Lili onMason

Internet Security

This week we learned about the security of online activity. The guest speaker’s bottom line was that any information stored by a device that connects to the internet can, and has already been seen by a bad guy. What I gather that means is that no information can ever be completely secure. The security built into on line sites, the antivirus software we install on our computers, all the software that we use is written by humans, and so will likely have errors in it. People who have nefarious intentions can find these errors and exploit them to get to your information. Passwords are very important. It is key that you have different passwords for different accounts and to make each password longer than 10 characters. When your password has more than 10 characters, it becomes increasingly difficult to crack.

Our online presence creates data. This data can be tracked and used by both private organizations and the government. This data can be used in a variety of different manners. For example, private organizations like Facebook, and Google can use this data to target advertisements to you in particular. Governments can also use this data. They can use it to try to track demographics.

Final Project:

For my final project, I have created two bar graphs. They illustrate the increase of crime that occurred in DC. This increase of crime coincides with the increase of drug use. What was most interesting was the sharp increase of murders that also coincides with the increase of drug use.  Both graphs can be seen below:

I am still having trouble finding a variety of primary sources and statistics. Most statistics started to be kept after 1991, when the nation became acutely aware and interested in how crack was taking over cities throughout the country. This obviously falls out of the 25 year time frame that has to go by for something to be considered history.

I am going to make an exhibit for my Omeka site. My topic is going to be the time line of how crack became popular, highlighting areas of open use and sale and key players. By making this exhibit, I will be answering the question why crack became the drug of choice to sell/what the consequences were.

Exhibit

Rayful Edmond is the most notorious crack dealer of the 80s in Washington DC. He had a heirarchy of dealers that worked for him. They often sold crack in open air, and millions of dollar. His background story highlights why the selling of crack became so prevalent in Washington DC.

This is an image of Hanover place. This image shows the drive through nature of crack buying/selling in DC. Narrow streets were often used as a place to sell drugs. Hanover place was so popular for the sale of drugs that it would cause traffic jams. Finding a place to buy drugs in DC was not only easy, but well known and the police could do very little to stop it. When drug dealers were arrested, others just stepped into their place and the sale of crack continued.

This statistical representation shows how the murder rate increased from 1985 to 1989. I will probably use this data in order to compare it to the rate of increase of crack cocaine. It appears to be that as the use of crack cocaine increased so did the homicide/crime rates. According to WAMU, homicides increased from 225 to 369 in the span of one year (1988 to 1989); this is a rise of approximately 64 percent.

I learned to use tools to analyze text utilizing Voyant, Wordle, and Google Ngram. Each help you analyze bodies of text in different ways, but all three create visual pieces of the text being anayled.

Wordle

I found Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, copied and pasted it in Wordle. It created an image of all the words used frequently in the speech; the size of the word was dependent on the frequency of its use. The some of the most frequently used words in MLK’s speech were freedom, negro, nation, and dream. This tool is useful only if you are already familiar with the text you are researching. If you are not, the frequency of the words being used does not tell you much without the context in which they are being used. When analyzing a piece of text for a web page, or a blog, this could be helpful to drive your analysis of the text to the reader. It could be a good tool to highlight your key points.

Voyant

Voyant is very similar to Wordle. You can copy and paste a body of text into their website. It will then generate an image to represent the most frequently used words in the text. It also places the original text on the product. The negative to this site was that it does not automatically ignore words like the, and of. The positive on this website is that you can select words and it will highlight when those words are used in the text, and it will also create a graph to show you when the frequency of the selected word increases and decreases. This would be helpful in analyzing text when trying to see when a certain message was being portrayed. Like Wordle, this will only help you analyze text when you are already pretty familiar with it. You would not really be able to get text you are completely unfamiliar with and analyze it well using this site.

Google Ngram

Google Ngram allows you to search for key words you are interested in. Google then searches its vast library of books for those key words and makes a graph for you. The graph will show you the frequency of use for your key words throughout a given time frame that can be changed. I searched for “crack cocaine followed by any verb. My time frame was from 1950 to 1989. The useful part of this software is that it links to books that can be used to further your research. The actual graph is does not tell you much more than frequency. If you started here, it could help you find the appropriate time range for you research project, which would be very helpful.

Final Project

I was able to find new primary sources for my final project this week. These sources gave me ideas for new key words that led me to a very useful crime database. I was also able to add new items that I found for my Omeka site. I started creating my exhibit.

The three topics that I talked about last week really interest me. It is hard to decide which of the three to choose. Researching the city’s planning would be fun; researching what the city was like during the civil war would be enormously interesting. The topic that I am going to ultimately study is crack, and its effect on the city. Addiction is a condition that continues to affect millions in this country. I would like to research who were the sellers, and who were the buyers. Why did they chose to do what they did? In a city with a majority of African Americans, and high segregation, what effect did the crack epidemic along neighborhood lines, and vice versa?

To continue researching this topic, I will speak to a librarian who could assist me in finding material on this subject. I would also like to find interviews with the people involved on-line. Another step I will take is to find articles already written on the subject from the school databases. I will also keep a document with hyperlinks to the data that I find interesting and usable with a description of what I would like to use from each and why. By doing so, I won’t have the problems of the past, such as losing specific citations.

Washington DC

Washington DC was first established on the 16^th of July, 1790. It is the capital of our United States of America; some even call it the capital of the world. Its history is rich, complicated, and very interesting. As the capital of the country, it is often the center of controversy. When reading about the history of this city, three topic interested me: how the city was designed, the role of the District during the Civil War, and the impact the drug epidemic had on the city, and how it influenced the rest of the nation.

Most great cities of the world are recognized by their sky line; tall towers of steel and concrete reaching for the sky. One of the aspects that sets Washington DC apart is its lack of a sky line. I would be interested to research why the streets were designed how they were, what symbolism exists, and why. Who designed the city, what other visionaries competed for the job, and what the city would have looked like had someone else won the job? This research could also encompass the placement and designs of the monuments that the District is famous for.

Washington DC was a city that was a proponent of the abolition of slavery. It was completely surrounded states that were pro-slavery, namely Maryland and Virginia. It would be interesting to learn what the political climate was in the District right before the civil war. Although Maryland never seceded, it still bordered Virginia. I wonder what military units were placed there, who was in charge of them, where were they stationed and what were their living conditions? I also wonder how the District was defended. What was the experience of the people of the city, did people move, and what did the people do who stayed?

On the 5^th of September 1989, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation holding a bag of crack. He told everyone that it had been purchased right across the street from the White House. He told the nation that there was a severe problem with drugs occurring across the nations. This was especially true for Washington DC. How did the presence of drugs affect the city? Did the fact that it was a problem in the city make it a priority for the federal government? What parts of the cities were most affected and why? What actions were taken by local DC government and did it work? Who were affected by the actions and how? How did it shape the future of the city? These are all questions that could be researched on the impact of drugs in DC.

In order to research these subjects, I would look at the documents and images stored at the Library of Congress. This could provide primary, as well as secondary resources. I would also try open source searches to get an initial view of each subject. I would then use JSTOR, Academic Search Complete, and other databases available through George Mason’s Library. Finally, I would also try to find published journals, books, and periodicals in the school library.