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| ==Faceleaks==
| | #REDIRECT [[User:Dusan_Barok/What_How_Why]] |
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| ; What
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| Faceleaks is a Firefox/Chrome add-on which attaches a leak button to Facebook photos, allowing user to leak them to www.faceleaks.info website which has a visual appearance of Wikileaks Cablegate website.
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| ; How
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| The browser add-on is a [http://gitorious.org/faceleaks/faceleaks/blobs/master/faceleaks.user.js Greasemonkey user script] written in JavaScript language and subsequently [http://blog.arpitnext.com/greasemonkey-compiler-xpi/ compiled] to [http://gitorious.org/faceleaks/faceleaks/blobs/master/faceleaks.xpi XPI] format compatible with Firefox browsers. The add-on was then pointed to forward the leaked Facebook pictures to the newly registered [http://www.faceleaks.info Faceleaks.info] domain, which was designed to mock the Cablegate page at the Wikileaks.org website, including a [http://faceleaks.info/vikileaki/faceleaks.logo.png logo] of [http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3456/38647142.jpg Facebook default icon] mashupped with the official [http://wikileaks.org/IMG/wlogo.png Wikileaks logo]. The XPI file was uploaded to the official [http://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/faceleaks/ Add-ons for Firefox] website maintained by Mozilla Foundation, along with the short description of the add-on. The information about the project was then sent to the experimental browser software repository, Artzilla.org, which included it in their [http://www.artzilla.org/add-ons/faceleaks/ database]. Information about the project was shared via social networks without a direct interference of the author, also following the public presentation of the add-on at the [http://pzwart3.wdka.hro.nl/rebelhuis/student/dusan/index.html Rebelhuis] exhibition in Rotterdam. There was another version of add-on created in [http://gitorious.org/faceleaks/faceleaks/blobs/master/faceleaks.pem PEM format], compiled into [http://gitorious.org/faceleaks/faceleaks/blobs/master/faceleaks.crx CRX format] for Chrome browsers, and included in the Faceleaks.info website. The source code for both versions was finally made publicly available and uploaded to [http://gitorious.org/faceleaks/ Gitorious repository].
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| ; Why
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| In November and December 2010 I was reading a lot about WikiLeaks and observing how the Cablegate story interacts within the media sphere. I perceived it as a convergence of crucial issues at stake for the contemporary politics and as many others I was discussing the potential it creates for political change. There were several threads, a question--of leaking as a creative act, of what is to be and what not to be linked to the public domain, of accountability and reponsibility, of information transparency, and of censorship. I was not able to answer the question of what gives the WikiLeaks organisation mandate to decide what sort of classified information made public is more likely to meet their maxim--to create more "just" world.
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| I was primarily interested in exploring a technique of leaking and apply a method of modifying a technology shaping the society on the grand scale to see what would happen if the control over leaking is given to a wide spectre of people. When talking to Michael, the moment we got an idea of embedding a leak button within the Facebook page, I realized how such a simple hack would go deep into the very idea a social network builds upon: trust. WikiLeaks use a similar hack to break a conspiracy within a corrupted governing body, giving its participants an anonymous 'leak' option. Facebook platform is entrusted by millions to keep their personal information "classified" to people they trust, and yet many downplay privacy concerns, and play. Faceleaks explore a possibility to break a trust in favor of entertainment.
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| ==Social stock market==
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| ; What
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| Social stock market was an idea of software which allows users to trade their friendships acquired at social media websites.
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| ; Why
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| My ground assumption was that a social network profile is a commodity being produced by an user, a product of his or her labour of socialising online,
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| while the sole extractor of its financial value being a network provider selling profiles to advertisers.
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| The users--profile producers--are rewarded by the satisfaction from the ever rising number of friends displayed prominently at their profile pages
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| as a kind of social relevance ratio, as the points the player collected in the social game.
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| I wanted to explore the functioning of economic value system inherent in the social graph, make it more transparent and take it a step further.
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| ; How
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| That was the biggest issue. I imagined a software, a platform which would mirror social graphs of various networks (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace),
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| increasing value of user each time he or she makes a new friendship, kind of an individual's social market value.
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| The user would be thought as both a company issuing shares (requesting friendships) and a shareholder (having friendships with other users,
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| in other words, owning shares at other companies).
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| This would create an interesting situation, in which the value of all players raise in the most cases, since a friendship
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| in the social network does not seem to be a scarce commodity. In theory, there were thousands of friends available for free, each a few clicks away,
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| since both sides would always benefit from befriending each other.
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| In other words, I was unable to create a more nuanced market situation, for instance to solve the issue of offer and demand,
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| and how to make the friendship the desired object of consumption.
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| Having more time for it, I would dive into issues of immaterial economy.
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| ==Rig==
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| ; What
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| Rig was placed in an art gallery hosted by the local city hall as a computer which tries to generate money by running Bitcoin currency mining software. It consisted of a PC tower with a cover removed and a screen displaying the process, accompanied by printouts of cypherpunk and crypto-anarchist manifestos.
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| ; How
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| Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer currency. Peer-to-peer means that no central authority issues new money or tracks transactions. These tasks are managed collectively by the network. The participants store the money (bitcoins) on their computers and run the software to make transactions to others. To generate money the users are optionally running another piece of software, Bitcoin mining client on their machines, called the "mining rigs". The processing power of the rig mining network thus replaces the central authority issuing money. The exhibited computer was simply running a mining software processing and verifying the transactions in the bitcoin network, and during three weeks of the exhibition it mined about 1 cent.
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| ; Why
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| I was primarily interested in exploring the potential of Bitcoin technology it has as an alternative economy.
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