Assignment #3- Meghna Grover

The company website that I am analyzing is Simple Pickup. Simple Pickup consists of pickup artists who are selling their advice and tactics. I believe that they are doing a very good job at social media marketing, considering their product.

When it comes to premiums, their Facebook page does not seem to have immediate giveaways. However, with closer inspection, it is obvious that they do offer certain free trials and access to videos (but not as often as other pages such as Yogurtland do, perhaps because their product is advice, not a tangible item). Their participation, however, is great. Simple Pickup has surveys and asks the users what they want, for example they had a survey about where they should donate an extra $100. They do not, however, have a venue for user-generated content. The entire page is run strictly by the manager of Simple Pickup, with whatever he finds or comes up with. Their customer service portal is immense because Facebook is one of the ways that customers interact with the company. Customers give feedback on how they view the pick-up line techniques and any issues they may be running into. Probably the largest feature they have is their content flow. Every day, they post on their Facebook page three times.  One post is a quote, one post is funny, and another one is a mix of the two. With consistent posts, they are able to see what the users want more of and the users and constantly reminded of Simple Pickup.

Assignment #3- Hanshu Zhang

Evaluation of A Commercial Page

SOCIO 167

Hanshu Zhang

Oct. 29th 2013

Link to the Page: https://www.facebook.com/Thor

Evaluation:

Overall, the Facebook page for the Thor movie franchise is doing a good job of social media marketing. Since its inception on April 30th, 2010, the Facebook page has received more than 8.1 million “likes” over a steady flow of movie trailers, sneak peaks, promotion tour photos and contests.

In the still on-going promotion period for Thor: the Dark World (which started in April 2013), the Facebook page has offered at least four opportunities to win free things, three of which offer free trips to LA for the US premiere of the second Thor movie. The contests asked Facebook users to perform certain actions (such as to vote between the two main protagonists in the upcoming film, to nominate an acquaintance who can look up to the heroine as a role model) in order to enter the contests. One of the contests offered a chance to win free Loki T-shirts for those who tweeted content with the tag #freeloki on twitter. This is especially worth mentioning because it crosses the boundaries between two social media networks and uses one to increase the film’s presence in the other.

These contests are interactive in nature, thus soliciting the audiences’ participation. The Facebook page also offers more frequent interactive opportunities such as posting survey or trivia questions about the franchise. Another form of participation it provides is again cross- or pan-SNS interaction. For example the page posted a link that allows users to record a question for the main cast and director via Skype.

Facebook pages naturally allow users to leave comments beneath posts, so the opportunity for dialogue is abundant. However, the page also goes out of its way to create portals for customer feedback via posts that specifically asks for viewers’ opinions.

Apart from the interaction and feedback, the Thor Facebook page also regularly posts user-generated content such as cosplayers in Thor or Loki costumes at different comic-con events. However, given the nature of a public Facebook page, the user-generated contents are not freely uploaded, but are posted by the administrator of the page, thus to some degree preventing negative material getting to those who “like” the pages.

The page also interacts with associated Facebook pages such as the Iron Man movie franchise, the Avengers franchise, etc, establishing a Marvel echo chamber which can resonate and converge their influences and merge multiple groups of audiences together to help the box office performance of the movies.

Assignment #3 Chang Liu

Analysis of League of Legends’ website

I would like to analyze League of Legends’ official webpage. League of Legends, created by Riot games, is one of the world’s most played PC game. Its webpage, http://na.leagueoflegends.com/, is effective of social media marketing. First of all, it provides free game to the players. The no cost marketing concept attracts the users to continuously find out more information of this game without worrying about the expense. The webpage is visually appealing. It gives a positive impression to potential players to join the Riot gaming community by providing vivid character role figures in game to attract users’ attention. This leads the users to move forward to install League of Legend.

Secondly, the website creates a player-participative venues to lead the players to keep interact with each other. It has an event call “Summoner Showcase” every two weeks, which allows players to submit the materials that relevant to the game that they create and shows them on the webpage. Every year Riot organizes a world championship to welcome gaming clubs from different countries to contend the championship for their countries. This motivates player to strive for high ranking in League of Legends, which solidifies the user-base of Riot. It also enables players from different regions to learn the game play strategy from superiors, and support their countries to become the winners.

Thirdly, users can help League of Legends to improve the gaming quality by submitting their comment through the webpage. They can also communicate their game play strategies and point of views towards League of Legends through the forums that the webpage creates. Riot will listens to the players’ reviews to make decisions to improve the game.

Finally, the webpage provides new and engaging materials daily to update relevant information about the new changes of the game, such as the new coming champions, agenda for competition of championships, and patch reviews. The information that it provides is informative and relevant, which helps the users to make decisions to participate in Riot’s community.

Assignment #2- Mazi Afshari (missed in inbox)

Apple’s fingerprint scanner has been cracked

In only two days after the infamous launch of Apple’s new iPhone there was progress about hackers who managed to hack into their new security feature, the fingerprint scanner. This is not only embarrassing to Apple but also a major breach in privacy for the consumers.  The fingerprints we have is supposed to be a unique identity for each individual, with this information being compromised, there is no limit of what hackers cannot achieve.

Of the different causes Suler identifies as generating "disinhibition" I would say the one that identify the most likely reason/cause for disinhibition which would motivate the criminal would be the “Minimization of Status and Authority”. Simply because the idea behind is to ensure here is no centralized control by not allowing the government to become more powerful, also to show them that their security system cannot withhold people like CCC from hacking it. Again a display of hackers vs security systems whereas they put their stance on the issue of privacy infringement.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/23/us-iphone-hackers-idUSBRE98M01X20130923

Assignment #2- Chang Liu (missed in inbox)

Chang Liu

Sociology 167

A Fraud from Tencent QQ

In February 2013, a Chinese citizen from Shandong, China reported an online scam to local security authority. He reported that he transferred 100,000 RMB (16343.1 dollars) to the bank account that his “son” provided on Tencent QQ, a Chinese social software, after his “son” claims for finical help. However, he found out that it was a trap after contacting his son on cellphone. His son told him that his QQ account was hacked by others who may illegally in use for frauds.

The polices investigated that the criminals secretly sent out Trojan virus to international students’ QQ account to steal their passwords - they sneaked into international students’ QQ groups, chatted with the group members, and then defrauded their relatives and friends’ trusts to swindle their money. In this case, dissociative anonymity was the biggest leading tool used in disinhibition that motivates the criminals to defraud through Internet. The criminals understand that applying QQ account does not require identity authentication, and people are not necessary communicate through video or audio chats. Therefore, they can provide fake information about themselves, and the students in QQ groups were not able to determine the criminals’ real identities. Consequently, they can take advantage through being anonymities to sneak into international students’ QQ groups and sent out Trojan virus.

Website: http://society.people.com.cn/n/2013/0619/c1008-21887032.html

www.perple.com.cn

Article from People’s Daily (China)

Date: June 19, 2013.

Assignment #2- Dora Heideman

Dora Heideman

Blog Assignment 2

Fall 2013

Sociology 167

Describing the Crime: In July 2013, five men—four of whom were from Russia, one from Ukraine, and three of whom still have yet to be found by authorities—were charged with conspiracy and other counts of fraud and identity theft after carrying out a series of world-wide cyberattacks which have collectively been called one of the largest cases of identity theft in history. Over 160 million credit/debit card numbers were stolen from an array of large U.S. companies (a total of 17, including 7-Eleven, NASDAQ, Carrafour, JCP, Wet Seal, JetBlue, Global Payment, etc.) over a timespan of seven years, adding up to losses of hundreds of millions of dollars (just 3 of the targeted companies alone reported losses that added up to $300 million). Each of the five men played a different role in the elaborate operation, specializing in the specific field to which they were contributing. Their system included frequently changing physical platforms of where they were storing their data and stolen information, frequently erasing content on short notice, keeping their identities entirely anonymous along with using anonymous web-hosting services, encrypting communications, disabling security systems of corporate networks, and having multiple steps in the operation (multiple layers), making it difficult to get back to the main source of the crime (them).

How the Criminals use the Disinhibition Effect: I believe that the cybercrime defendants in this situation were experiencing the disinhibition effect which Suler discusses, and more specifically, that they were relying heavily on what Suler explains as Dissociative Anonymity. The expectation on the Internet is such that your life online is separate from your real life in person, and therefore it’s easier to escape real-life consequences when these lives are separate and you can choose to be anonymous on the Internet (and carefully hide your activities as the criminals here have taken advantage of doing). As Suler explains in The Online Disinhibition Effect, “In a process of dissociation, they don’t have to own their behavior by acknowledging it within the full context of an integrated online/offline identity…superego restrictions and moral cognitive processes have been temporarily suspended from the online psyche.” (Suler, 322) I believe that this is what the Internet criminals are doing in this case—they’re detaching their actions from the consequences, and taking advantage of being anonymous so that evidence cannot be easily traced back to them. I do, however, also feel that these five men are relying a decent amount on not having to be physically present (“Invisibility”), and not having things occur in real time (“Asynchronicity”)—it’s like being able to rob a bank and pausing time so that no one sees you come in (invisible, ignoring temporal restraints)—it’s an Internet ‘hit and run’.

LINK TO ARTICLE: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nj/Press/files/Drinkman,%20Vladimir%20et%20al.%20Indictment%20News%20Release.html

Assignment #2- Haksung Kim

Haksung Kim

Sociology 167

Professor: Timothy King

Oct 1st, 2013

Analyzing the cyber crime

- The summary of article

James Abrahams, The 19-year-old boy, was taken into custody on federal charges that he “sextorted” newly crowned Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf and other young women around the world by hijacking their computer’s webcams to capture naked images. Moreover, he used it to blackmail females as to young as 16 to provide even more images, videos and chat.

-Analyzing of article

These days, cyber crime is getting increase because the most criminal of cyber crime thought that this act would not exposure in real. By using anonymous, they always attack other and give harm to other. In this case, one curiosity became big crime and it makes the victim. In addition, the space is one of factor in this crime. The main space of crime is online and it is not exist in real. So Abraham was able to acting easily by only using computer. Invisibility is also one of factor of this crime. Abraham believes that this acting is not visible, so he would able to think that it was not a big deal. Since easily accessing others computer by connecting Internet, the cyber crime is on the rise each year.

-Reference

“Miss Teen USA ‘sextoration’: Family of suspect apologizes to victims (Los Angeles times) link: http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-miss-teen-usa-sextortion-family-of-accused-sorry-20130927,0,4484632.story

Assignment #2- Michael Cao

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/09/29/twitter-crime-dark-side/2875745/

The face of twitter is being used for criminal activities, to promote and recruit illegal activities. This is being done by a Somali group calling themselves Al-Shabab (meaning “The Youth” in Arabic). With the usage of tweets, they spread the word of a takeover of the Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi. With tweets, they had supporters help defend this mass-murder attack, along with mocking Kenyan officials. There were posts of pictures inside the mall and threatens of more possible bloodshed. Even after the closure of at least five Twitter accounts, new ones were made with different usernames soon after.

It is most likely that this criminal is motivated by the disinhibition of invisibility. These interactions are based fully off of twitter, requiring only exchanges of text rather than any physical interaction. They are trying to uncover the faults of the Kenyan government through this siege along with recruiting the support of others. All the twitter users supporting this attack cannot be seen and if their account is shut down, they can make new ones under new user names. Although there is a picture of the leader of Al-Shabab and audio recordings released by “the leader”, it is not even fully clear that this Ahmed Abdi Godane (aka Mukhtar Abu Zubair) is their leader due to the anonymity offered through the internet. For all we know, this could simply just be a face for the real leader to hide behind. This terrorist group is rising simply through the spread of their name and actions through Twitter, a simple social tool used by many.

Assignment #2- Hanshu Zhang

Analysis of An Online Crime

Hanshu Zhang

Instructor: Dr. Timothy King

Sept. 30th

Online Crime Case:

On Sept. 26th, a 19-year-old freshman named Jared James Abrahams was arrested on federal charges of “sextorting” women around the world, including the new Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf who he went to high school with, by hacking into some 150 computers and commandeering the web cameras to take compromising pictures. He then used these to compel victims to provide more unsightly pictures, videos or live chats, threatening to post the pictures online if they do not do so.

In one case, the victim was a 17-year-old Irish girl, who asked Abrahams to “have a heart”, to which the suspect allegedly replied “I'll tell you this right now! I do NOT have a heart. However, I do stick to my deals. Also age doesn't mean a thing to me.” (Botelho)He is currently held on a $50,000 bail, with court order to always wear a GPS tracker and a ban from using computers for anything but studying if freed.

Story Link:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/26/justice/miss-teen-usa-sextortion/index.html

Analysis:

In this cyber/internet crime case, we can clearly see the effect of the toxic disinhibition of the Internet, especially that of invisibility, disinhibition due to not being physically seen on the internet.(Suler) This effect is most prominent in text communication, where visual access is not necessary. Invisibility makes people do things and go to places online that they wouldn’t dare do or go to in real life.(Suler)

For the criminal, he was provided with invisibility in all three stages of his plot: the setting up of crime, the act of crime and the blackmailing. First of all, given the nature of cyber/internet crimes, he didn’t have to be physically present when he was commandeering the webcams. Compared with the olden way, which is having to sneak into the victims’ homes to install a spy camera, the cyber/internet procedure disinhibits the criminal in that his risk of getting caught during the commandeering process is virtually zero, as the average computer user has no idea how to determine whether their webcams are commandeered or to look for the malware if they are aware.

Invisibility also comes into effect when the extorter takes compromising pictures or videos of the victims. Again by the nature of this crime, the victims do not know when Abrahams is using their webcams, since the signal light does not turn on. This provides the criminal with invisibility in the act of the crime. His victim is not aware of being watched and recorded when Abrahams is using the commandeered webcam to obtain images. This invisibility increases the disinhibiting effect on the criminal, as there is virtually no way for him to be “caught in the act” by the victims.

Although by contacting the victim and making demands Abrahams loses a portion of his invisibility, the blackmailing process still holds an intrinsic invisible quality found in most text communications. According to John Suler, in text communication people “don’t have to worry about how others look or sound in response to what they say.” Although they are communicating through text, the extorter and the victim are not visually accessible to each other. Therefore he feels less inhibited to cruelly and coldly reject their appeals to his conscience, and make more vicious demands of them.

Although the case also involves disinhibiting elements such as dissociative anonymity on the part of Abrahams and the victims’ unawareness that with a computer and internet connection in it, their “private” spaces has become public, invisibility is the most significant disinhibiting force. Its effect on people can drive them toward trying and succeeding to do harm.

Work Cited:

Botelho, Greg. “Arrest Made in Miss Teen USA Cassidy Wolf ‘Sextortion’ Case.” CNN. Web. 3 Oct. 2013.

Suler, John. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 7.3 (2004): 321–326. Print.

Assignment #2- Meghna Grover

Meghna Grover

http://tribune.com.pk/story/608681/cyber-crime-man-sent-into-custody-for-harassing-girl-on-facebook/

The crime that occurred in this case was that a man harassed a girl by making a fake Facebook account and pretending to be her. He took some of her pictures and combined them with nude photos on the account. The man, Azeem, would harass her through text message and blackmail her, with the threat that he would share those fake nude photos. Eventually, he did share those photos with close family members and friends after adding them on Facebook, meaning he was also defaming her. He did this with multiple girls and found a way to harass them through their phones, which is definitely an internet crime with real-world implications. Harassment and defamation is something that he can and will be tried for in court, regardless of whether it was online or face-to-face.

What occurred in this case is considered dissociative anonymity, and also a minor form of solipsistic introjection. Dissociative anonymity occurred with the culprit, Azeem, because he recognized that nobody would be able to figure out who he was when he made the fake Facebook profile. He was able to hide under her identity. A minor form of solipsistic introjection also occurred in the case of her friends and family. At first, when they added her on Facebook, they were imagining her and interacting with her in a way without using face-to-face cues. However, this was only minor because they actually knew who she was, so as soon as the pictures came up, they knew that there was something off.