Kieron O'Hara
The Digital Citizen
Smart contracts – dumb idea
IEEE Internet Computing, 21(2), 97-101
2017
Themes: Blockchain/cryptocurrency
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
Increasingly in e-commerce, smart contracts have relied on the code as the contract. But code can be hacked and fail, leaving multiple parties potentially exposed to legal gray areas, great financial loss, and little recourse. Here, Kieron O’Hara considers the ramifications of such contracts by exploring what happened when the Ethereum platform was hacked in the summer of 2016.
Read the article Download the articleThe seven veils of privacy
IEEE Internet Computing, 20(2), 86-91
2016
Themes: Privacy
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
Here, Kieron O’Hara details a framework of seven levels to help separate the effects and affects of privacy from the facts. In looking at when a privacy boundary is crossed or not, this framework helps citizens think about when that’s problematic, and why this differs not only across cultures, but also across generations and even for the same individuals.
Read the article Download the articleAuthority printed upon emptiness
IEEE Internet Computing, 19(6), 72-76
2015
Themes: Blockchain/cryptocurrency
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
In a time of economic volatility, what can cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin bring to the table? What new vulnerabilities would they introduce? And could they be minimized through consumer protection mechanisms?
Read the article Download the articleThe right to be forgotten: the good, the bad and the ugly
IEEE Internet Computing, 19(4), 73-79
2015
Themes: Data protection
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
Viviane Reding’s (three-time European Commissioner) muscular speeches advocating a right to be forgotten for Europeans kick-started a ruckus that has pitched the European Union (EU) against the US and privacy activists against Big Data advocates. This issue gained momentum in May 2014, when an appeal by Google Spain against a decision of the Spanish Data Protection Authority (DPA), la Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD), was rejected by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), thereby enshrining the right to be forgotten in law. This paper discusses in depth considers the right to be forgotten, including its potential ramifications and successes.
Read the article Download the articleData, legibility, creativity … and power
IEEE Internet Computing, 19(2), 88-91
2015
Themes: Digital modernity
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
In a world where data crunching has the potential to crunch out the individual, how can people respond? Kieron O’Hara discusses the dangers and downfalls of conflating people with data, without a balance in feedback between algorithms and individuals.
Read the article Download the articleThe fridge’s brain sure ain’t the icebox
IEEE Internet Computing, 18(6), 81-84
2014
Themes: Computing/The Internet, Privacy
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
The emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT) promises new and exciting possibilities for our personal health, transport, the environment, and many other areas. However, it does of course pose privacy and security problems. This article argues that there are six complex and difficult privacy concerns that are specific to the IoT. The situation is made even more complex because it isn’t clear who should regulate the IoT, and how best to do it.
Read the article Download the articleIn worship of an echo
IEEE Internet Computing, 18(4), 79-83
2014
Themes: Extremism
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
This column critically examines the hypothesis that the Internet is responsible for creating echo chambers, in which groups can seal themselves off from heterodox opinion, via filtering and recommendation technology. Echo chambers are held responsible by many for political polarization, and the growth of extremism, yet the evidence doesn’t seem to support this view. Echo chambers certainly exist, and can be detrimental to deliberation and discussion, but equally have a role to play in group formation, solidarity, and identity. The case for intervening in Internet governance to suppress echo chambers is not proven.
Read the article Download the articleThe information spring
IEEE Internet Computing, 18(2), 79-83
2014
Themes: Transparency/open data
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
The great sociologist Max Weber conceived government as a sort of giant information processor. Yet despite great strides and many successes in e-government and the application of IT to government, semantically enabled public administration has still not established itself. This column argues that there is still room for optimism, because open data and semantic technologies could revolutionize not just governments’ information processing practices, but the purpose and scope of government itself. We have to come to terms with not only the machinery of administration, but also the wider question of the relationship between citizens and Leviathan. This is obviously not merely a technical question. Liberation is a theme in modern politics, from the Prague Spring to the Arab Spring. We are seeing the emergence of an Information Spring, which could set data and information free to serve the people — if we understand its implications in the right way.
Read the article Download the articleThe many-headed e-monster
IEEE Internet Computing, 17(6), 88-92
2013
Themes: Politics
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
Across the world, politics has been transformed by e-populism, where parties support freedom of the Internet, direct democracy, transparency and free speech. E-populists have proved powerful opponents, upsetting governments in Italy, Egypt and elsewhere. But can e-populism succeed in creating inclusive, constructive government? Does the power of the Internet need to be mitigated by alternative institutions?
Read the articleAre we getting privacy the wrong way round?
IEEE Internet Computing, 17(4), 89-92
2013
Themes: Privacy
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
Individualists, communitarians, and technological determinists agree that privacy’s benefits accrue to individuals, and that its costs (in terms of less security or efficiency) fall on society. As such, it is the individual’s choice to give privacy away. However, privacy does benefit wider society in important respects, and so this consensus is flawed.
Read the article Download the articleSocial machine politics are here to stay
IEEE Internet Computing, 17(2), 87-90
2013
Themes: Politics, Social machines
Category: Journal article, The Digital Citizen
The US has always been ahead of the curve in digital politics. Its mega-campaigns collect and spend absurd quantities of cash, they last forever, and they’re run by the candidates, not the parties. Obama’s campaign was Obama’s, not the Democratic Party’s. The US provides space for entrepreneurialism and experimentation, not least in the use of technology. Other nations will follow its lead. And the stories were microblogging, social networks, and big data.
Read the articleWelcome to (and from) the Digital Citizen
IEEE Internet Computing, 17(1), 92-95
2013
Themes: Computing/The Internet, Politics
Category: Journal article, Open access, The Digital Citizen
In this introductory Digital Citizen column, Kieron O’Hara explores some issues regarding the definition of “digital citizenship,” focusing on the associated rights and responsibilities, the value to be gained from citizenship, and the problems caused by conflict.
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