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