Category / Insights

by Shama-e Zaheer

Remember, Remember, The 5th of November

Hacktivist group Anonymous has claimed that on November 5th, 2011, Facebook will be “destroyed”!

An Anonymous Twitter account, @OP_Facebook (signifying “Operation Facebook”), has been set up with a tweet linking to this YouTube video. The transcript is available here. (Note: November 5th is a somewhat significant date for revolution)

Anonymous has recently claimed involvement in a number of notable hacking attacks this year, including breaking into numerous law enforcement websites and taking down the Syrian Ministry of Defense website. According to them, Anonymous has taken this recent interest in Facebook due to privacy concerns and its plans to create its own social network, called AnonPlus.

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by Shama-e Zaheer

The “IE User Low IQ Study” Hoax and the “Creation” of News

You may have read about it and even posted it on social networks and media – “Users of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web Browser have a Lower-than-average IQ”. This has turned out to be a hoax.

A website called AptiQuant.com published a report on how a study has revealed that IE users have lower-than-average IQ. This, quite understandably, enraged numerous IE users, and hate mail & threats of litigation against AptiQuant followed.

Later, uncanny similarities between AptiQuant.com and CentralTest.co.uk sites were discovered, which led to the veracity of the study and the site itself being questioned. Eventually, the site admitted to the hoax, and apologized to CentralTest for using their website materials, including the same “Our Team” people with different, imaginary names!

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by Shama-e Zaheer

Our Brains & Google

I’m pretty sure most of you have already read this piece on how our memory is adapting to technology as we tend to remember things that we believe will not be readily available on the ubiquitous Net and tend not store in memory, stuff we know will be readily accessible.

However, the argument seems an extension/ reinforcement of this piece from back in 2007, where the author discusses our reliance on external memory, namely the Net. His article differs from this other author’s article, in that the former actually likes it, while the latter finds it disconcerting, even damaging. In fact, the last article goes on to talk about other side effects, including our diminishing attention span.

Where do I stand? I kind of agree with the notion that the Net is making us too reliant on the “wired word”; I’d rather we stored more in our brains, actual stuff, not just info on where would be able to find that actual stuff! I just think it’d keep our brains sharp.

Did I remember reading all these articles? Nah! I just googled them. :)