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There was a time when the idea that the U.S. But that was before Edward Snowden. Back in 2013, Snowden, a former employee of a defense contractor for the National Security Agency, shocked the world by revealing the extent to which U.S. Snowden's revelations, published in the U.K. Guardian and other outlets, included the existence of a previously undisclosed NSA program called PRISM. The latter gave NSA direct access to the servers of various big U.S. The "upstream" surveillance program, as it was called, enables NSA to search the international online activity of Americans. The program gave NSA the ability to scrutinize anyone who sends emails abroad or browses a website hosted outside the U.S. Though the two online surveillance programs are authorized through a federal law that is designed to allow U.S. Americans are gathered up in the process as well. But though the NSA gathers vast amounts of data about online activity, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's spying upon vast numbers of ordinary Americans, which would be illegal. As this Q&A from the Director of National Intelligence explains, before the trove of data can be searched for a foreign intelligence target's online activity it requires an order from a special secret court that hears such requests. There also are procedures in place that require intelligence agencies to redact any communications from Americans that were captured accidentally in the surveillance. But having your search history scooped up by NSA's surveillance programs isn't the only way that the U.S. We'll get into that in the next two sections.
Have you ever wanted to try out a new personality? Since we're stuck with ourselves, day-in and day-out, our own personalities might sometimes feel a little tired from time to time. So what can we do about this? There are, of course, costumes, which are probably the reason so many people look forward to Halloween -- they can be their favorite superhero for a night and revel in a little creativity. But not all of us are willing to play dress up throughout the calendar year, mainly because doing so violates generally held social norms. After all, most Web sites that offer some kind of online community allow their users to create avatars, an electronic image that represents the person controlling it. Generally, members can be as creative as they like with their avatar, either fashioning it as close to their appearance and personality as possible or creating an entirely different personality.
One of these social networking services is Zwinky, a service launched in 2006 and owned by InterActiveCorp (IAC). Zwinky lets its members create their own cartoonish, large-headed and big-eyed avatars, which they can use in several different ways. One thing to keep in mind: Zwinky is open to anyone age 13 and older. If you're younger than 13, you won't be allowed to make your own account, not even with parental permission. Zwinky profiles can also be set to "private" if you're 18 or older, but profiles of Zwinky users younger than 18 are automatically set to private. So how does Zwinky work? What can someone with a Zwinky avatar do? And what kind of place is Zwinktopia, anyway? This may be a slightly unfamiliar approach for members of other social networking sites -- most simply request that you create a username and password and fill in some personal information, including e-mail addresses and phone numbers.
Zwinky, however, requires you to download a Zwinky icon onto your Web browser, which users click on to access the program's interface. When you've successfully installed the Zwinky program and opened up the program window, it's time to customize your Zwinky character. Every Zwinky has a personal wardrobe, which users can access by clicking on the "Open Wardrobe" button near the bottom of the screen. You can manipulate a Zwinky's appearance to make it look however you want, and users choose traits including gender, skin tone, hair style and color, and more. To move a Zwinky from one place to the next in a specific area, members simply use the mouse to point and click. You can make new friends or see a list of the ones you already have by clicking on the "View/Add Friends" button at the bottom of the interface. This button allows you to either send an e-mail to a fellow Zwinky requesting friendship or to see where in Zwinky's world your friends are.
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