings. Before this class tonight, I had a general idea of when humanitarianism was, but after class I left with a much better understanding of the term. The fact that I was unaware of before this class was that in addition to giving aid to those in need after natural disasters, many non-profit organizations such as the Red Cross also started out by neutral in times of war by helping both sides with medical supplies, food and water, and also by helping to free prisoners of war on both sides. I found this to be very interesting that the Red Cross helps people all over the world both in times of peace and war.

The first thing that we learned in class today was that all natural disasters are due to humans not nature. It was defined as a consequence when a natural calamity affects humans and the built environment. This means that when natural disasters occur anywhere in the world, the resulting losses depend on the human ability to resist the disaster and their resilience. An example of this would include Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and how unprepared they were for this event, which led to a high death toll and high damages to infer structure. We also learned the very important lesson that if humans can act before the strike of hazards properly in order to prevent the hazard from becoming a disaster. 


I found that the most influential and interesting fact that I heard in class tonight was about the situation that happened in Japan. I thought it was insane that they were so well prepared for any earthquakes due to their resilient building structure, however many of the living areas were below sea level causing them to be ill prepared for high winds and flooding of a tsunami. As one of the classmates said tonight, Japan was destroyed by this series of events considering the fact that the initial earthquake took out all the power and following that the tsunami destroyed the back-up generators.    


After class I found an interesting video that has to do with Osama Bin Laden and Humanitarianism. The title of the video is Al-Qaeda's Suspect Humanitarianism and the link is as follows:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjZL80ic2Es

This video talks about how Bin Laden released a tape sometime after 2001 when Americans believed that he was dead in order to create a new relief body in order to help with the summer floods in Pakistan. Shortly into the video speaks of his real motifs which were to make the government look like they are being uncaring in order to bring more followers to his terrorist cause.  I felt that this was an interesting video considering the content we are going over in class. 

The conclusion I came to at the end of class tonight was that humanitarian aid can prolong and fuel conflicts, thus undermining its ultimate goal of saving lives. It is everyone's sole choice to determine whether humanitarianism is helping or hurting everyone and if this practice should continue or not. Let me know what you guys think and comment on my blog post?