Yesterday, the night before the great March 4th demonstration, the professor of my wealth and poverty course proposed a simple question. He asked the class, “What is happening tomorrow? I hear there’s a strike. Can someone explain this to me?” A girl in the back of the lecture hall raised her hand and proceeded to address the injustice faced by students in the UC system, and how the strike was meant to create awareness for this issue across the state (as if it wasn’t well-known already). Most of what she said was valid; however, Professor Reich then asked, “What is the purpose of this strike? Where is the power? Who are we striking against?”

Everyone let that question sink in for a few moments. It made us think – can we really call this a strike? For the past week, campus has been dotted with white, maroon, and black posters. All of them loudly proclaim, “MARCH 4TH STRIKE!” It seems we’ve forgotten the real meaning of the word. In the past, strikes were about a group of people, namely workers, banding together to gain economic power to fight unfair wages and conditions. The workers essentially shut down the factory for the duration of their strike, which in turn was costly for the employers. So here, at UC Berkeley, who exactly are we striking against? Some say it’s the legislators – but who are they to care whether or not we attend classes? We’re not directly hurting them or their business by refusing to step onto campus. Who ends up sustaining the brunt of the damage?

In fact, we’re only hurting ourselves by refusing the very product that we are paying for. I’m not against protests and demonstrations – they’re powerful if executed in a non-violent and rational manner. And of all things to defend, public education is most definitely high up on the list, if not at the top. However, let’s stop kidding ourselves with illusions of grandeur and stop describing these acts as strikes. Instead, let us defend public education through our own means, without stripping words of their true meaning.

Please name any other tech company that is actually working to ensure that the working conditions in the factories where these components are made are at least tolerable and the workers are not exploited? Please list what Nokia or Palm or HTC are doing to ensure the parts that go into their phones are not fabricated by exploited workers or child labourers?

Really? Just like anyone else, I too want to believe that companies are adopting these so-called “corporate social responsibility” measures for the good of the world. But when it really comes down to it, why does a corporation spend the extra time and money to go through these steps? It’s all about the bottom line, baby. The media is ready to pounce on any company with Ecuadorian factories that hire five-year olds or managers who lock-in employees overnight. Customers become defiant, refuse to buy products from these evil evil corporate monsters, and then what? Profitability drops, investors become worried and disgruntled, and executives run around scrambling to come up with a half-decent damage control plan.

Although this specific example only looks at Apple (and yes, I do use a Macbook Pro), they’re not alone in this practice. Most companies, no matter how much they try to deny it, practice CSR to make customers happy. If customers are happy, then they’ll continue to support the company and buy more products and pay for more services, which means mo’ money. It is so easy for a consumer to simply exit if he or she doesn’t like the current options, so it is in the best interest of a company to use CSR as a component of its competitive strategy. After all, if everyone else is doing it, there’s really no other option. And if no one else in the industry does it, well hey, the first mover has a lot more to gain than to lose.

Here’s what Fake Steve has to say about this issue, since no piece of Apple news is complete without him.

Admittedly, Apple has done an excellent job in generating a crap ton of hype for the tablet, but it’s burning out. Fortunately for them, the product is finally (and that’s a “finally” with the i and y drawn out) being revealed this Wednesday, so we won’t have to endure any more “Apple Tablet Has Been Spotted!11one1″ posts. I mean, it’s great that people are speculating, but by this point do we really need confirmation on the product via web analytics? On the other hand, there will instead be an influx of “AMAZINGEST PRODUCT EVAR” and “Ew, this sux so much lyk lolwut” review posts.

I don’t doubt that the tablet will be anything short of revolutionary in the tech world, as Apple seems to have a knack for taking on the First Mover role and succeeding. I’m sure that when it’s officially released in stores, I’ll be right there elbowing my way past thirty-something tech execs and thirteen year olds to get my hands on a demo. And then I’ll walk away after ten minutes of fiddling, with my curiosity satiated. If anything, what I’m really looking forward to is Lenovo’s Ideapad U1, which has the best of both worlds.

Anyways, it’s time to sit back and await The Big Event. I have to say, it’ll be pretty funny if they don’t end up announcing the tablet. However, I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen, as it would subject us all to another X months of rumors and speculation.

Enter Jeffrey Chiang.

The entire story is over here at Dealbreakers, so I’ll just give you the quick and dirty. Jeffrey Chiang is the prime example of what to do if you want to see your potential career go up in flames after dousing it with a hefty amount of gasoline. So Jeffrey Chiang was interviewing for Bank of America Merrill Lynch where he was asked if he had received any other offers so far. He claimed that he was currently in his second round of interviews for Morgan Stanley. Lucky for Jeffrey, a BoA-ML associate had a buddy over at Morgan Stanley, whom he contacted about Jeffrey’s prospects. Apparently, he only had a phone interview with Morgan Stanley, at which time he claimed to have gotten an offer from BoA-ML. He was even so nice as to forward the “offer” over to Morgan Stanley, which was then forwarded to the associate at BoA-ML. After performing a bit of recon and finding out that the letter was a fake, the story was forwarded to the rest of Wall Street and has found its way onto the rest of the internet.

As mentioned in the Dealbreaker story, it’s really kind of sad that he didn’t even pull off the scam well. It’s one thing if you successfully sell the Eiffel Tower; it’s another if you spell “America” incorrectly in your fake job offer email. Over the past 24 hours, Chiang’s been erasing all traces of himself on the internet – his Facebook and LinkedIn have disappeared (although you can still see them with the lovely Google Cache). Everyone’s been saying that he has no hope on Wall Street after this stunt, but honestly, he’s screwed for any company or corporation that uses any kind of social media.

Here is the delightful string of emails that started it all:

From: Jeffrey Chiang
To: [Morgan Stanley]
Subject: FW: Bank of America Merrill Lynch Interviews

[Source: Dealbreaker]

According to this article, social media is “revolutionizing your doctor visits.” I won’t argue that websites haven’t made our lives easier in terms of finding out if you have symptoms of H1N1 or researching which specialized hospitals are best for what. However, there is still a long way to go until healthcare becomes “revolutionized” vis-a-vis social media. It seems that a significant number of people are expecting to find great doctors in the same manner we find nomnom-licious restaurants on Yelp. This isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Why? While the crowd who scours the internet looking for the best underground cafes and undiscovered treasures certainly can contribute to the social media-lizing of healthcare, there is a significant chunk of people, people who are the majority players in the healthcare community, who don’t.

Let’s take a look at the Yelp community. Whenever I want to find reviews about a restaurant or hair salon, my first step is to whip open a new browser tab and see fellow Yelpers’ verdicts. Yelp has a fairly, and by fairly I mean very, large amount of traffic – 25 million unique visitors in a month. Looking at the demographic info, the majority of users are within the 18 – 49 age range. I know that there are many non-members using Yelp, too, but given that they’re non-members, they’re also not contributing in terms of reviews and ratings.

Now, let’s look at the healthcare industry. If we’re going to have a similar community for healthcare, reviewers and raters are crucial for success and efficiency. I’m not saying that young people don’t get sick. However, there will be certain areas of medicine that won’t benefit anytime soon. Some fields will have a lot of traffic – dentists, family physicians, pediatricians, cosmetic surgeons and OB GYNs are good bets. These areas have a significant number of patients who are within the online-review-utilizing-and-contributing age bracket. As for cardiologists, rheumatologists, and geriatricians? Detailed information and reviews will be sparse. Given that physicians devote about 30 – 35% of patient care time to those over 65, it is clear that the elderly still constitute a sizable chunk of the healthcare community. We’ll be missing their input on physicians and doctors for a long while.

However, if you think about, those of us who are most likely to utilize the intarwebz and social sites to research our doctors are more likely to look in the common fields I mentioned above. I know that if I move to a new city, a dentist and optometrist would be first on my list. Thankfully, tons of others in a similar age range will have tested and tried out a significant number of these doctors. All in all, I wouldn’t call this a healthcare revolution – but it is a start.

As the countdown to the walkout gets shorter and shorter, I realized that this time things may actually be different. Instead of the normal grumbling from students about the “suckiness of the UC system,” we have a solidarity among students, faculty, and alumni alike that hasn’t been seen in years. There has been a series of faculty lectures on the walkout and budget cuts throughout the system. In particular, this video of Professor Ananya Roy is definitely worth watching:.

There’s more information about the Berkeley walkout over here. But now, it’s time for me to get some shut-eye for optimal Sproul-crowding performance tomorrow, of course.

Apparently, AT&T has decided to block 4chan. 4chan. Let’s say that again – 4chan. Of all the sites they could have censored, 4chan? Really? Really? Did they not see what 4chan did with TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list? And TIME didn’t even do anything to them. AT&T’s got some real cajones if they’re willing to take on the wrath of 4chan, which of course, comes bundled with the army of anon. You just don’t mess with 4chan, unless you want your homepage to start displaying 2girls1cup or meatspin- and that’s only the start of it.

As per TechCrunch:

AT&T has just opened perhaps the most vindictive, messy can of worms it could have possibly found. Blocking any site seems like a breach of user trust, but the decision to block 4chan in particular just seems stupid. Expect the web equivalent of rioting if this doesn’t change soon. – Jason Kincaid

The troops have already begun rallying here and on Encyclopedia Dramatica. I don’t know about you, but I’m stocking up on my popcorn. Unless 4chan decides to blow up AT&T’s servers, in which I will be /wrist, because sadly, my service provider is AT&T.

From Encyclopaedia Dramatica:

This isn’t like going to war with Anontalk, or Scientology, or some website, it’s AT& fucking T. There will be no lulz in this war.
This time the internet IS serious business.

EDIT: Seems like AT&T already gave up – /b/ is accessible again (I double checked). Damn, I was so looking forward to the epic intarwebz battle. But! There’s still hope yet:

It appears that AT&T has STOPPED blocking access to img.4chan.org in multiple previously affected areas!

(as soon as they get a little shitstorm, they back down — will this story end here? do we say ‘oh ok thanks for unblocking’ or do we go on?)

We go on. Anonymous does not forgive. Anonymous does not forget. – Anon,

EDIT Numero Dos: AT&T released a statement earlier today, explaining how all this went down in the first place.

Beginning Friday, an AT&T customer was impacted by a denial-of-service attack stemming from IP addresses connected to img.4chan.org. To prevent this attack from disrupting service for the impacted AT&T customer, and to prevent the attack from spreading to impact our other customers, AT&T temporarily blocked access to the IP addresses in question for our customers. This action was in no way related to the content at img.4chan.org; our focus was on protecting our customers from malicious traffic.

Overnight Sunday, after we determined the denial-of-service threat no longer existed, AT&T removed the block on the IP addresses in question. We will continue to monitor for denial-of-service activity and any malicious traffic to protect our customers.

And a response from moot, via his status blog:

Here’s what happened:

For the past three weeks, 4chan has been under a constant DDoS attack. We were able to filter this specific type of attack in a fashion that was more or less transparent to the end user.

Unfortunately, as an unintended consequence of the method used, some Internet users received errant traffic from one of our network switches. A handful happened to be AT&T customers.

In response, AT&T filtered all traffic to and from our img.4chan.org IPs (which serve /b/ & /r9k/) for their entire network, instead of only the affected customers. AT&T did not contact us prior to implementing the block. Here is their statement regarding the matter.

In the end, this wasn’t a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T’s part. Whoever pulled the trigger on blackholing the site probably didn’t anticipate [nor intend] the consequences of doing so.

We’re glad to see this short-lived debacle has prompted renewed interest and debate over net neutrality and internet censorship—two very important issues that don’t get nearly enough attention—so perhaps this was all just a blessing in disguise.

Aside from that, I’ll also add that there is some big news due later this week. Keep an eye on the News page, Twitter, and global message for updates.

As always, I can be reached at moot@4chan.org.

—

PS: If any companies would like to hook us up with some better hardware, feel free! The architecture we’ve got powering this large and influential beast is really quite embarrassing. ( ._.)

Like moot wrote, this srsly was a badly executed “solution” on AT&T’s part. They should at least warn people or have a posted alert saying that they’re going to block any site or IP for a good majority of the customers. Not to mention, one that has a high volume of traffic, like 4chan or any media site.

Ah well, I guess we’ll have to keep waiting to witness an epic internet throwdown.

Anyways, I was talking to my dear, esteemed friend Robert last night, and he bugged me about not updating my blog. “Why don’t you have an Asia 3.0 or North Korea lulz post yet, hmmmm?” Well, coincidentally enough, here you go!

China’s internet po po were at it again- apparently the majority of Google’s services were blocked in China, including Gmail, Gtalk, Google Apps, Google Books, Google Images, and of course, Google.com, too. It seems like this is the latest in a string of the blocking-happy measures, not including the mass blockage of pretty much all social media and search engines (like Bing) near the Tiananmen anniversary.

But really, Google? C’mon China, we all know no one should touch Google, since it’s going to take over the world and all in the near future. Okay, jokes aside, what does China really aim to achieve with all this Great Firewalling? I assume the main purpose is to keep all the Liberal Capitalist Rubbish (yes, capitalized and all) out of the minds and sight of young, revolutionary-able Chinese netizens, but history has taught us that the 300 million strong band of netizens will always find a way to either circumvent the GFW with the ease of VPNs, or at least manage to unleash frustration and “WTF?!”s onto various unblocked BBS. Or mass post to Twitter with the oh-so-affectionate #fuckgfw hashtags.

Additionally, the international media always makes a big fuss and throws a couple of a frowns in China’s direction when things like this happen. Granted, I know China’s sitting across the Pacific laughing at us fools in this recession, so our approval hardly has the same impact as in the past (not that I’m saying America- or any other country- should have a deciding say in anything that goes in with China in a flamboyantly cowboy diplomacy way; but that’s a discussions for some other time). Still, this is remarkably attention grabbing in a way that China probablyyy doesn’t want.

Some services have been unblocked, but the damage is still done. What next, China? I’m waiting for the day they block MSN/Windows Live services- that’s when all hell will break loose on the net.

I ran across this article the other day about how social networks, at least those born and raised on good ol’ American soil, need to adapt to Asian culture if they ever want to succeed in the Asian region. This is critical to the success of any social website that wants to succeed- and not only do they have to adopt local characteristics and tastes, but also compete against the already established local networks. When we were conducting interviews earlier this semester for UMA’s creative committee, this was actually the case question we asked the prospys. It seems that so many companies are ready to jump head first into China without considering the culture and end up getting owned in the face by local establishments. It’ll be interesting to see if the big names like Facebook will make changes that cater specifically to target areas in Asia.

And speaking of Asia Web 2.0, the Geeks on a Plane tour is now official. While a nine-day foray into the world of Asian internet startups and companies won’t be comprehensive at all, it’d still be a hell of a lot more informative than what we can only access on the intarwebz. I like the fact that they’re attending events that are hosted by companies started and based in Beijing/Shanghai/Tokyo, rather than companies abroad that have been Asianified. The events in Shanghai look especially attractive- the Barcamp Shanghai un-conference hosted by Tudou and a Geeks & Glamour after party at the shiny M1NT lounge? *dies*

And before I go, I’d like to throw a shout out to my homedizzle Robert, all the way out thurr in Las Vegas. :] Happy?

Lol @ the response from an official when a girl wanted to renew her identity card:

“Your name is so troublesome and problematic,” she recalled an official telling her. “Just change it.”

If only I could just say that to anything troublesome or problematic in my life, psh.

Out of curiosity, I looked up Wen on the list of the 100 most common surnames in China. I was expecting it to be around 40 – 60, but surprisingly enough, it’s not even in the top 100. Aw, I feel speshul.

Imagine if the US government did something like this in regards to first names- I would never have to see porn star names like “Krystii” on my Starbucks cups ever again!