Nov 15
One thing that I have noticed teaching entirely online is that some of my students are digital nomads, which are sometimes also called digital wanderers. These are people who live their lives and careers in multiple countries, typically while self-employed. I believe that two different phenomenon served to drive this trend. First, the financial crisis …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2017/11/digital-nomads/
Oct 03
A few years ago I moved my teaching entirely online. One of the joys of online teaching is that it allows faculty to better know our students. In a conventional classroom, I would come to know the four or five students who spoke the most. In my online class every student must do two detailed …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2017/10/the-campus-politics-of-online-teaching/
May 07
During the last U.S. presidential election campaign Wikileaks drew extensive news coverage, as it released data from the Democratic National Committee shortly before the election took place. In March Wikileaks released a massive amount of data regarding CIA’s espionage capabilities. But how does Wikileaks fact-check its data? Can you trust that what it posts is …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2017/05/can-you-trust-wikileaks/
Mar 01
I am currently teaching an online class on Digital Globalization, and we have just finished the section of the course that deals with surveillance and privacy. For a recent discussion question I asked students if they were more concerned about surveillance by the government or by corporations. Last year, my students were much more worried …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2017/03/digital-surveillance-and-privacy/
Feb 01
One of the great mysteries of the 21st century is the identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the creator of Bitcoin. While his creation of the blockchain and a new cryptocurrency was an immense achievement, Bitcoin itself is only one of a diverse array of emerging currencies. Still, when I taught my Digital Globalization course last winter, …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2017/02/bitcoins-perils/
Jul 30
After a military faction recently sought to overthrow the Turkish government by a coup, Turkey’s President Erdogan launched a massive and extreme purge of the nation’s military, academia, and judiciary. Tens of thousands of people have lost their jobs, or been arrested. The government even created a separate cemetery for dead coup plotters. While the …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2016/07/wikileaks-and-politics/
Jul 25
One of my favorite podcasts is Reply All, which covers cyber issues in a creative and clever manner. The hosts recently had an interview (“Decoders,” episode #62) with New York Times’ journalist Rukmini Callimachi, as well as Runa Sandvik, the director of bureau security at this newspaper. In essence, Callimachi discovered a new means that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2016/07/isis-and-encryption/
Apr 15
This winter quarter I taught a fully-online class on Digital Globalization, which I greatly enjoyed. I believe that Digital Globalization is a form of globalization that is every bit as powerful as economic, political and cultural globalization. Of course, it is also inextricably linked to all these other forms of globalization. It’s strange, therefore, that …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2016/04/syllabus-for-an-online-course-on-digital-globalization/
Mar 28
Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet is a short, engaging and provocative look at surveillance and freedom on the internet. The book records a series of discussions between Assange and his co-authors (Jacob Applebaum, Andy Muller-Maguhn and Jeremie Zimmerman) on March 20, 2012 (while he was under house arrest in the UK), which …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2016/03/a-book-review-of-assanges-cypherpunks/
Mar 01
One of the world’s enduring mysteries is the nature of number stations, which are shortwave radio stations that broadcast random lists of numbers, morse code, or strange bursts of sound, such as the odd beeps on Russian station UVB-76. Nobody knows what the purpose of the number stations is for certain, but we do know …
Permanent link to this article: https://www.introtoglobalstudies.com/2016/03/number-stations/
