Based on our readings for the week as well as what was covered in class, I have come to the conclusion that my online activities are far from secure.

I do most of my browsing on traditional browsers like google, and seldom use more protected and anonymous browsers like Tor Browser. Also of note was something that struck me particularly hard after reading Dan Goodin’s article on the current state of password security. In the article, Goodin explains that the average internet user of today has in the neighborhood of 25 online accounts, but only 6.5 passwords on average. I myself have probably many more than 25 accounts, with many duplicate passwords among them. This is particularly alarming when the article goes on to describe events such as Gawker’s 2010 security breech which exposed the passwords of 1.3 million users.

As far as the NSA’s supposed collection of my metadata goes, I’m really not sure what could be garnered from my browsing habits. Being that metadata is said to only provide information based on tags, common words, and online activities as opposed to specific content someone is viewing, I would imagine my monotonous use of school sites and forums like Reddit offers little useful information.

As far as recent progress I’ve made in the way of finding info for my final project goes, I have yet to have made any major advancements. I want to find a way to tie a historical chart from www.handsomeatlas.com to my topic of urban renewal in mid 20th century Washington DC, but since these sources only come from the late 1800’s it’s somewhat difficult. Obviously I could find more recent sources on some alternate site, but I want to try to add as much historical background to my topic as possible. I’ve been trying to think more outside of the box due to this minor impasse, so what I’ve started doing is looking at sources like this to try to pick out more racially-rooted trends in Washington DC prior to the 1950’s. I think if I look hard enough I should be able to get a good amount of statistical information on the niche topic of racial trends in Washington DC prior to the 1950’s.

The first primary source I used in search of the history of Washington DC was a newspaper page from Cheboygan, Michigan dated December 25th, 1884. The page can be found here.

The page offers, among several advertisements typical of the time, an invitation from the congressional commission of Washington DC inviting certain parties to the dedication ceremony of the Washington Monument. The monument had just been completed the year this advertisement was published, and this invitation provides a lot of insight into how big a deal the dedication of the monument was to the United States. The ad asks any “civil, military, and naval” organization that might like to attend the ceremony to contact the person in charge of the ceremony’s procession with the amount of people in their organization.

This source offers a lot of insight into the scale of the event that was the dedication of the Washington Monument, which is undoubtedly one of the most prominent events in DC’s history. However, this document is simply a window into a singular event in Washington’s history, and beyond that it offers little more than perspective on the event and some idea of the nation’s attitude towards the dedication of the monument.

The top portion of the newspaper ad page

The second primary source I examined was a map of Washington DC in 1909, which I found on the Library of Congress website. The map can be found here. This source offers a map of Washington in it’s entirety, with detailed depiction of streets, and a list of presidential inaugurations that had taken place there by 1909. The map is from Washington’s inaugural committee, so it also lists all members of the committee. This source is more than just a map in that it offers a list of many important figures during the time as well as which presidents had been inaugurated by 1909. It is a reliable depiction of Washington DC in 1909 and more so as far as a source on DC’s history goes it is quite a rich resource.

I prefer this second source to the first one due to the fact that it offers a much wider scope of information in a simple image than the first source does, despite the fact that the first source is a long text passage.

Link here

I’m posting this as a test in HIST390.

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