Andrew's Internet History Blog

What I found most interesting about today’s reading, “The Differences Slavery Made: A Close Analysis of Two American Communities”, was the early on introduction of arguments and viewpoints that suggested after all was said and done, slavery was to some degree a necessity for America to continue. I can’t say I completely agree with this but it is nonetheless an interesting notion. I certainly don’t like that slavery occupied such a long part of our history, and in a lot of ways still defines us to this day. But, when one thinks about the timeline where slavery had not existed in America, a very common historical outcome to think about, it’s interesting to consider the negative effects that such a timeline would have had on America. Would it have seriously harmed America’s overall progression and advancement? Would it have seriously damaged America’s economy? Would certain technologies not have come about without slavery? These and others like them are all very interesting questions to think about and that is why I found the early part of this article so very interesting.

In the modern age a lot of what we do is tied to the internet. We pay our bills online, keep in contact with family and work online, and use the internet as a huge social media for ourselves. The fact is: the Internet has control over us, whether we want to admit that or not. But, it’s scary to think that something that has control over so much of our lives can be broken so easily.

When reading the 2 articles about passwords and security there were a lot of questions that popped in my head. Obviously, internet security is simply a rough fought game of building the next best mouse trap, and subsequently building the next best way to break said mouse trap. The scary thing learned from the articles is not the ratio of passwords to accounts and how many passwords are used again and again, but how non-inventive these passwords really are. I can say for myself that I have at least 20 accounts for various websites out there ranging from financial to leisure, and that I reuse my passwords often, but I can at least say my passwords are on the harder side to crack based on GMU’s guide to password security. I remember hearing about bank account PINs a few days ago and hearing something very startling. The 3 PINs of: 0000, 1111, and 1234 make up roughly 20% of all bank account PINs in America. That’s a horrifying thought when you figure with probabilities you have a solid 20% chance to break into any bank account you may be trying to hack. However, the problem with strong vs. weak passwords is the challenge of remembering them. Security sites give you advice to use pneumonics with punctuation and numbers mixed in, but with the average person having so many accounts, it’s just impossible to remember them all. Remembering 2 to 4 isn’t a huge deal, but then you’re still dealing with the problem of overusing your passwords. A fix you could say is to write them down to remember them, but that’s not exactly safe either. The conclusion I’ve come to with password security is that no matter what you do, you’re not going to be safe, you can only pray and hope that you’re not the next hacking victim.