An Ethnographic Examination of Belonging and Hype in Web3 Communities

Advocates of the Web3 movement want the next stage of the internet’s evolution to be characterized by the decentralization of virtual assets and the democratization of digital participation via possibilities afforded by blockchain technology. In this ethnography, the researcher contrasts the ideologies and material practices of individuals and communities composing said Web3 schema, including enthusiasts of the emergent metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain-based institutions called decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) that rely on a blend of human and algorithmic governance to operate. Based on fieldwork in London, England during the summer of 2022, this thesis uncovers patterns of hype making and hype ambivalence that inform belonging within Web3 spaces and conversely establish parameters for exclusion. The auratic qualities of NFTs the researcher acquired at Proof of People, a three-day NFT and metaverse festival hosted in London’s Fabric nightclub, are also investigated. With data compiled from a mix of in-person and virtual settings, the claims presented in this thesis arrive at a critical moment for crypto. Universal devaluation of blockchain assets following a market freefall in 2021 has battered the decentralized movement, but the Web3 informants featured herein remain optimistic about the vitality of a digital paradigm in its alleged nascency

#Blockchain4EU: Blockchain for Industrial Transformations

The project #Blockchain4EU is a forward looking exploration of existing, emerging and potential applications based on Blockchain and other DLTs for industrial / non-financial sectors. It combined Science and Technology Studies with a transdisciplinary policy lab toolbox filled with frameworks from Foresight and Horizon Scanning, Behavioural Insights, or Participatory, Critical and Speculative Design. Amid unfolding and uncertain developments of the Blockchain space, our research signals a number of crucial opportunities and challenges around a technology that could record, secure and transfer any digitised transaction or process, and thus potentially affect large parts of current industrial landscapes. This report offers key insights for its implementation and uptake by industry, businesses and SMEs, together with science for policy strategic recommendations.JRC.I.2-Foresight, Behavioural Insights and Design for Polic

Introductory Computer Forensics

INTERPOL (International Police) built cybercrime programs to keep up with emerging cyber threats, and aims to coordinate and assist international operations for ?ghting crimes involving computers. Although signi?cant international efforts are being made in dealing with cybercrime and cyber-terrorism, ?nding effective, cooperative, and collaborative ways to deal with complicated cases that span multiple jurisdictions has proven dif?cult in practic

Regaining control through Digital Rights Management (DRM): What\u27s in store for the music industry?

This paper, as part of the final requirement for the completion of a Master of Science in Information Technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, will examine the current state of digital media content and its inherent problems with regard to rendering and distribution. Discussions will focus on the protection and sales of digitalized intellectual property through Digital Rights Management (DRM) while also concentrating on how these technologies can be employed to acquire copyright protection. Though much of the discussion may apply to a wide range of media types, e.g. - movies, software and digital books, the primary focus will be on music content. Part 1 of the paper will explore the current state of the music industry and the problems it faces, while building a case for the application of digital protection technologies that will ensure the integrity of digital music copyright ownership. The concept of DRM will then be presented in Part 2, with a focused discussion on several of the underpinning technologies. Strong emphasis will be placed on how these technologies can be utilized to reach the final goal, secure sales of online music content. The final section, Part 3, will examine how DRM can be applied by the music industry to safeguard their interests while promoting an online business. Case studies will be presented in an attempt to gain an understanding of the current state of the industry

Aspects of Modeling and Verifying Secure Procedures

Security protocols are specifications for exchanging messages on a possibly insecure network. They aim at achieving some security goals (eg authenticating the parties involved in a communication, or preserving confidentiality of certain messages) preventing some malicious party to achieve advantages for its own. Goals of security protocols are generally achieved through the use of cryptography, the art of writing in secret characters, not comprehensible to anyone but the sender and the intended recipient. There is however a branch, in the computer science community, that, among its wide field of activities, aims at studying possible attacks on secure procedures without breaking cryptography, eg by manipulating some of the exchanged messages. This is the formal methods community, with an eye for security. This thesis mainly investigates the formal modeling and analysis of security protocols, both with finite and non finite behaviour, both within a process-algebraic and an automata framework. Real life protocols for signing and protecting digital contents and for giving assurance about authentic correspondences will be specified by means of the above cited formalisms, and some of their properties will be verified by means of formal proofs and automated tools. The original contributions of this thesis are the following. Within the framework of a formal modeling and verification of security protocols, we have applied an automated tool to better understand some secure mechanisms for the delivery of electronic documents. This has given us a deep insight on revealing the effects of omitted (or even erroneously implemented) security checks. Furthermore, a formal framework for modeling and analysing secure multicast and wireless communication protocols has been proposed. The analysis is mostly based on some new compositional principles giving sufficient conditions for safely composing an arbitrary number of components within a unique system. Also, steps towards providing the Team Automata formalism (TA) with a framework for security analysis have been taken. Within the framework, we model and analyse integrity and privacy properties, contributing to testify the expressive power and modelling capabilities of TA

The Politicization of Art on the Internet: From net.art to post-internet art

Este estudo tem como objetivo apresentar uma breve perspetiva sobre as manifestações socioculturais que se propagaram a partir do surgimento da Web; tendo como principal foco de análise o desenvolvimento da produção de Internet Arte na Europa e na América do Norte ao longo dos últimos 30 anos. Estruturado como um estudo de caso, três conceitos-chave fundamentam a base desta pesquisa: uma breve história da Internet, o desenvolvimento do termo hacker e a produção de arte web-based; da net.art até a Arte Pós-Internet. Em abordagem cronológica, estes campos serão descritos e posteriormente utilizados como guias para um final encadeamento comparativo que visa sustentar a hipótese da gradual dissolução de um ciberespaço utópico até o distópico cenário corporativo que constitui a Internet dos dias atuais.This study aims to present a brief perspective of the sociocultural manifestations that emerged after the Web birth, focusing on the development of Internet Art and the countercultural movements that emerged inside Europe and North America over the last 30 years. Under a case study structure, three fundamental subjects will be firstly explained: Internet history, the development of hacker concept and the web-based Art transformations: from net.art till Post-Internet Art. Chronologically described, these fields will lead to a final comparison of chained events that aim to sustain the hypothesis of the gradual dissolution of the early cyberspace utopias till the dystopic scene existent in nowadays Internet

Radio Explorations: Architectonic Studies of Electromagnetic Milieux

Radio signals keep making material, informational, political, and social connections in this world. Exploring these signals architectonically, the contributors engage with the situatedness of radio signal recordings in nature and with knowledge implied in radio communication. Rooted in experimental design and data feminism, the book presents innovative tools for navigating data by spanning media theory, information studies, and feminist new materialism. This offers an intersectional and post-disciplinary approach to computation, classification, and search that is accessible to artists, technologists, and researchers - facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration and deepening the understanding of information technologies