Healy, Rita. Fraternities and Facebook: A New Recruiting Tool. Time Magazine, April 15, 2009.
Almost everyone has now become a member, or at least has heard, of the popular Facebook craze that has hit over that past couple of years. Well, in 2004, fraternities at the University of Colorado were made to give in to strick Greek laws after two freshmen students died of alcohol poisoning while pledging in a fraternity house. The sororities agreed with the Universities demands, however, the fraternities did not and decided to move off-campus. Once membership dropped to twenty-four in the SAE house, Facebook allowed these guys to create events and groups and get themselves out in the open again. Royal Carson, president of the SAE chapter, wanted to let everyone see that fraternities aren't as stereotypical as everyone thinks they are. Surveys were completed in 2005, asking students how they found out about the fraternities, and most of the replied, "...through the Internet." President and CEO of North American Interfraternity Conference, Pete Smithhisler, believes sororites and fraternities have more of an online presence now more than ever.
I have never joined a fraternity or even thought about joining one, but I think this article just shines another light on the fact that networking through Facebook, MySpace, and e-mails has proved to be the best way of spreading information. Speaking from experience, using Facebook and MySpace has taken my band, SmoothOp, to a whole other level. According to Time Magazine, these guys stalk Facebook in order to get the sufficient amount of pledges for their organization. That's not always the best way, but who's going to tell them they shouldn't?
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Sutter, John D. “No problems so far as April Fools’ computer worm awakens.” April 1, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/01/tech.viruses/index.html.
Mostly anyone with access to a computer has heard about the worm, Conficker, which was (or is) supposed to hit a large percentage of computers around the world, attacking only Microsoft run computers (which means anyone with a Mac is good to go). If this worm really does happen, then the author of Conficker will be able to access such material as financial information and even key strokes on any one computer that the worm infects. It creates web sites that interact with infected computers. Experts say that this new worm, which generates 50,000URL’s a day, is nothing compared to a previous version of Conficker that only generated 250 URL’s a day. While the Washington Post mocked this new Conficker worm on a tech blog, senior vice president of technology for Enigma Software, Patrick Morganelli, thinks that the worm could hit tomorrow, 2 weeks from now, or could even be a couple months from now. Whatever the matter, other experts are worried that we won’t be able to protect ourselves if and when this happens.
Well, I think that, like a lot of other things, it has been only a matter of time before someone could figure out what it takes to hijack the internet, send viruses, whatever. We have all taken the freedom of the internet for granted, while some genius (or more) waits with his or her high-tech computer for the right moment in time to takeover, this time, Microsoft-based computers. I’ve never heard of any one, huge “thing” that could possibly take away what everyone loves to do the most, get on their computer. How can it infect 116 countries across the globe, except for Ukraine? If that’s where he or she is, how do we find them? Who knows what will happen if you take people’s internet away…I can only imagine something bad.
Mostly anyone with access to a computer has heard about the worm, Conficker, which was (or is) supposed to hit a large percentage of computers around the world, attacking only Microsoft run computers (which means anyone with a Mac is good to go). If this worm really does happen, then the author of Conficker will be able to access such material as financial information and even key strokes on any one computer that the worm infects. It creates web sites that interact with infected computers. Experts say that this new worm, which generates 50,000URL’s a day, is nothing compared to a previous version of Conficker that only generated 250 URL’s a day. While the Washington Post mocked this new Conficker worm on a tech blog, senior vice president of technology for Enigma Software, Patrick Morganelli, thinks that the worm could hit tomorrow, 2 weeks from now, or could even be a couple months from now. Whatever the matter, other experts are worried that we won’t be able to protect ourselves if and when this happens.
Well, I think that, like a lot of other things, it has been only a matter of time before someone could figure out what it takes to hijack the internet, send viruses, whatever. We have all taken the freedom of the internet for granted, while some genius (or more) waits with his or her high-tech computer for the right moment in time to takeover, this time, Microsoft-based computers. I’ve never heard of any one, huge “thing” that could possibly take away what everyone loves to do the most, get on their computer. How can it infect 116 countries across the globe, except for Ukraine? If that’s where he or she is, how do we find them? Who knows what will happen if you take people’s internet away…I can only imagine something bad.
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