Overall I felt like this reading was all over the place, with many different ideas and thoughts going on. It felt chaotic and worse dangerous. It seemed to almost glorify unsafe internet practices using this term art.net. Scamming emails, ip address leaks and identity scamming are all serious issues on the internet and this article frequently felt like it was showing off these sites that did just that. Worse than that it coined these sites as an art form when in reality they could be potentially very dangerous for the user. ‘darkpatterns.org’ is a website that shows off some of the patterns that websites use to confuse, scam and force the user into doing things they were unaware of. The article and the overall feel of net.art seems to be emulating a lot of these patterns. For one an IP address is a very important and serious thing that needs to be kept safe. In the wrong hands an IP address can be used by even an amature programmer to inject code into a computer and cause all sorts of problems (some even unintentionally). This is something that should be kept safe, and should not be glorified using the term ‘art’. Next the article seems to have a long talk about identity inside the internet, frequently talking about people that had identity stolen and even some when we were unsure of their true gender. Once again it coined this as an art form. I found this to be extremely concerning when identity problems are all over (looking at you facebook). This is data and practices that should be protected and not glorified by calling it ‘art’.
- dylanraysain
