Well I only got a note back from RMIT ITS stating that they had assigned my question to a particular person, so I don’t know if I will get a reply from them or not. So I am working on getting around it. It seems that there is software which can tunnel through a http-only firewall and let me get to my computer at home. I have found two pieces of software called corkscrew and http-tunnel but I am not sure how they will go. If it requires a client on the RMIT side it’s unlikely to work, but if I can find one that loads a java app from my server it might work. I was looking around elsewhere and it seems like Adrian has also discovered the wonders of a restrictive IT policy. Perhaps with staff a formal petition could be made to get access for the computers in our lab. We can’t do studies of media and communications if we can’t do what the average net user can. This is not too dissimilar to the NAT modem-router problem that many broadband users have, but at least in that situation outgoing traffic is allowed and traffic returning in response is allowed.
Richard M. Stallman works at MIT and was one of the first people to see the potential for computer software to be control what it’s users can do in a bad way. He started the GNU (GNU Not Unix) project in 1985 to create a free software operating system (free not only in price, but as in freedom) which would not limit a computer users freedom. That dream, to a better part, has been realised through the GNU/Linux operating system which exists under the GPL licence and which I use at home on my PC. A blog of his activities promoting GNU is here.
My thesis is studying the actions of trolls and what they reveal about structures of discursive power on the Internet. One example of trolls is the cheating myg0t gaming clan, who disrupt other players of games on the Internet. For example myg0t players disrupted a game of Everquest and wrote it up as a story. But it’s not just raging in game worlds, but also other exercises of power on the Internet in all sorts of communities. For example community CMSs and blogs have particular structures of power which are the focus of the thesis.
If you have Java on your system, you can plug websites into Touchgraph and then see a graphical representation of who they link to and who links to them (made from google data). I added in some blog index sites and when you are using it you can see how while they don’t link directly to each other, they often link to the same sites. To get a closer look, click on the image above or just go to Touchgraph and have a look around.
I added a picture to my blog that I use as my IM avatar, then I remembered the copyright warning and looked up a few things. The picture is probably familiar to you as it’s one of the better known pictures from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol. And while you might find the text of the book in Project Gutenberg the copyright count for the pictures starts at the illustrators death. Lucky for me it seems John Tenniel died long enough ago for our “50 years” rule, and even if the free trade deal with the US causes retrospective legislation I’m still outside the 70. I think they are worrying less about Carroll and more about a mouse. I also found this after I had done all the searching, which explains it all better than I can. I also found this which appears to be Carroll’s original drawings.
