Chatterbox

This  commercial is hilarious.  But it got us wondering - is there such a thing as too much social media? Or being addicted to social media? Having too many friends, too many connections, too much networking, being too "in-the-loop"!?  Heresey, we say.

Maybe it will go the way of T.V. and radio addiction (yeah I guess they do exist, but society isn't serious about them, probably because they were all glued to the T.V. and radio ourselves).

But if there were ever a bunch of social media addicts, it would be staff at Chatterbox.  So we'll keep an eye on ourselves.  See if we recognize any addictive signs or symptoms.

  Ever Wonder who is on this thing? Who's blogging, who's critiquing, who's trolling, who's stalking, who has made an account only to forget about it over all these years? Well, we have no idea.  But Businessweek does, and it breaks it down by generation, which does afford some shocking — and delightfully creepy — revelations.

Like are these blogging sites just going to become stomping grounds for know-it-all, loud mouth college kids? And why aren't the old folk complaining more?! And our Generation Xers that lazy or just scared that if they create content, no one will like their melodramatic latte-sipping insights?

Why is my Twitter Down? Because You're in a War Maggot!!

Remember when you were young and everyone thought the next world war would encompass a nuclear graveyard with time-traveling cyborgs, flying cars, and evaporating laser guns?  Well, I hate to break it to you but its 2013 and all we've really done is put a laser-equipped robot on mars to battle - uh -  maniacal soil samples.  Seems like everyone was wrong about the future of modern warfare.  Everyone except for the cyberpunks, of course.

You've heard it everywhere, from politicians, to news anchors, to yes even your 90 year old grandma who can't for the life of her figure out how to microwave a potato but always seems to be the first one to leave you oh so cheesy and oblivious Facebook responses every time you post (did you get another cat?! are you a comic-writer now? Does Your wife know you cheat on her?!)

Yes, it's finally weaseled its way into lexicon -   Cyber warfare.  Coming to a nation, city, town, computer near new.  Shutting down your favorite social networks! Stealing your bank codes.  Preventing your grandma from buying you that commemorative "authentic" civil war dish plate for your birthday (again).   

But what is cyber warfare?  Well, most of it is done through what is called Distributed Denial of Service Attacks (DDOS attack).  And these attacks mean businesses.   In 2007, protestors in Estonia took their grievances to the digital world and shut down all the government's websites. Not to mention Hackitivist group like Anonymous that use DDOS attacks for taking down (with varying sucess) websites of banks, news organizations, PayPal, and others they have declared "war" on.

 Some attacks even echo in the corridors of the Pentagon — in late January, for example, groups in Iran launched DDOS attacks on huge credit unions in the U.S., like the University Federal Credit Union, a $1.5 billion institution in Austin, Texas. So in today's modern warfare,  some people really do mess with texas.

And when they're not shutting of internet services completely, goverments around the world  just can't help but use DDOS attacks enough to silence "menacing" voices online. In 2009, a DDOS attack on twitter was launched against anti-RussianGeorgian Blogger Cyxymu, believed to be executed by groups associated with Russia's government. The attack was so bad it crippled almost all of the service.  Remember that? yeah neither do we.  Turns out if a tweet falls in the forest, no one hears it. 

So how do DDOS attacks work and what do they mean the future of the internet and social media?  And what is a bot herder, and are there really zombies involved? Chatterbox will be doing an all investigative in-death feature on DDOS attacks in our next issue.  We might even try to launch mini mock DDOS attack in front of an online audience.

                                 December Issue Contest

If you haven't already noticed (and how could you not have?) this was our cover for our December issue on social media and the Syrian Revolution.  While we here at Chatterbox pride ourselves on having the best and most in-depth content on all things social media, we weren't exactly going to send our photographers into an active war-zone (Well... maybe Frank).

So we dumped the task of creating this lovely cover on our graphic design department a few hours before it was due, and they dumped the task all on Frank.  Who tried to storm off and quit, but the  tether ball post we keep him chained to is pretty solid.  And even if he did manage to break free, he'd have no chance of getting across that sulfuric-acid-filled moat. 

And did we mention the radioactive crawfish? Yeah that was originally Frank's idea.  Hoist with his own petard, so to say.  But we should known we'd turn on him the second the new new guy gave us all free xbox live subscriptions for the year. 

So yeah, this cover was Frank's design. You think you can do better? 

Top 3 entries get their work featured on this blog.  The best entry gets their cover showcased in our upcoming issue, along with a free back copy of the December issue with their cover on it.