Virtual Parasites: Browser Hijacking and Fraud in the Information Age
Today, we can seek pretty much whatever we want through a mouse click. The proliferation of the Internet has changed the way many of us acquire information. This has given rise to a plethora of search engines like Google that generate revenue partly by displaying advertisements in their search results, or by linking to them. […]
Bitcoin Bugs in Tor
Bitcoin is an online transaction system that allows users to transfer and manage funds throughout the Bitcoin network. It is an open source designed for instant global transactions at a zero to minimum transaction fee. Users who go through with Bitcoin transactions enter through using the anonymity of the network Tor. While Tor is an open network […]
Using Graph Analysis for Crime Prevention
http://www.orgnet.com/prevent.html Analyzing information about something that has already happened in order to find patterns is much more effective than blindly trying to predict future outcomes. The large network of data that is collected and readily available for investigators to use has changed the the face of crime prevention. A man by the name of Valdis […]
Do Advertisers Gain from Sponsored Searches?
In lecture, we have been learning about sponsored searches. Google undeniably gains a big profit from selling its slots for advertisements, but do the receivers receive a significant payoff as well? This question crossed my mind based on personal experience. When searching on Google, I tend to ignore the ads, and go straight to the […]
Sociology and Psychology behind Graph Theory and Social Networks
In “Graph Theory and Social Networks: A technical Comment on Connectedness and Connectivity” by J. A. Barnes, Barnes combines, reiterates, and cites the works of multiple sociologists, graph theorists, and psychologists to create a sort of rudimentary understanding of how we can apply graphs and graph theory to understand the different levels of connection in a […]
Information cascade and buying twitter followers
There have been a whole host of companies that have popped up (like http://buy1000followers.co/) that allow people to buy twitter followers. Basically for a nominal amount of money, around $5, one can buy themselves thousands of “followers.” These followers are sometimes random real people, from all parts of the world, and sometimes just bots, i.e computer […]
Crowdfunding Cascades
Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project using donations from a large number of people, instead of borrowing from banks. Popular websites for crowdfunding include Indiegogo and Kickstarter. The practice has become increasingly popular, especially for individuals who may not have the ability to apply for large loans otherwise. Usually, as an incentive to donate, […]
Using Graph Theory to Analyze the Spread of Tuberculosis in South Africa
In class, we have discussed graph theory and more recently, the small world phenomenon or “six degrees of separation” notion that every person in this world is connected to another person in six or fewer relationships. With the current widespread talk of the Ebola virus, it interesting to note how the concepts of graph theory […]
Search Engine Optimization Rap
While I was looking for some sort of scholarly article for this blog post, I happened across an entertaining YouTube video that related perfectly to what we’ve been discussing in class. In the video, the “SEO Rapper” talks about search engine optimization and PageRank: a Google-developed method for determining the importance of a website. The […]
New Stocks and Market Crashes: The Pros and Cons of Information Cascades
Information cascades can both jump-start a public stock or product and cause a stock’s value to plummet or even crash a market. The former is relatively easy to control and take advantage of – firms manipulate this phenomenon all the time (1). The latter, however, can have runaway destructive abilities, and most certainly played a […]
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