-“Oh man, what if there were an app that you could help you find your friends in the city and meet up with them?”

-“Sounds like a good idea”

-“We should make it.”

-“Yeah we should. “

Unfortunately, Apple beat me and my friend to the punch (along with many other apps), and we weren’t able (read: too lazy) to develop the app that is now known to iPhone users as ‘Find My Friends’. But it wasn’t long after ‘Find my friends’ debuted that controversy bubbled to the surface regarding its use. Apparently this tool can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes like stalking and catching one’s wife having an affair. Who could’ve seen that coming? True, in the “find my friends breaks up a marriage” case the app was installed without the iphone user’s knowledge, but the idea that people would in most cases voluntarily make known their location at all times poses some startling risks. Chief among them letting people know you’re not home and should they wish to rob your home of all your belongings now would be the perfect time to do so.

Apps like these also pose new threats to criminals who, before location services, check-ins, and gps, were able to create steel trap tight alibis can now be tied to their crimes by a simple check in. Imagine foursquare bringing someone to justice!

I suppose in these times of rapidly developing technologies, criminals and those more straight laced in our society must both adapt our thinking to match reality. The fact of the matter is that things that were once private simply aren’t anymore. Things that once took an egregious amount of time to discern about a person can now be analyzed and determined within seconds. And in some cases information we would never expect for someone to see can be intercepted without us having even the slightest clue. For most of us, we have no problem with google knowing every website we’ve ever looked at in chrome. We see incognito mode as a feature reserved only for those lonely late nights where we venture to sites which will one day soon end in “.xxx” (totally SFW).

We all laughed in class when Brad showed us the hilarious Onion piece about facebook being a CIA operation, but does the laughter stop when we realize that the information we put up about ourselves is in fact poured over by CIA analysts? Are practices like that simply in the interest of keeping America safe? Is this the price we pay for wanting to use services like facebook, twitter, and foursquare? Is that price reasonable? These are all questions I’ve answered for myself, but ultimately it doesn’t matter what I alone think. There’s going to come a day on the internet where we accept as status quo that everyone can see everyone.

I’ve had many a conversation with people at parties where the gist of the conversation is that should any of us ever run for office we’ll be ruined by what we did as teenagers and young adults. I always counter with the fact that the people who will try to expose what we did as kids will have just as horrifying things about them on the internet and that at the end of the day that great equalizer that is embarrassment will override the internet’s permanence. Or I could be wrong and we’ll all just end up like this guy

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The Bill of Rights was not a guarantee of individual liberties. Rather, before the Fourteenth Amendment came along and everything went to hell, it was better viewed as a limit on the despotic potential of a centralized government; a potential that terrified the founders of our Constitution. Thus the First Amendment was a guarantee that the national government would not suppress assembly, speech, and the political discourse necessary to oppose tyranny. Thus the Second Amendment was a guarantee that states could hold militias in order to resist with force an oppressive government. Of course I am oversimplifying a very complex and contentious debate, but allow me for a moment to make a logical fallacy. This guy agrees with my view of the Bill of Rights:

So obviously I’m right. Let’s just leave it at that. I apologize for the many Yale words in my opening paragraph.

I, like Jack Balkin, am interested in how the development of the Internet changes the role that the Constitution has in our current society. Balkin focuses on the oppression of free speech by private companies, and how unable the Courts are to provide meaningful protection in this area. He believes that fighting technological infrastructures, business models, and social practices with well-crafted laws is the way to protect our liberties. He believes that the Internet has fundamentally changed the Bill of Rights’ ability to protect us from government (it’s original purpose, as outlined above), and therefore we must look extra-judicially to protect our rights.

The pacifist in me wonders whether the Internet landscape has also fundamentally lessened the necessity for militias, and other Constitutional protections against an abusive government that attempts to limit our free speech. Due to its interconnectedness the Internet is extremely difficult to regulate (though not impossible). In the past if a government wanted to quell speech, they had pretty effective means of doing it. Books can be banned or burned. Radio communications can be jammed. Protests can be broken up. The Internet is a whole other animal. Because it is generative, it allows people to circumvent many of the ways in which a government might try and limit access to certain material (for example by the use of proxies). In this way, I believe it acts as a check on the government. When the government gets out of control, the citizenry does not need to revolt using militias, they can simply tweet about it. Despite the fact that the following governments do not share the same Constitutions as we do, nor necessarily the same values, some examples from around the world will I think be illustrative.

Russian Coup

In 1991 leaders of the Communist Party in Russia led a coup against president Gorbachev. The leaders struck while Gorbachev was on vacation, and they hoped to expand support for their cause by limiting the flow of information to the west and most importantly to their people. They censored both news and phone links to the west. Television played nothing but operas and old movies. Their strategy would have been effective, except for one main flaw: Relcom.

Relcom, an acronym for reliable communications, was a basic computer network that Russia launched in 1990. Though Relcom was a purely e-mail network at the time, it still had the power to undermine the government’s efforts to suppress the free flow of information. Those who opposed the revolution were attempting to distribute a decree by Boris Yelzin which attempted to inform the public of the coup and what was happening. Without Relcom, they would have had to scour the city for available photocopiers and distribute copies by hand. Instead supporters simply sent a copy to one of the Relcom founders who was able to copy and distribute the decree.

Furthermore, Relcom aided in the information flow from the West into Russia. One California professor would listen to the radio in America and take notes on what American newscasters were saying. Then, he would type a summary into an email and send it through Relcom to supporters in Russia who would distribute the information. A similar practice occurred between Denmark and Russia, providing the Danish perspective on what was happening as well. These reports, in addition to eyewitness testimony circulated through Relcom gave citizens on the ground a relatively accurate picture of what was going on, and allowed them to resist.

With such an omnipresence of information, the rebellion didn’t stand a chance. The Coup lasted a mere two days.

Kuwait Invasion

Also in 1991, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait. After a decisive victory by Iraq, Saddam Hussein installed Alaa Hussein Ali as the Prime Minister of the “Provisional Government of Free Kuwait”. Kuwait was hardly free, however. Most forms of traditional media were cut off, severely limiting Kuwait’s ability to communicate with the outside world. But like in Russia, the Iraqi strategy had one main flaw: IRC.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a way of real-time chatting through the Internet. Traffic to IRC skyrocketed during the invasion, because it allowed people who could not escape Kuwait to communicate to the outside world for a good week after traditional media was cut off. These communications in conjunction with the efforts of those that had fled Kuwait, rallied international support to condemn the actions of Iraq, eventually leading to the Gulf War.

So, yes, violence was necessary to expel Iraq from Kuwait. But what I find interesting about this situation is that it was not necessarily internal military force from Kuwait that allowed them to succeed. Rather, the Internet, and IRC, allowed the free flow of information throughout Kuwait and throughout the rest of world, allowing Kuwait to get the support that it needed.

These IRC communications are stored to this very day, and can be seen here.

To the future

The two examples given notably come from twenty years ago. Our world, our Internet, and our governments have certainly changed. Now, as alluded to earlier, oppressive governments have developed tools to prevent the free flow of information on the internet. I’m not going to pretend that I understand the technical means that a government could use to limit connection through the Internet, because being a humanities geek I don’t. But if I had to bet on who would win in a fight, government computer science experts or lulzsec hackers, I would probably choose the lulzsec hackers.

We live today in an intellectual world. This is why militias are nonexistent in America (yes, Sarah Palin and the like still carry around firearms, but in the case of actual government tyranny I question how effective ragtag gunman that can see Russia from their houses will be in fighting our national army). Our weapons against governmental oppression of free speech are not guns, but rather speech itself by means of the internet. I am a firm believer than the pen is mightier than the sword. When our government was created, the Founders allowed for militias and similar protections because a tyrannical government had the power to suppress the pen. With the advent of the internet the government no longer has that power. The Internet has become our militia in the fight against governmental despotism.

The Inside Joke

  In high school I was never the first to discover a new online fad. I refused to touch MySpace, I was reluctant to join facebook, and I rarely used the internet as a source of culture. For me, the internet was a tool for tracking my favorite sports teams and playing the occasional online game. This was not an issue for me socially, and I generally felt like I was a culturally informed conversationalist.

Then, all of a sudden, I was lost. One night, casually relaxing and watching a football game, it was like my friends began speaking another language. Every other sentence I heard made absolutely no sense, and I found myself irritated and exclaiming, “What the hell is a mudkip?!?!” Of course, my confusion merely encouraged my friends to delve deeper into their newly-discovered language. They were laughing hysterically, uttering nonsense, and I was sitting there wondering what drug they had taken that made their ramblings at all amusing. I was experiencing absolute awkwardness: being the only one in the room on the outside of a massive inside joke.

Finally, someone threw me a bone. “Memes, Nick! Haven’t you ever been to 4Chan??” I remained clueless, so I spent the rest of the night smiling and nodding, pretending to be totally into the senseless humor. But I didn’t dare try and use one of these ‘memes’ they were so fond of. I simply followed along. They say a dope will laugh 3 times at a joke: First when the joke is made, next when the joke is explained, and finally several minutes later when he actually catches on. I was stuck repeating the first two steps over and over again.

Meme Culture

Kenyatta Cheese of Know Your Meme would probably have labeled me a civilian. At the time, I would have labeled myself a victim of a silly fad. The role I was playing, though, was an integral one. In order for an inside joke to be successful, there must be an outside, a group whose ignorance makes the humor all the more entertaining. Whatever one might call my role, the situation forced me to reconsider the relevance of internet-based culture. I needed to decide whether or not to buy in, do my research, and become an insider in the growing fad.

In his book, “The Selfish Gene,” Dr. Richard Dawkins, British ethologist and evolutionary biologist, defines memes generally as “tunes, ideas, catch-phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or of building arches.” He goes on to explain how memes propagate themselves culturally and how a so-called “meme pool” behaves in quite a similar fashion to the “gene pool” with which we are more familiar. From Dawkins’ description, memes are brought to the forefront as an important tool in social progress. As much as our genetic code determines our physical being, our memetic code, comprised of outside factors, should define the culture in which we live.

The issue in Dawkins’ logic, however, is revealed by the dissonance between theory and reality. In theory, memetics is a serious study, with such topics as the “God Meme” which pose real academic questions and spur debate. In practice, though, the idea of the meme has been embraced by a population that has a different intention in mind. Memetics has become – as the popular meme goes – simply “4 the Lulz.”

Internet memes are just one more way of keeping the internet user-created. Instead of simply accepting the mainstream humor provided by the ‘professionals,’ the creative and clever use memes as a new kind of comedy. (Francesca Coppa would certainly approve!) And memes aren’t always just passive time-wasters. Some memes, like planking and cone-ing, require time and effort. However pointless these activities may seem, they provide entertainment for those who are in on the joke, and the efficiency of the internet as a sharing tool allows the fads to grow to massive proportions. Just watch a couple videos and you’re guaranteed to at least get a chuckle out of them.

Downside?

  While Lolcats and planking are mostly harmless, memes can certainly have a more negative side as well. Take trolling for instance. Trolling is behavior which is meant to anger or frustrate the object of criticism. When so-called “trolls” decide to gang up on a certain online figure, the mocking and degrading attacks often become excessive and cruel. In the case of Jessi Slaughter, we see an example of trolling having a real impact outside just the cyber-world. Enjoyment by the trolls came at the expense of a little girl who quite clearly had enough developmental issues of her own before harassing phone calls and comments came into play. Whether or not Jessi Slaughter deserved criticism is up for debate, but I think most would agree that the outcome of her situation was regrettably worsened by the online community.

Copyright

One more interesting wrinkle to mention is copyright law. It is clear that US regulations allow fair use of certain media for the purpose of parody, but this right does NOT extend to satire. The “Downfall- Hitler Reacts” meme is often in direct violation of this code. The example here is fair use because the editor is making a statement about the film and its production company. However, the endless re-edits of this clip to mock everything from Xbox Live to Justin Bieber are actually in the realm of satire. They critique society as a whole, not the piece itself, and for this reason they are in violation of a copyright.

Final Thoughts

-Memes are funny, it only takes a few minutes on any of the various meme databases to realize that silly (but clever!) viral humor is entertaining

-Meme culture is not necessarily an effective use of time, but hey, neither are most of our extra-curricular activities.

-Sometimes the online community goes too far, and the anonymity which we hold dear to us is often the enabling factor.

-It is MUCH more fun to be in the know in an inside joke than to be left in the dark, so I put in my hours of tedious studying and I believe I can now claim to be a participant in a really fun and witty new realm of humor.

From the first time I saw an iMac in my elementary school’s library, I’ve had a tortured relationship with Apple.  Although I’m not a coder or a computer science expert, I’ve always felt a connection to the culture of remixing, open-source, free-software, etc. (I think a lot of my attitudes towards the internet were shaped by my introduction to Napster in the late 90s and torrents in the mid-2000s.  I love that shit).  But in my mind, Apple products always seemed to be one step behind the technology of the times.  And even worse, I’d always felt that Apple products inhibited innovation in the field of computing.  Computers and the internet developed so quickly in the 20^th century partly because the tools of computing were concentrated in universities and among people whose inherent curiosity allowed them to continually push the boundaries of computing.  People began using computers for millions of different purposes simply because programmers had the ability and the freedom to tinker around.  Over the last 15 years, it always appeared to me that Apple products restricted the freedom of their users, thus restricting the ability of people to innovate and expand the bounds of what is possible in computing.  In fact, that constricting nature of Apple products, and the slow release of new technologies, almost seemed to be its defining characteristic.

The iTunes Store

One of Apple’s first major developments in the 21^st century was their opening of the iTunes Store.  After years of legal battles regarding music downloads and the internet, Apple finally created a location where people could easily buy music for their computers and iPods.  But along with this wonderful new store came something called FairPlay, a digital rights management (DRM) technology that restricted how songs from the iTunes store could be played.  Among the limitations, the tracks could only be played on three different computers, any iPod could not have music from more than five iTunes accounts, and a playlist containing DRM songs could only be burned to CD seven times.  Most notably, songs purchased from the iTunes store could not be played any portable digital music player besides ones made by Apple.  Essentially, if you buy music from the iTunes store, you have to buy an iPod.  After huge social backlash against DRM music over the years, Apple finally released their music DRM-free starting in 2009.

The MacBook Revolution

Around this same time, MacBook laptops produced by Apple began sweeping the nation.  Although dozens of companies were producing laptops in the market at that time, Apple’s laptops had one curious characteristic: proprietary ports.  At a time when power cords had the possibility for standardization (as has been occurring lately with micro-USB devices), Apple used a proprietary connection on its power adapters.  Additionally, they used a proprietary video out connection so that, if anyone wanted to connect their laptops to a TV or projector, they would have to buy a $30 adapter.  These restrictions necessarily made Apple computers much less versatile.  The same attitude towards hardware was applied to iPods and iPhones, which charge and sync using a proprietary Apple port.

There’s an app for that…

Apple instantly became one of the most dominant competitors in mobile computing when they released the iPhone.  But in doing so, they also charted the path of their mobile operating systems: closed, proprietary, and full of various forms of DRM.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Johnathan Zittrain, and the Free Software Foundation have all publicly commented on the restricting nature of Apple’s mobile operating system.  But what exactly was the problem?

First, the iOS operating system itself is completely closed.  This means that no ordinary computer enthusiasts would be able to easily tinker around with the way the operating system works or looks.  In fact, when jailbreaking became common, Apple immediately went to the courts to attempt to make jailbreaking illegal (a battle they eventually lost).  In addition to closed software, the customization ability of iPhones and iPads were surprisingly limited.  There are no custom ringtones for receiving text messages.  There aren’t any widgets to customize your home screen.  Every iPhone looks and feels exactly the same.  The code prevents customization.

After the iPhone, Apple eventually released the App Store – the one and only location where iPhone users could go to obtain applications for their device.  But Apple decided to retain control over every application that was submitted to the App Store.  Eventually, they decided to start rejecting any applications that would conflict with their ability to make money.  Want to turn your phone into a wifi router for free?  Sorry, you’ll have to pay AT&T or Verizon at least $20 a month for that.  Want to access all of your music for free using Google Music?  Sorry, you need to buy all your music from the iTunes store and pay for “iCloud” to listen to it wirelessly.

In addition, Apple habitually delays the release of new technologies to make sure they can maximize their profits at every step.  One of the most egregious examples of this occurred when they released the “iPod Photo” for $500 and then released the first video iPod just four months later at a much lower price.  They released the iPad 2 two months after Christmas 2010 to maximize the number of people who bought the older technology.  Even the new iPhone 4GS that came out a few days ago still does not have 4G data (the network of the future) or an NFC chip (a technology of the future).  This slow, deliberate release of new technologies impedes development within and beyond the existing frameworks.

Apple’s Legacy

So what does this all mean?  Does this mean that Apple products have slowed down technological progress over the last 10 years?  Would the (technological) world be a better place without Apple?

Absolutely not.

If Apple devices were the only devices that you could buy, then, I would probably argue that computing and innovation would probably be hindered.  But because we have other platforms onto which coders and programmers can develop their ideas, Apple hasn’t slowed down technological progress, they’ve advanced it.

How?  Apple’s incredibly simple interface, eye-catching designs, and ridiculously effective marketing have had an unbelievable effect in bringing outsiders into the world of computers.  There was a time when the internet was pretty much just for dorks, researchers, gamers, and porn enthusiasts.  Although computing for business is one of the main reasons for its growth, Apple has brought computing into homes of everyday Americans that ordinarily would never have become involved with computers.

Apple doesn’t sell products, it sells emotion.  Ever since those original dancing silhouette iPod commercials, Apple has been making people believe their identities are tied to the devices they buy.  You can’t appreciate literature without an iPad.  You can’t preserve family memories without iMovie on a Macbook.  And I think that is the greatest legacy of Steve Jobs.  He may not have been an innovator from a technical perspective, but he was a visionary from a cultural perspective.  For people who ordinarily may never have been able to use computers, Jobs designed products they could easily use.  This has brought so many people into the field of computing that it has necessarily advanced the field, albeit in a nontraditional sense.  Sure, Apple app developers are much more restricted than Android app developers, but the sheer number of people who have begun developing apps due to the popularity of Apple has absolutely increased people’s interest in mobile computing.  They may have been on the wrong side of many legal battles involving DRM, but Steve Jobs will forever be remembered as a cultural icon: someone who created a seemingly magical brand of devices that have come to define how our society interacts with the world around it.

Facebook is worth tens of billions of dollars. If its active users formed a country, it would be the third most populous in the world. The dramatized story of its founding (The Social Network, 2010), in which Harvard plays a significant role, was a critical and box-office hit.

According to a Kauffman Foundation study, “if the active companies founded by MIT graduates formed an independent nation, conservative estimates indicate that their revenues would make that nation at least the seventeenth-largest economy in the world.”

Certainly, these types of statistics are mostly just attention-grabbing ledes — they can’t and don’t really capture the state of an institution’s entrepreneurial culture. That being said, it’s unlikely you would hear similar stats about Yale being thrown around…

Make no mistake, Yale has had a number of entrepreneurial successes. FedEx (Fred Smith, ‘66), Meebo (Seth Sternberg, ‘01), Higher One (Sean Glass, ‘03), Justin.tv (Justin Kan, ‘05), and Aardvark (Max Ventilla ’06 et al.) are just a few of the companies that have been founded by Yale alumni. There are Yalies in important places in industry (e.g., the founders of General Assembly. Bing Gordon, of Kleiner Perkins). There are even more fledgling ventures on campus, in programs like the YEI Summer Fellowship. Four of the twenty four Thiel “20 Under 20” Fellows were from Yale.

However, despite these individual successes, Yale just doesn’t have the cultural clout of the entrepreneurial powerhouses — places like MIT, Stanford, perhaps even Harvard. Why not? What does it take to build an entrepreneurial culture?

Where do entrepreneurs come from?

In an opinion piece on the technology and startup blog TechCrunch, Vivek Wadhwa discusses whether entrepreneurs are born or made. He cites Fred Wilson, a prominent VC, who believes that “you can’t teach people to be entrepreneurs”. Wadhwa claims the opposite — that entrepreneurs aren’t born, but are made.

On an anecdotal level, many words have been blogged about what makes a successful entrepreneur. The characteristics seem to converge onto several recurring traits — things like determination, resourcefulness, and creativity, things that all sound pretty useful to have if you’re starting a company. Even if possessing these traits somehow didn’t predispose one to entrepreneurial success, these are the traits that the gatekeepers themselves profess to care about. By selecting founders with these traits, VCs and their ilk create a system in which possessing these traits is rewarded. Perhaps some people are born with a temperament that makes them more likely to be successful in entrepreneurial pursuits.

However, there are clearly more people who exhibit these types of characteristics than the number that pursue entrepreneurship, let alone pursue it successfully. People can be exposed to entrepreneurship, and through education, be given the tools to increase their chances of success — in this sense, potential entrepreneurs can be made into successful entrepreneurs. Not everyone given these resources will magically become a successful entrepreneurs; not everyone can or wants to be made into an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs are neither exclusively born nor made — perhaps more accurately, they are activated.

Entrepreneurial culture and communities

Brad Feld reminisces on his blog about his bright college years at MIT — specifically, about his experiences as a frat bro.

Clearly, it was a frat… But as he points out, it also spawned an incredible amount of innovation — the founders of iRobot, ATG, Bluefin Robotics, Harmonix, and VCs at Menlo and Accel, to name a few. As Feld describes it, “there was something in the water” (or perhaps, in the foam).

This culture isn’t unique to an MIT frathouse. The hope is that aspects of this community and its culture can be replicated, thus activating more entrepreneurs.

So, what are some significant characteristics of environments that effectively activate entrepreneurs?

• Network (geographic and knowledge networks). Geographically, startups congregate in places like Silicon Valley, New York, and Boston. Sociological researchsupports this strategy — “network support increases the probability of survival and growth of newly founded businesses”. A study on the geographic localization of innovation found that “small firms are tied into regional knowledge networks to a greater extent than large firms”. For a small firm, then, it makes sense to tap into the densest and most extensive knowledge network possible — which, practically speaking, tends to mean moving to an entrepreneurial hub.Unlike schools like Stanford (Silicon Valley), MIT and Harvard (Boston), Yale doesn’t have the advantage of a strong local culture of innovation and industry, and the accompanying network. Among the Yale success stories, few have chosen to stay in New Haven, choosing instead to relocate to one of the startup hubs. This dearth also makes it more difficult to pursue entrepreneurship while a student at Yale — it’s inconvenient to be located where many of the resources aren’t.
• Education. Help predisposed individuals recognize an interest in entrepreneurship. The few in-classroom opportunities (at least within Yale College) to learn and practice entrepreneurship on campus have been incredibly oversubscribed — Sean Glass’ Technology Entrepreneurship seminar had 130+ applicants for fewer than twenty spots. The Hack Yale initiative had hundreds of people register for the course, and even more indicate interest. Rather than balk at the more preprofessional nature of these courses, Yale should recognize that entrepreneurship is not out to destroy the liberal arts education. Rather, offer these types of initiatives the institutional support they deserve.
• Domain knowledge. It’s no coincidence that many of the entrepreneurial powerhouses are also technology powerhouses. Technological innovation drives entrepreneurial innovation. Let’s be honest, Yale isn’t exactly known as a tech powerhouse, either. Until the on-campus culture of technologists reaches a critical mass, Yale’s wantrepreneurs will all still be looking for technical co-founders, not shipping product.

So where is Yale’s Zuck?

If I knew the answer to that question, I would be on my way to a nice sum of money and a cameo in a David Fincher movie. What I can postulate, though, is that the likelihood of producing a Zuckerberg — by which I really mean the likelihood of producing ventures, specifically successful ones — is positively correlated with the strength of an institution’s entrepreneurial culture. A strong culture will attract entrepreneurially-minded innovators. It will also activate potential entrepreneurs who are already there.

It’s not that Yale inherently lacks the ability to produce the next Zuckerberg. There are plenty of smart people here. There are institutional resources. But when it comes to the key factors in creating an environment that activates entrepreneurs, we’re still playing catch-up. The current spike in activity on campus is encouraging. The next step, though, is to convert the interest into something shippable.