Internet

The internet started out as an information resource for the government so that they could talk to each other. They called it “The Industrucable Network” because it was so many computers linked to gether that if one server went down, no-one would know. This report will mainly focus on the history of the World Wide Web (WWW) because it is the fastest growing resource on the internet. The internet consists of diferent protocals such as WWW, Gopher (Like the WWW but text based), FTP (File Transfer Protocal),  and Telnet (Allows you to connect to different BBS’s).

There are many more smaller one’s but they are inumerable. A BBS is an abreviation for Bullitin Board Service. A BBS is a computer that you can ether dial into or access from the Internet. BBS’s are normally text based. A graduate of Oxford University, England, Tim is now with the Laboratory for Computer Science ( LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). He directs the W3 Consortium, an open forum of companies and organizations with the mission to realize the full potential of the Web.

With a background of system design in real-time communications and text processing software development, in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He spent two years with Plessey elecommunications Ltd a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer, working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code technology.

In 1978 Tim left Plessey to join D. G Nash Ltd, where he wrote among other things typesetting software for intelligent printers, a multitasking operating system, and a generic macro expander. A year and a half spent as an independent consultant included a six month stint as consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Whilst there, he wrote for his own private use his first program for storing information including using random associations.

Named “Enquire”, and never published, this program formed the conceptual basis for the future development of the World Wide Web. I could go on and on forever telling you about this person, but my report is not about him. From 1981 until 1984, Tim was a founding Director of Image Computer Systems Ltd, with technical design responsibility. In 1984, he took up a fellowship at CERN, to work on distributed real-time systems for scientific data acquisition and system control. In 1989, he proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web.

Based on the earlier “Enquire” work, it was designed to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server and the first client, a wysiwyg hypertext browser/editor which ran in the NeXTStep environment. This work was started in October 1990, and the program “WorldWideWeb” first made available within CERN in December, and on the Internet at large in the summer of 1991. Through 1991 and 1993, Tim continued working on the design of the Web, coordinating feedback from users across the Internet.

His initial specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined and discussed in larger circles as the Web technology spread. In 1994, Tim joined the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). as Director of the W3   Consortium which coordinates W3 development worldwide, with teams at MIT and at INRIA in France. The consortium takes as it goal to realize the full potential of the web, ensuring its stability through rapid evolution and revolutionary transformations of its usage.

In 1995, Tim Berners-Lee received the Kilby Foundation’s “Young Innovator of the Year” Award for his invention of the World Wide Web, and was corecipient of the ACM Software Systems Award. He has been named as the recipient of the 1996 ACM Kobayashi award, and corecipient of the 1996 Computers and Communication (C&C) award. He has honorary degrees from the Parsons School of Design, New York (D. F. A. , 1996) and Southampton University (D. Sc. , 1996), and is a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. This has just been about Tim, but here is the real hsitory of the WWW.

The Internet is, quite literally, a network of networks. It is comprised of ten thousands of interconnected networks spanning the globe. The computers that form the Internet range from huge mainframes in research establishments to modest PCs in people’s homes and offices. Despite the recent hype, the Internet is not a new phenomenon. Its roots lie in a collection of computers that were linked together in the 1970s to form the US Department of Defense’s communications systems.

Fearing the consequences of nuclear attack, there was no central computer holding vast amounts of data, rather the information was dispersed across thousands of machines. A set of rules, of protocols, known as TCP/IP was developed to allow disparate devices to work together. The original network has long since been upgraded and expanded and TCP/IP is now a “de facto” standard. Millions of people worldwide are using the Internet to share information, make new associations and communicate.

Individuals and businesses, from students and journalists, to consultants, programmers and corporate giants are all harnessing the power of the Internet. For many businesses the Internet is becoming integral to their operations. Imagine the ability to send and receive data: messages, notes, letters, documents, pictures, video, sound- just about any form of communication, as effortlessly as making a phone call. It is easy to understand why the Internet is rapidly becoming the corporate communications medium.

Using the mouse on your computer, the familiar point-and-click functionality gives you access to electronic mail for sending and receiving data, and file transfer for copying files from one computer to another. Telnet services allow you to establish connections with systems on the other side of the world as if they were just next door. This flood of information is a beautiful thing and it can only open the minds of society. With the explosion of the World Wide Web, anyone could publish his or her ideas to the world.

Before, in order to be heard one would have to go through publishers who were willing to invest in his ideas to get something put into print. With the advent of the Internet, anyone who has something to say can be heard by the world. By letting everyone speak their mind, this opens up all new ways of thinking to anyone who is willing to listen. Moreover, the Internet is an information resource for you to search, gathering new data on key search aspects of your market. Perhaps most importantly, the Internet offers a new way of doing business.

A virtual market-place where customers can, at the push of a button, select goods, place an order and pay using a secure electronic transaction. Businesses are discovering the Internet as the most powerful and cost effective tool in history. The Net provides a faster, more efficient way to work colleagues, customers, vendors and business partners- irrespective of location or operating system harnessing this powerful resource gives companies strategic advantages by leveraging information into essential business asset. The “technology of the future” here today. This is a fact.

Businesses making the transition will, and are prospering; however those that do not will most certainly suffer the consequences. One of the most commonly asked questions is, “Will the Net help me sell more product? ” The answer is yes, but in ways you might not expect. The Internet is a communication “tool” first, not and advertisement medium. Unlike print or broadcasting media, the Internet is interactive; and unlike the telephone, it is both visual and content rich. A Web site is an excellent way to reduce costs, improve customer service, disseminate information and even sell to your market.

Perhaps, the most important facts about the internet are that it contains a wealth of information, that can be send across the world almost instantly, and that it can unite people in wildly different locations as if they were next to each other. The soundest claims for the importance of the Internet in today’s society are based upon these very facts. People of like minds and interests can share information with one another through electronic mail and chat rooms. E-mail is enabling radically new forms of worldwide human collaboration.

Approximately 225 millions of people can send and receive it and they all represent a network of potentially cooperating individuals dwarfing anything that even the mightiest corporation or government can muster. Mailing-list discussion groups and online conferencing allow us to gather together to work on a multitude of projects that are interesting or helpful to us. Chat rooms and mailing lists can connect groups of users to discuss a topic and share ideas. Materials from users can be added to a Web site to share with others and can be updated quickly and easily anytime.

However, the most exciting part of the Internet is its multimedia and hypertext capabilities. The Web provides information in many different formats. Of course, text is still a popular way to transmit information, but the Web also presents information in sound bites, such as music, voice, or special effects. Graphics may be still photographs, drawings, cartoons, diagrams, tables, or other artwork, but they also may be moving, such as animation video. Hypertext links allows users to move from one piece of information to another. A link might be an underlined word or phrase, an icon or a symbol, or a picture, for example.

When a link is selected, usually by clicking the mouse on the link, the user sees another piece of information, which may be electronically stored on another computer thousands of miles away. Of major importance is the fact that the Internet supports online education. Online education introduces unprecedented options for teaching, learning, and knowledge building. Today access to a microcomputer, modem, telephone line, and communication program offers learners and teachers the possibility of interactions that transcended the boundaries of time and space.

Even from an economic standpoint, the costs of establishing a brand new educational program for a few thousand students are far less than the cost of a building to house the same number of students. New social and intellectual connectivity is proliferating as educational institutions adopt computer-mediated communication for educational interactions. There are many school based networks that link learners to discuss, share and examine specific subjects such as environmental concerns, science, local and global issues, or to enhance written communication skills in first- or second- language proficiency activities.

Online education is a unique expression of both existing and new attributes. It shares certain attributes with the distance mode and with the face-to-face mode; however, in combination, these attributes form a new environment for learning. Online education, on the other hand, is distinguished by the social nature of the learning environment that it offers. Like face-to-face education, it supports interactive group communication. Historically, the social, affective, and cognitive benefits of peer interaction, and collaboration have been available only in face-to-face learning.

The introduction of online education opens unprecedented opportunities for educational interactivity. The mediation of the computer further distinguishes the nature of the activity online, introducing entirely new elements to the learning process. The potential of online education can be explored through five attributes that, taken together, both delineate its differences from existing modes of education and also characterize online education as a unique mode.

They may learn independently, at their own pace, in a convenient location, at a convenient time about a greater variety of subjects, from a greater variety of institutions or educators/trainers. But no matter how great and significant the effects of the Internet in our lives might be, there are some quite considerable consequences and drawbacks. A very important disadvantage is that the Internet is addictive. One of the first people to take the phenomenon seriously was Kimberly S. Young, Ph. D. , professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

She takes it so seriously, in fact, that she founded the Center for Online Addiction, an organization that provides consultation for educational institutions, mental health clinics and corporations dealing with Internet misuse problems. Psychologists now recognize Internet Addiction Syndrome (IAS) as a new illness that could ruin hundreds of lives. Internet addicts are people who are reported staying online for six, eight, ten or more hours a day, every day. They use the Internet as a way of escaping problems or relieving distressed moods. Their usage can cause problems in their family, work and social lives.

They feel anxious and irritable when offline and craved getting back online. Despite the consequences, they continue using regardless of admonishments from friends and family. Special help groups have been set up to give out advice and offer links with other addicts. Internets Anonymous and Webaholics are two of the sites offering help, but only through logging onto the Internet. The study of 100 students by Margaret Martin of Glasgow University found: One in six (16%) felt irritable, tense, depressed or restless if they were barred from using the Internet.

More than one in four (27%) felt guilty about the time they spent online. One in ten (10%) admitted neglecting a partner, child or work because of overuse. One in twenty five (4%) said it had affected their mental or physical health for the worse. Another Ph. D. psychologist Maressa Hecht Orzack posits that people use the Internet compulsively because it so easily facilitates the reward response common to addictive behavior. “If they are lonely and need compassion, camaraderie or romance, it can be found immediately. If they are looking for sex or pornography, they need only to click a button.

They can experience the thrill of gambling, playing interactive games from the comfort of their chairs. They can entertain fantasies by pretending to be other people, or engaging interactive, role-playing games. The reward received from these activities can manifest itself physically, so that the person begins to crave more of it. ” The effects lead to headaches, lack of concentration and tiredness. Addicts must not cut off access altogether but they should set time limits and limit Internet usage to a set number of hours each day.

Robert Kraut Doctoral Psychologist says referring on the subject: “We have evidence that people who are online for long periods of time show negative changes in how much they talk to people in their family and how many friends and acquaintances they say they keep in contact with. They also report small but increased amounts of loneliness, stress and depression. What we do not know is exactly why. Being online takes up time, and it may be taking time away from sleep, social contact or even eating. Our negative results are understandable if people’s interactions on the net are not as socially valuable as their other activities.

Another considerable drawback of the Internet is that it is susceptible to hackers. Hackers are persons that have tremendous knowledge on the subject and use it to steal, cheat or misuse confidential or classified information for the sake of fun or profit. As the world increases its reliance on computer systems, we become more vulnerable to extremists who use computer technology as a weapon. It is called cyber-terrorism and research groups within the CIA and FBI say cyber-warfare has become one of the main threats to global security. But how serious is hacking?

In 1989, the Computer Emergency Response Team, a nonprofit organization that monitors security issues throughout America from its base at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh reported 132 computer intrusions. Last year they recorded 2341! And in recent months, a few celebrated cases have shed a new light on the hacker’s netherworldly activities. One notorious hacker is American Kevin Mitnick, a 31-year-old computer junkie arrested by the FBI in February for allegedly pilfering more than $1 million worth of data and 20. 000 credit-card numbers through the Internet.

Still, the new wave of network hacking is presenting fresh problems for companies, universities and law-enforcement officials in every industrial country. In July, John Deutch, head of the CIA, told Congress that he ranked information warfare as the second most serious threat to the national security, just below weapons of mass destruction in terrorist hands. The Internet suffers around a million successful penetrations every year while the Pentagon headquarters of the US military has 250. 000 attempts to hack into computers. But what can be done for hacking?

There are ways for corporations to safeguard against hackers and the demand for safety has led to a boom industry in data security. Security measures range from user Ids and passwords to thumbprint, voiceprint or retinal scan technologies. Another approach is public key encryption, used in software packages such as Entrust. An information system girded with firewalls and gates, broken vertically into compartments and horizontally by access privileges, where suspicion is the norm and nothing can be trusted, will probably reduce the risk of information warfare as we know it today to negligible levels.

Yet, increasingly intrusive and somehow antithetical to the purposes for which science in general is purposed. It is no accident that the World Wide Web was invented to enable particle physicists to share knowledge. Michael Binder, assistant deputy at the industry department of United States asks another key question: “How would you regulate the Internet? ” Computer and legal experts all agree that enforcement is difficult. Still, a committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has made several recommendations. One would make it illegal to possess computer hacking programs, those used to break into computer systems.

Another would make the use of computer networks and telephone lines used in the commission of a crime a crime in itself. The committee also recommends agreements with the United States that would allow police officials in both countries to search computer data banks. But for the time being, Binder says, the government is in no rush to rewrite the statute book. “We don’t know how it will evolve. We don’t want to stifle communication. We don’t want to shut down the Net. ” The problem with regulating the Internet is that no one owns it and no one controls it.

Messages are passed from computer system to computer system in milliseconds, and the network literally resembles a web of computers and connecting telephone lines. It crosses borders in less time than it takes to cross most streets, and connections to Asia or Australia are as commonplace as dialing your neighbor next door. It is the Net’s very lack of frontiers that make law enforcement so difficult. Confronted with the difficulty of trying to grab onto something as amorphous as the Net, some critics and government officials are hoping that Internet service providers can police the Net themselves.

However, Ian Kyer, President of Computer Law Association Inc. and a lawyer believes that much of the debate about the Internet arises because it is so new. “We’re just sort of waking up to it. Now that it’s an everyday thing, it’s coming to the attention of the legislators and police forces, and I think they’re not going to like what they see. One of the real problems with the law of the Internet is deciding, where does the offence occur? ” The best guide to the way the law should work is to study the past and the present, not to attempt to predict every possible future.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said long ago, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. ” When a new media technology emerges, the best thing to do is to wait and see what problems actually emerge, not panic about what could happen. Once we understand the actual risks, we can legislate accordingly and with full regard to the competing interests at stake. But there is another problem that practically circulates through the Internet: The viruses. They can move stealthily and strike without warning.

Yet they have no real life of their own, and goo virtually unnoticed until they find a suitable host. Computer viruses- tiny bits of programming code capable of destroying vast amounts of stored data- bear an uncannily close relationship to their biological namesake. And like natural viruses are constantly changing, making them more and more difficult to detect. It is estimated that two or three new varieties are written each day. Most experts believe that a virus is created by an immature, disenchanted computer whiz, frequently called a “cracker”.

The effects may be benign: on variation of the famous “Stoned” virus merely displays a message calling for the legalization of marijuana. Other viruses, however, can scramble files to create a frenzy of duplication that may cause a computer’s microchips to fail. The rapid increase in computer networks, with their millions of user exchanging vast amounts of information, has only made things worse. With word-processing macros embedded in text, opening e-mail can now unleash a virus in a network or a hard disk. Web browsers can also download running code, some of it possibly malign.

Distributing objects over global networks without a good way to authenticate them leads to similar risks. Crackers have also succeeded in tainting software sold by brand-name manufacturers. A clutch of companies offer antiviral programs, capable of detecting viruses before they have the chance to spread. Such programs find the majority of viruses but virus detection is likely to remain a serious problem because of the ingenuity of crackers. One new type of virus, known as polymorphic, evades discovery by changing slightly each time it replicates itself.

Another extremely important issue about they Internet is child pornography. Computer technology is providing child molesters and child pornographers with powerful new tools for victimizing children. The result is an explosive growth in the production and distribution of illegal child pornography, as well as new forms of child predation. Research carried out at Stockholm University identified 5651 postings of child pornography in four discussion groups. Children around the world are being sexually assaulted, molested and exploited by people who also misuse computers and related technology.

The abuse is being photographed and distributed to an international marketplace of child pornography consumers via the Internet. That marketplace- along with related Internet sites that encourage child sexual abuse- is leading to new assaults against children. No longer are schools, public libraries and homes safe harbors from sexual pedophiles- people whose sexual fantasies focus on girls or boys- from around the world. In the past photographs of children being raped, sexually abused and exploited were sold at high prices through tightknit, difficult-to-access networks.

Today, those illegal pictures are available for free online, at any hour of the day. Anyone with rudimentary computer skills and an interest in the material can obtain it. Computer networks can also allow pedophiles to identify and contact potential victims without revealing their identities. Often, adult predators pretend to be children until they have gained their victims’ confidence. Federal law defines child pornography as photographs or video that depict people under the age of 18 involved in sexually explicit conduct- such as sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation and sadistic or masochistic abuse.

Also prohibited are pictures involving children that include a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or public area”. The Government has introduced a number of measures to deal with pornography and obscene material, including the use on computers. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1998 increased the maximum sentence for possession of indecent photographs of children up to 5 years in prison, a $250. 000 fine, or both. People convicted of distributing child pornography face up to 15 years in prison or/and a $300. 000 fine.

It also gave the police the power to arrest without warrant people suspected of obscenity and certain child pornography offences and greater powers to search and seize obscene material and child pornography. It also closed a potential legal loophole by extending the law to cover simulated child pornography manufactured and stored on computers. In Singapore authorities announced plans to establish a “neighborhood police post” on the Internet to monitor and receive complaints of criminal activity- including the distribution of child pornography.

And in the United States there has been introduced a bill- vocally opposed by civil liberties organizations and computer-user groups- that would outlaw the electronic distribution of words and images that are “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent. ” However, Federal agencies lack the manpower to cope with all the criminal activity taking place online. Few local law enforcement officers are trained in computer technology. Moreover, Internet providers generally fail to educate their customers about ways to protect children from sexual predators.

Few schools or libraries offer real safety training programs for children online. Many parents have no idea what threats exist or even how the technologies in question work. Last but not least is the report to our privacy when online. These days, the most skilful manipulators of new information and communications technology to build up files on individuals are private companies collecting personal data on tens of millions of people. Simon Davies, the British head of Privacy International, a human rights watchdog group, says that every citizen of an industrialized country appears today in about 200 different data bases.

Such mines of information are centralized, sifted through and correlated to produce very detailed profiles of consumers. The files are then resold to all kinds of firms, which use them to sharpen their marketing strategies, assess the economic reliability of customers and adjust to specific commercial demands. The Internet is an ideal tool for this meticulous task of categorizing the population. It is an extraordinary source of data as well as a practical way to handle such information and circulate it.

To make matters worse, the Internet is a world of invisible tracks. You get the impression when you surf the Web that you leave no traces behind you. The truth is rather different. Some sites place spying devices, or “cookies”, on your computer’s hard drive the moment you log to them, so they can tell which pages of the site you have looked at, when you looked and for how long. A survey last year by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) showed that a quarter of the 100 most popular sites on the Web use cookies to obtain profiles of their users.

When you next visit them, they can present you with advertising tailored to your interests, or even send you without your knowledge programs like Java Applets, which can reconfigure a site according to each visitor’s tastes. Arguments persist that the erosion of privacy is not such a big deal; the economic benefits of information availability and mobility, it is said outweigh limitations on our personal privacy. Is privacy an ethical nicety, an expendable luxury, then, or is it a basic natural right that needs legal protection?

Some philosophers and legal scholars have argued that privacy is an intrinsic good, implying that the right to privacy is fundamental and irreducible. Others contend that privacy is more of an instrumental good. Hence the right to privacy is derived from other rights such as property, bodily security and freedom. While both approaches have validity, the latter seems more compelling. It is especially persuasive when applied to those rights involving our liberty and personal autonomy.

A primary moral foundation for the value of privacy is its role as a condition of freedom: A shield of privacy is absolutely essential if one is freely to pursue his or her projects or cultivate intimate social relationships Under the directive, that came into effect on 25 October 1998, the processing of data about ethnic origins, political opinions, religious and philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health and sex life, is prohibited except where there are special exemptions or derogations.

Moreover, in each of the European Union’s fifteen Member State, a special authority is to protect individual’s rights and freedoms with regard to the processing of personal data. It is to guarantee citizens the right to be informed, to have access to data concerning them and the right to correct it, and to erase data whose processing does not comply with the provisions of the directive. Article 25 states the principle that the transfer of personal data to third countries may only take place if the receiving countries offer a level of protection that is “adequate” within the meaning of EU legislation.

In a globalized economy where information about consumers is the new gold mine, the stakes are huge, involving no more and no less than the future of all banking and trade transactions, especially electronic. The United States has already gone on the offensive by accusing Europe of using privacy protection laws to erect barriers around the valuable European market of 370 million people. President Bill Clinton’s Internet policy adviser Ira Magaziner has even threatened to go to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about it.

At the same time he insists that the US is just as concerned to protect the privacy of its citizens as European governments are. And all studies show that Internet commerce can not succeed unless consumers can count on information about themselves being kept confidential. There are currently about 250 bills relating to the Internet pending in Congress. Many of those deal specifically within privacy. However, only very few of these have become a law. That is largely because the Clinton administration and Congress have taken a largely wait-and-see approach to this conflict.

Most lawmakers feel the Internet develops too quickly for static laws to work effectively. Instead, politicians from Vice President Al Gore down are encouraging the Internet industry to regulate itself, while suggesting that their patience is not inexhaustible. It will be very difficult to regulate the Internet because it is global and decentralized, and it is very hard to identify Internet users. The key is developing something that is enforceable. Good intentions are one thing, but in the self-regulatory environment, if somebody is hurt by the misuse of personal information, who pays?

Who provides a remedy to that harmed individual? Nobody does! Privacy is a tough area for personal injury lawyers because it is difficult under our tort law to prove that somebody has been harmed. It is very hard to prove damage to reputation of intentional infliction of emotional distress in cases involving disclosure of personal information. Many individuals and organizations are now relying more heavily on digital networks as they routinely communicate by e-mail, post messages to electronic bulletin boards on the Internet and visit Web sites.

But in the process they become more exposed and vulnerable to those seeking to collect and sell their personal data. When users visit Web sites they often fill out detailed personal profiles that become grist for marketing lists sold to third parties. Digital networks have also made consumer information even more widely and easily available the use of these networks greatly expands the capability of checking up on someone’s personal background or receiving an electronic list of prospective customers quickly and inexpensively. Indeed we are moving perilously close to the reality of immediate online personal data.

More disturbing than the loss of our privacy as consumers is the loss of privacy about our financial affairs. Once again government data banks have usually provided the building blocks for these records. Certain financial information that was always in the public domain, such as real estate and bankruptcy records, is now treated as a basic commodity. Data brokers such as Information America, Inc. allow their subscribers quick online access to the county and court records for many states. Their vast databases contain business records, bankruptcy records, lawsuit information and property records, including liens and judgement.

By computerizing these real estate records, liens, incorporations, licenses and so on, they become more than public documents. They are now on-line commodities, more easily accessed and distributed than their physical counterparts. In addition, this data can be recombined with other personal and financial background. The most recent assault on privacy has developed in the health care industry, in which patient records have also become commodities for sale. These records, containing highly sensitive and revealing information, are being collected and stored in databases maintained by hospitals.

Thus, medical privacy seems destined to be another victim of our evolving information technologies. By putting so much medical data online without proper safeguards the Government, the Health Care Industry and the Information Industry are clearly undermining the foundation to the confidential doctor-patient relationship. It seems quite evident that our right to informational privacy- the right to control the disclosure of and access to one’s personal information- has been sacrificed for the sake of economic efficiency and other social objectives.

As our personal information becomes tangled in the Web of information technology, our control over how that data will be utilized and distributed is notably diminished. Our personal background and purchases are tracked by many companies that consider us prospects for their products or services; our financial profile and credit history is available to a plethora of “legitimate” users, and our medical records are more widely accessible than ever before.

The Net effect is that each of us can become an open book to anyone who wants to take the time to investigate our background. Another adverse consequence of all these is that we can be more easily targeted and singled out either as individuals or as members of certain groups. Data based technology makes it easy to find and exploit certain groups based on age, income level, place of residence, or purchasing habits. At the same time online data banks now make it especially simple to pinpoint individuals electronically.

If public polity makers do become convinced that privacy is worth preserving, what should be done? Are there any viable solutions? Further complicating the issue, of course, are legitimate economic considerations. Privacy can not be accomplished without incurring some costs. And we can not ignore the economic benefit of acquiring and distributing information and using data as a commercial tool to target the right customers. If the information flow about consumers is overly constrained, a substantial negative economic impact can not be discounted.

In addition, there must be stricter controls for an especially sensitive information such as medical data. If a centralized national database becomes a reality, it will be necessary to achieve a broad public consensus on the definition of the health care trustees who should have access to that data. In summary, then, if informed consent is made mandatory for the reuse of consumer data and there are stricter safeguards for more critical information such as medical data, we can begin to make some progress in protecting privacy rights.

But unless we should come to terms with this problem the boundaries between what is public and private could become much more tenuous. A world where privacy is in such short supply will undermine our freedom and dignity and pose a great threat to our security and well being. But what is the future of the Internet? The Internet is moving from a relatively passive publishing medium to a truly interactive application deployment platfo

The Internet is a method of communication and a source of information that is becoming more popular among those who are interested in, and have the time to surf the information superhighway. The problem with this much information being accessible to this many people is that some of it is deemed inappropriate for minors. The government wants censorship, but a segment of the population does not.

Legislative regulation of the Internet would be an appropriate function The Communications Decency Act is an amendment which prevents the information superhighway from becoming a computer “red light district. On June 14, 1995, by a vote of 84-16, the United States Senate passed the amendment. It is now being brought through the House of Representatives. 1 The Internet is owned and operated by the government, which gives them the obligation to restrict the materials available through it.

Though it appears to have sprung up overnight, the inspiration of free-spirited hackers, it in fact was born in Defense Department Cold War projects of the 1950s. 2 The United States Government owns the Internet and has the responsibility to determine who uses it and how it The government must control what information is This material is not lawfully available through the mail or over the telephone, there is no valid reason these perverts should be allowed unimpeded on the Internet.

Since our initiative, the industry has commendably advanced some blocking devices, but they are not a substitute for Because the Internet has become one of the biggest sources of information in this world, legislative safeguards are The government gives citizens the privilege of using the Internet, but it has never given them the right to use They seem to rationalize that the framers of the constitution planned & plotted at great length to ake certain that above all else, the profiteering pornographer, the pervert and the pedophile must be free to practice their pursuits in the presence of children on a taxpayer created and subsidized People like this are the ones in the wrong. Taxpayer’s dollars are being spent bringing obscene text and graphics into the homes of people all over the world. The government must take control to prevent pornographers from using the Internet however they see fit because they are breaking laws that have existed for years.

Cyberpunks, those most popularly associated with the Internet, are members of a rebellious society that are olluting these networks with information containing pornography, racism, and other forms of explicit When they start rooting around for a crime, new cybercops are entering a pretty unfriendly environment. Cyberspace, especially the Internet, is full of those who embrace a frontier culture that is hostile to authority and fearful that any intrusions of police or government will destroy The self-regulating environment desired by the cyberpunks is an opportunity to do whatever they want.

The Communications Decency Act is an attempt on part of the government to control their “free attitude” displayed in homepages such as Sex, Adult Pictures, X-Rated Porn”, “Hot Sleazy Pictures (Cum again + again)” and “sex, sex, sex. heck, it’s better even better than real sex”6. What we are doing is simply making the same laws, held constitutional time and time again by the courts with regard to obscenity and indecency through the mail and telephones, applicable to the Internet. “7

To keep these kinds of pictures off home computers, the government must control information on the Internet, just as it controls obscenity through the mail or Legislative regulations must be made to control information on the Internet because the displaying or istribution of obscene material is illegal. The courts have generally held that obscenity is illegal under all circumstances for all ages, while “indecency” is generally allowable to adults, but that laws protecting children from this “lesser” form are acceptable.

It’s called protecting those among us who are children from The constitution of the United States has set regulations to determine what is categorized as obscenity and what is not. In Miller vs. California, 413 U. S. at 24-25, the court announced its “Miller Test” and held, at 29, that its three part test constituted “concrete uidelines to isolate ‘hard core’ pornography from expression protected by the First Amendment. 9 By laws previously set by the government, obscene pornography should not be accessible on the Internet. The government must police the Internet because people are breaking laws.

“Right now, cyberspace is like a neighborhood without a police department. “10 Currently anyone can put anything he wants on the Internet with no penalties. The Communications Decency Act gives law enforcement new tools to prosecute those who would use a computer to make the equivalent of obscene telephone calls, o prosecute ‘electronic stalkers’ who terrorize their victims, to clamp down on electronic distributors of obscene materials, and to enhance the chances of prosecution of those who would provide pornography to children via a The government must regulate the flow of information on the Internet because some of the commercial blocking devices used to filter this information are insufficient.

“Cybercops especially worry that outlaws are now able to use powerful cryptography to send and receive uncrackable secret communications and are also aided by anonymous re-mailers. 11 By using features like these it is impossible to use blocking devices to stop children from accessing this information. Devices set up to detect specified strings of characters will not filter those that The government has to stop obscene materials from being transferred via the Internet because it violates laws It is not a valid argument that “consenting adults” should be allowed to use the computer BBS and “Internet” systems to receive whatever they want.

If the materials are obscene, the law can forbid the use of means and facilities of interstate commerce and common carriers to ship or When supplies and information are passed over state or national boundaries, they are subject to the laws governing interstate and intrastate commerce. When information is passed between two computers, it is subjected to the same The government having the power to regulate the information being put on the Internet is a proper extension of its powers. With an information based system such as the Internet there is bound to be material that is not appropriate for minors to see. In passing of an amendment like the Communications Decency Act, the government would be given the power to regulate that material.

The Internet is a method of communication and a source of information that is becoming more popular among those who are interested in, and have the time to surf the information superhighway. The problem with this much information being accessible to this many people is that some of it is deemed inappropriate for minors. The government wants censorship, but a segment of the population does not. Legislative regulation of the Internet would be an appropriate function of the government. The Communications Decency Act is an amendment which prevents the information superhighway from becoming a computer “red light district.

On June 14, 1995, by a vote of 84-16, the United States Senate passed the amendment. It is now being brought through the House of Representatives. 1 The Internet is owned and operated by the government, which gives them the obligation to restrict the materials available through it. Though it appears to have sprung up overnight, the inspiration of free-spirited hackers, it in fact was born in Defense Department Cold War projects of the 1950s. 2 The United States Government owns the Internet and has the responsibility to determine who uses it and how it is used.

The government must control what information is accessible from its agencies. This material is not lawfully available through the mail or over the telephone, there is no valid reason these perverts should be allowed unimpeded on the Internet. Since our initiative, the industry has commendably advanced some blocking devices, but they are not a substitute for well-reasoned law. 4 Because the Internet has become one of the biggest sources of information in this world, legislative safeguards are imperative. The government gives citizens the privilege of using the Internet, but it has never given them the right to use it.

They seem to rationalize that the framers of the constitution planned & plotted at great length to ake certain that above all else, the profiteering pornographer, the pervert and the pedophile must be free to practice their pursuits in the presence of children on a taxpayer created and subsidized computer network. 3 People like this are the ones in the wrong. Taxpayer’s dollars are being spent bringing obscene text and graphics into the homes of people all over the world. The government must take control to prevent pornographers from using the Internet however they see fit because they are breaking laws that have existed for years.

Cyberpunks, those most popularly associated with the Internet, are members of a rebellious society that are olluting these networks with information containing pornography, racism, and other forms of explicit information. When they start rooting around for a crime, new cybercops are entering a pretty unfriendly environment. Cyberspace, especially the Internet, is full of those who embrace a frontier culture that is hostile to authority and fearful that any intrusions of police or government will destroy their self-regulating world. The self-regulating environment desired by the cyberpunks is an opportunity to do whatever they want.

The Communications Decency Act is an attempt on part of the government to ontrol their “free attitude” displayed in homepages such as “Sex, Adult Pictures, X-Rated Porn”, “Hot Sleazy Pictures (Cum again + again)” and “sex, sex, sex. heck, it’s better even better than real sex”6. “What we are doing is simply making the same laws, held constitutional time and time again by the courts with regard to obscenity and indecency through the mail and telephones, applicable to the Internet.

To keep these kinds of pictures off home computers, the government must control information on the Internet, just as it controls obscenity through the mail or on the phone. Legislative regulations must be made to control nformation on the Internet because the displaying or distribution of obscene material is illegal. The courts have generally held that obscenity is illegal under all circumstances for all ages, while “indecency” is generally allowable to adults, but that laws protecting children from this “lesser” form are acceptable.

It’s called protecting those among us who are children from the vagrancies of adults. 8 The constitution of the United States has set regulations to determine what is categorized as obscenity and what is not. In Miller vs. California, 413 U. S. at 24-25, the court announced its “Miller Test” and held, at 29, hat its three part test constituted “concrete guidelines to isolate ‘hard core’ pornography from expression protected by the First Amendment. 9 By laws previously set by the government, obscene pornography should not be accessible on the Internet.

The government must police the Internet because people are breaking laws. “Right now, cyberspace is like a neighborhood without a police department. “10 Currently anyone can put anything he wants on the Internet with no penalties. “The Communications Decency Act gives law enforcement new tools to prosecute those who would use a computer to make the equivalent of obscene telephone calls, o prosecute ‘electronic stalkers’ who terrorize their victims, to clamp down on electronic distributors of obscene materials, and to enhance the chances of prosecution of those who would provide pornography to children via a computer.

The government must regulate the flow of information on the Internet because some of the commercial blocking devices used to filter this information are insufficient. “Cybercops especially worry that outlaws are now able to use powerful cryptography to send and receive uncrackable secret communications and are also aided by anonymous re-mailers. “11 By using features like these it is mpossible to use blocking devices to stop children from accessing this information. Devices set up to detect specified strings of characters will not filter those that it cannot read.

The government has to stop obscene materials from being transferred via the Internet because it violates laws dealing with interstate commerce. It is not a valid argument that “consenting adults” should be allowed to use the computer BBS and “Internet” systems to receive whatever they want. If the materials are obscene, the law can forbid the use of means and facilities of interstate commerce and common carriers to ship or disseminate the obscenity. 2 When supplies and information are passed over state or national boundaries, they are subject to the laws governing interstate and intrastate commerce.

When information is passed between two computers, it is subjected to the same standards Frank Stallone. The government having the power to regulate the information being put on the Internet is a proper extension of its powers. With an information based system such as the Internet there is bound to be material that is not appropriate for minors to see. In passing of an amendment like the Communications Decency Act, the government would be given the power to regulate that material.

During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across great distances in a very short amount of time and at very low costs. The evolution of the computer era and our growing need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop, commonly referred to as the Internet or the world wide web. The Internet has influenced practically everyones life in some way whether it was done directly or indirectly. Our children are exposed to the Internet at school, and we are exposed to the Internet simply by just watching our television sets.

The Internet has become the primary key to the future of communication in our society today. Because of this, the government feels that it has the right to regulate and control the contents of information distributed through the World Wide Web, contrary to the opinions of most Internet users, myself included. Freedom of Speech Over the Internet At the present, this network is the epitome of the first amendment, freedom of speech. It is a place where people can speak their minds without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it.

The key to the success of the Internet is its protection of free speech, not only in America, but in other countries as well, where free speech is not protected by a constitution. Because there are no laws regulating Internet material, people may find some of its content offending, ranging from pornography, to hate-group forums, to countless other forms of information. With over 30 million Internet users in the U. S. alone, some of the material is bound to be interpreted as offensive to some other Internet user. My advice to these people is to change the station if you dont like what you see. Laws and the Internet

The newest waves of laws making their way through Congress threaten to stifle spontaneity of the Internet. Recently, Congress has considered passing laws that will make it a crime to send vulgar language or encryption software over the web. These crimes could result in prosecutions punishable by jail time. No matter how insignificant, any attempt at government intervention on the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century. The government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and it is trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to impose these laws upon us.

Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while wide spread encryption could help eliminate the need for government intervention. How Do We Interpret the Internet The current body of laws existing today in America does not apply well to the Internet. Is the Internet like a broadcasting medium, where the government monitors what is broadcast? Is it like a bookstore, where servers cannot be expected to review every title? Is it like a phone company that must ignore what it carries because of privacy?

The trouble is that the Internet can be all or none of these things depending on how it is used. The Internet cannot be viewed as one type of transfer medium under the current broadcast definitions. The Internet differs from the broadcasting media in that one cannot just happen upon a vulgar site without first keying in a complicated address, or following a link from another source. The Internet is much more like going into a book store and choosing to look at adult magazines (Miller 75). Because our use of the Internet varies from person to person, its meaning may be interpreted in a number of different ways.

Nudity on the Internet Jim Exon, a democratic senator from Nebraska, wants to pass a decency bill regulating sexual content on the Internet. If the bill is passed, certain commercial servers that post nude pictures, like those run by Penthouse or Playgirl, would of course be shut down immediately or risk prosecution. The same goes for any amateur web site that features nudity, sex talk, or sexually explicit words. Posting any sexual words in a Usenet discussion group, which occurs routinely, could cause a person to be liable for a $50,000 fine and six months in jail.

Why does it suddenly become illegal to post something that has been legal for years in print? Exon’s bill apparently would also criminalize private mail, … I can call my brother on the phone and say anything–but if I say it on the Internet, it’s illegal (Levy 56). Internet Access To Other Countries Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the majority of the adult material on the Internet is sent from overseas. Many of the new Internet technologies, including the World Wide Web, have been developed overseas.

There is no clear boundary between information existing in the U. S. and information existing in other countries. Data held in foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America. All it takes is the click of a mouse to access it. Even if our government tried to regulate the Internet, we have no control over what is posted in other countries or sent from other countries, and we have no practical way to stop it. The Internet was originally designed to uphold communications after a nuclear attack occurred by rerouting data to compensate for destroyed telephone lines and servers. Today’s Internet still works on a similar design.

The building blocks of the Internet were designed to overcome any kind of communication barriers put in its way. For example, if a major line between two servers is cut, the Internet users will find another way around this obstacle, whether the servers reside in different cities, states, or countries. This characteristic of the Internet makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries (Wilson 33). Internet Regulating Gone Bad Recently, a major university attempted to implement limitations on the Internet access available to its students, with results reminiscent of a 1960s protest.

The university had become concerned that it might be held responsible for allowing students access to sexually explicit material, after a research associate found quite a large collection of pornographic pictures (917,410 images to be exact) that several students had downloaded. Frightened by a local court case that had recently declared pictures of similar content obscene, the school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures and to the newsgroups where most of this obscenity had susceptibly come from.

A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, and shortly thereafter, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation became involved, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. This is a small example of what may happen if the government tries to impose censorship (Elmer-Dewitt 102). Children and the Internet Currently, there is software being released that promises to block childrens access to known X-rated Internet newsgroups and sites.

However, most adults rely on their computer literate children to install and set these programs up, which inevitable defeats the purpose behind childproofing software. Even if this software is installed by an adult, whos to say that the child cant go to a friends house and surf the web without any restrictions or supervision? Children will find ways to get around these restrictions. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect these children, there will always be ways around them. This necessitates the education of the children to deal with reality.

Altered views of an electronic world translate easily into altered views of the real world. When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is an extension and a reflection of the real world. We have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things. This isn’t the government’s responsibility. It’s ours as parents. (Miller 76) Self Regulation of the Internet Some restrictions on electronic speech imposed by major online companies are not so bad.

Most of these communication companies have restrictions on what their users can say in public forum areas (Messmer). They must, however, respect their customer’s privacy. Private e-mail content is off limits to them, but they may act swiftly upon anyone who spouts obscenities in a public forum. Self-regulation by users and servers is the key to avoiding government imposed intervention. Many on-line sites such as Playgirl and Penthouse have started to regulate themselves. Both of these sites post clear warnings that adult content lies ahead and lists the countries where this is illegal.

The film and video game industries subject themselves to ratings, and similarly, if Internet users want to avoid government imposed regulations, maybe it is time they began to regulate themselves. Encryption Government attempts to regulate the Internet are not just limited to obscenity and vulgar language. These attempts also fall into other areas, such as data encryption. By nature, the Internet is an insecure method of transferring data. A single e-mail packet may pass through hundreds of computers from its source to its final destination.

At each computer, there is the chance that the data will be archived and someone may intercept that data. Encryption is a means of encoding data so that only someone with the proper key can decode it. Why do you need encryption? It’s personal. It’s private. And it’s no one’s business but yours (Laberis). You may be planning a political campaign, discussing our taxes, or having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn’t be illegal, but it is. Whatever it is, you don’t want your private electronic mail or confidential documents read by anyone else.

There’s nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Perhaps you are not really concerned about encrypting your e-mail because you believe that you have nothing to hide. I mean you havent broken the law in any way, right? Well then why not just write letters on postcards instead of sealed away in envelopes? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their e-mail? What if everyone believed those law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail for the simple reason that you have nothing to hide?

Just because you havent done anything wrong, doesnt mean that you want the whole world to have access to your letters or e-mail. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their e-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their e-mail privacy with encryption. Think of it as a form of solidarity (Zimmerman). Until the development of the Internet, the U. S. government controlled most new encryption techniques. With the development of faster home computers and a worldwide web, the government no longer holds control over encryption.

New algorithms have been discovered that are reportedly unable to be cracked, even by the FBI and the NSA. This is a major concern to the government because they want to maintain the ability to conduct wiretaps and other forms of electronic surveillance into the digital age. Pretty Good Privacy To stop the spread of data encryption software, the U. S. government has imposed very strict laws on its exportation. One very well known example of this is the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) scandal. PGP was written by Phil Zimmerman, and is based on public key encryption.

This system uses complex algorithms to produce two codes, one for encoding and one for decoding. To send an encoded message to someone, a copy of that person’s public key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their private key to decode the message. As Zimmerman was finishing his program, he heard about a proposed Senate bill to ban cryptography. This prompted him to release his program for free, hoping that it would become so popular that its use could not be stopped.

One of the original users of PGP posted it to an Internet site, where anyone from any country could download it, causing a federal investigator to begin investigating Phil for violation of this new law. As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for illegal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code. When told about the illegal uses of his program, Zimmerman replied, If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I would feel bad, too.

But most people agree the benefits to society that come from automobiles — taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such — outweigh their drawbacks. Data Encryption Standard The government has not been totally blind for the need of encryption. For nearly two decades, a government sponsored algorithm, Data Encryption Standard (DES), has been used primarily by banks. The government has always maintained the ability to decipher this code with their powerful supercomputers. Now that new forms of encryption have been devised that the government cannot decipher, they are proposing a new standard to replace DES.

Clipper Chips This new standard is called Clipper, and is based on the public key algorithms. Instead of software, Clipper is a microchip that can be incorporated into just about anything (Television, Telephones, etc. ). This algorithm uses a much longer key that is 16 million times more powerful than DES. It is estimated that today’s fastest computers would take 400 billion years to break this code using every possible key (Lehrer 378). The catch: At the time of manufacture, each Clipper chip will be loaded with its own unique key, and the Government gets to keep a copy, placed in escrow.

Not to worry though, the Government promises that they will use these keys to read your traffic only when duly authorized by law. Of course, to make Clipper completely effective, the next logical step would be to outlaw other forms of cryptography. If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. Intelligence agencies have access to good cryptographic technology. So do the big arms and drug traffickers. So do defense contractors, oil companies, and other corporate giants. But ordinary people and grassroots political organizations mostly have not had access to affordable military grade public-key cryptographic technology.

Until now. PGP empowers people to take their privacy into their own hands. There’s a growing social need for it. That’s why I wrote it. (Zimmerman) Signatures The most important benefits of encryption have been conveniently overlooked by the government. If everyone used encryption, there would be absolutely no way that an innocent bystander could happen upon material they find offensive. Only the intended receiver of the data could decrypt it (using public key cryptography, not even the sender can decrypt it) and view its contents.

Each coded message also has an encrypted signature verifying the sender’s identity. The sender’s secret key can be used to encrypt an enclosed signature message, thereby signing it. This creates a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone else) can check by using the sender’s public key to decrypt it. This proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else, because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that signature.

Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender cannot later disavow his signature (Zimmerman). Gone would be the hate mail that causes many problems, and gone would be the ability to forge a document with someone else’s address. The government, if it did not have ulterior motives, should mandate encryption, not outlaw it. Conclusion As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship.

It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most prudish regulatory governments in existence. If too many regulations are enacted, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a mass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become nonexistent. There exists a very fine line between protecting our children from pornographic material, while still protecting our rights to freedom of speech.

The users, servers, and parents of the world must regulate themselves, so as not to force government regulations that may stifle the best communication instrument in history. If encryption catches on and becomes as widespread as Zimmerman predicts it will, then there will no longer be a need for the government to intrude in the matters of the Internet, and the biggest problems will work themselves out. The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature on its own.

Imagine a place where people interact in business situations, shop, play video games, do research, or study and get tutoring. Now imagine that there are no office buildings, no shopping centers, no arcades, no libraries, and no schools. These places all exist in a location called the Internet – “an anarchic eyetem (to use an oxymoron) of public and private computer networks that span the globe. ” (Clark 3). This technological advance not only benefits people of the present, but also brings forth future innovations. People use the Internet for many purposes, yet there are three popular reasons.

First, there is the sending and receiving of messages through the electronic mail. Second, there are discussion groups with a wide range of topics in which people can join. Finally, people are free to browse into vast collection of resources (or databases) of the World Wide Web. Electronic mail (e-mail) brings a unique perception into the way of communication. Although, it did not replace the traditional means of communication such as letters and telephone calls, it has created a new method f transmitting information in a more efficient way.

E-mail saves time between the interval of sending and receiving a message. Sending an e-mail message halfway around the world can arrive at its destination within a minute or two. In comparison, a letter can take from a few days to a couple of weeks, according to the distance it travels. Furthermore, e-mail is inexpensive. The cost of connection to the Internet is relatively cheaper than that of cable television. Evidently e-mail is both time-saving and cost-effective.

Discussion groups are a great way to interact with others in the world and to expand the knowledge of one’s horizon. The response is instantaneuos just like the telephone except it is non-verbal (typed). Discussion groups are on-line services that make use of non-verbal communication in the interest of the user. Services can range from tutor sessions to chat-lines where people just want to mingle. Communication through the Internet is a way of meeting new people. There is no racial judgement in meeting on the Internet because hysical appearance is not perceived.

However, attitude and personal characteristics are evident from the style in which a person talks (or types). This kind of communicaion helps narrow the gap between people and cultural differences. Communicating in discussion groups sometimes lead to even one-to- one conversations that soon enough become a link to friendship. Connections are being made when people meet each other; therefore, information on interest Web sites can be passed on. The World Wide Web (WWW) holds information that answers questions to the user.

The main purpose of the WWW is to give a variety of information ranging from literature to world geography. WWW contains Web sites that are created by government agencies and institutions to business companies and individuals. WWW carries text, graphics, and sound to catch the interest of people browsing through the different Web sites. These Web sites are being added daily, while the existing sites are being revised to compensate for more updated information and interests. This growth of information will soon become a world library of topics on anything that one can imagine.

A person using the Internet for one day encounters more information than a person reading in the library for a whole year. It is the convenience of the Internet that allows a person to go through an enormous amoung of information in a short period of time. This information community can pull the minds’ of users closer together, thus making the world smaller. The Internet is full of people who are requesting and giving out information to the ones who are interested, since “information wants to be free. ” – Stewart Brand (Van der Leun 25).

Hypothetically, if everyone is onnected to at least one other person on the Internet, eventually everyone everyone will meet each other. In other words, the world will gradually evolve into a “global village” which can be defined as “the world, especially of the late 1900’s, thought of as a village, a condition arising from shrinking distance by instantaneous world-wide electronic communication. ” (Nault 907). Thus, the Internet is a wonderful tool and medium in which people can interact with the information society. Afterall, information is like the building blocks of technological advancement.

A man and computer scientist Robert Taylor had developed a new system of communication that would change the world. Taylor would connect two separate computers that were capable of communicating small bits of information between one another. This was only intended to send simple text messages and numbers using an analog signal, but would prove to be a bigger help than originally imagined. Consequently, this basic networking of computers would soon develop into something much bigger and more vast than what had originally been envisioned.

The Internet has become a fast and efficient way of connecting people of all cultures and locals. This in turn has given rise to an entirely unique from of business practice and consumer buying power. Social interactions between all types of peoples from around the world have also become more wide spread. The Internet has become a hotbed of business activity, a virtual shopping mall, a social paradise, and a culture all wrapped up in a neat little package. Despite these advantages, this synthetic global connection with its massive networking of computers has drawbacks, such as an avoidance of direct social contact and alienation.

The power to access both the business and social world from the average user’s home hinders the desire to connect with the outside physical world. The Internet serves many purposes, but has specifically altered the standard economic practices of businesses previously dependant on direct social contact in attracting and maintaining a healthy clientele. For instance, the use of email to communicate messages and send file attachments is a system that has eliminated much of the legwork involved in exchanging information pertinent to the needs of that particular customer.

Inversely, this decreases the need for added employees, eliminating the costs of having to hire personnel to do such work, and has made customer interactions both faster and more efficient. Furthermore, the net is also used as an on-line trading tool between companies, customer web sites, company purchases, and various other integrated uses. These kinds of applications serve the company and customer in a fashion that allows more compatibility, speed, and convenience for both sides.

The Internet’s speed and efficiency can be a great asset to a business as well as its consumers, but is subject to such intrusions as hacking for the purpose of industrial espionage; which can easily result in stolen marketing and product ideas. This can greatly effect a business if such attempts are successful. As a result, other problems such as system crashes can incapacitate a business for an inordinate amount of time, where shipping and purchasing would cease as a result. From the perspective of the consumer, this new form of business has spawned a new form of convenience and accessibility.

The ability to access goods and services through the computer increases consumer base. Consumers who were previously unable to purchase goods on their own now have the power to purchase such products from their personal computer. With a search engine and the knowledge of what a person is looking for, an unlimited array of businesses will include a virtual catalog of what their company has to offer to the customer. As a result, the customer has the power to choose whatever he or she desires without the inconvenience of leaving their own home.

People can browse for hours without the time and effort involved in going from store to store to find just the right product. The elimination of price markups to pay employees and showcase merchandise is also appealing to the consumer. Despite the ease and accessibility such a system of acquiring goods and services would have, there are some drawbacks. First and foremost, the customer is divorced from the physical aspect of selecting their product. They must rely on photographs and descriptions to select their product, which may turn out not to suit their specific needs and wants.

While another issue concerning the purchasing of products on-line are the security risks regarding credit card purchases, which is the main source of buying power for the consumer. This creates hesitation on the part of the consumer for fear of hackers who can intercept credit card numbers while online purchases are being made. The Internet is not always used for the specific purpose of business relations and customer transactions. The net allows people who would not normally be able to interact with other social groups and cultures to communicate with a wide range of different persons.

Chat rooms are the most widespread of all places to find common interest groups that are willing to share information about themselves and their lives. This type of global social interaction is reminiscent to having a pen pal but on a much larger and more efficient scale. Secondly, this type of interaction eliminates the social awkwardness of direct physical contact when meeting new people. Net users can reach out to others while maintaining a comfortable level of personal space.

While this can be a new and exciting tool to meeting other users from around the world, this can also discourage people from using their social skills outside their own home. This comfort of anonymity can be used to falsify information to others. This means that the information received about another person could very well be fabricated. These encounters, whether they are sincere or falsified, can lead to unhealthy infatuations. Such incidences can result in dangerous encounters with individuals who insist on pursuing an uninterested party.

These individuals will go to such lengths as obtaining personal information for the purpose of stalking. In cases such as these, the Internet can provide a false sense of security. For those who insist on using the Internet as their primary source of interaction with others, this method of human relations can discourage the avenues of conventional socialization. Despite all the issues concerning the Internet, it is still becoming an ever-increasing form of communication and will continue to flourish well into the 21st century.

Businesses are finding that with the unprecedented rate of growth that the net is currently undergoing, a substantial increase in potential consumers can only serve to increase the profitability of their organizations. The sheer volume of current, as well as future consumers, far outweighs any technical abnormalities that may occur. Such conveniences are also appealing to the customers and encourage them to make their purchases on-line. This convenience overrides any doubts the consumer may have in regards to their purchase.

The volume increase of on-line users creates this environment for business growth as well as social interaction; users are able to connect with a wide variety of people and view the Internet as a social garden. Issues of safety and isolation within the home do not seem as relevant as the benefits of cross-global interaction. People who struggle in customary social situations find comfort in this type environment. The Internet is a useful and vestal tool in all of these situations. There will always be problems with a system as large as this, but the advantages are ever increasing.

The Internet is a method of communication and a source of information that is becoming more popular among those who are interested in, and have the time to surf the information superhighway. The problem with much information being accessible to this many people is that some of it is deemed inappropriate for minors. The government wants censorship, but a segment of the population does not. Within this examination of the topic of, Government Intervention of the Internet, I will attempt to express both side s of this issue.

During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the bility to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone’s life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fas t communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information worldwide.

With th e advances with software that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice alls and video conferencing, this network is the key to the future of the knowledge society. At present this net is the epitome of the F irst Amendment: freedom of speech. It is a place where people can speak their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it. Recently, Congress has been considering passing laws that will make it a crime punishable by jail to send “vulgar” language over the net.

The government wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and they are trying to use the protect ion of children as a moke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while methods such as encryption could help prevent the need for government intervention. The current body of laws existing today in America does not apply well to the Internet. Is the Internet like a bookstore, where servers cannot be expected to review every title?

Well, according to an article written by Michael Miller “Cybersex Shock. ” In he October 10, 1995 issue of PC Magazine (p. 75) “The Internet is much more like going into a book store and choosing to look at adult magazines. ” Although the Internet differs from other forms of media in that one cannot just happen upon a vulgar site without first, either entering a complicated address following a link from another source, or by clicking on the agreement statement at the beginning of the site acknowledging that one is of the legal age of 18.

This lawless atmosphere bothered many people, one such person is Nebraska Senator James Exon (D), who is one of the founding fathers of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996, Section 502, 47 U. S. C Section 223 [a], which regulates ” any obscene or in decent material via the Internet to anyone under 18 years of age. Exon’s bill would also according to an article written by Steven Levy in an April 1995 issue of Newsweek magazine (p. 53) “criminalize private mail,” Levy also stated emotional “I can call m y brother on the phone and say anything-but if I say it on the Internet, it’s illegal.

One thing that Congress seems to have overlooked in its pursuit of regulations is that there are no clear bountries from information being ccessed over the Internet from over countries. All it takes is a click of a mouse to access, even if our governmen t tried to regulate information accessed from other countries, we would have no control over what is posted in those countries, and we would have no practical way to stop it. Today’s Internet works much like that of our own human brains, in that if one ba rrier or option is taking your brain tries to find an alternate route or option.

Today’s Internet works on a similar design, if a major line between two servers say in two countries, is cut, then the Internet sers will find another way around this obstac le. This process of obstacle avoidance makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries. If it were physically possible to isolate America’s computers from the rest of the world, in my opinion it woul d be devastating to our economy.

In an article published In Time magazine, written by Philip Emler-Dewitt titled “Censoring Cyberspace: Carnegie Mellon’s attempt to Ban Sex from its Campus Computer Network Sends A Chill Along the Info Highway. ” Nov. 1994, (p. 102) “Martin Rim put togethe r quite a large icture collection (917,410 images) and he also tracked how often each image had been downloaded (a total of 6. 4 million). A local court had recently declared pictures of similar content obscene, and the school felt they might be held resp onsible for the content on its network.

The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures, and to the newsgroups where this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. ” This is only a tiny example of wha t may happen if the government tries to impose censorship.

Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the information age, there will always be ways around them. As stated in an article printed in PC Magazine on Oct. 10, 1995, written by Michael Miller on (p. 76) titled “Cybersex Shock. ” “When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is an extension and reflection of the real world, and we have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things.

This isn’t the government’s responsibility. It’s ours. ” Until the development of the Internet, the U. S. government controlled most of the new communication techniques. With the development of faster personal computers and the addition of the worldwide web, they had no control over the vast range of this style of communication. To stop the spread of data the U. S. government has imposed strict laws on the exportation.

This is explained in an article by Phil Zimmerman entitled ” Pretty Good Privacy” found online at Ftp: net-dist. mit. du “To send a encoded messag e to someone, a copy of that person’s ‘public’ key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their ‘private’ key to decode the message. ” As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for ille gal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code. Zimmerman’s reply to his knowledge of this rumor was quoted in Steven Levy’s article published in the Apr. 995 issue of Newsweek titled “The Encryption Wars: Privacy Good or Bad? ” (p. 6)

“If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I would feel bad, too. But most people agree that the benefits to society that come from automobiles-taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such-outw eigh their drawbacks. ” As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship, It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most rudish regulatory government.

If too many regulations are incited, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a mass communication devise and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non existent. The govern ment should rethink its approach to the censorship and the encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature. The users, parents, and servers of the world need to regulate themselves, so, as not to push the government into forcing th ese types of regulations on what might be the best communication instrument in history.

1. The History of the World Wide Web-

The internet started out as an information resource for the government so that they could talk to each other. They called it “The Industrucable Network” because it was so many computers linked to gether that if one server went down, no-one would know. This report will mainly focus on the history of the World Wide Web (WWW) because it is the fastest growing resource on the internet.

The internet consists of diferent protocals such as WWW, Gopher (Like the WWW but text based), FTP (File Transfer Protocal), and Telnet (Allows you to connect to different BBS’s). There are many more smaller one’s but they are inumerable. A BBS is an abreviation for Bullitin Board Service. A BBS is a computer that you can ether dial into or access from the Internet. BBS’s are normally text based.

2. The Creator of the WWW-

A graduate of Oxford University, England, Tim is now with the Laboratory for Computer Science ( LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). He directs the W3 Consortium, an open forum of companies and organizations with the mission to realize the full potential of the Web.

With a background of system design in real-time communications and text processing software development, in 1989 he invented the World Wide Web, an internet-based hypermedia initiative for global information sharing. while working at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory. He spent two years with Plessey elecommunications Ltd a major UK Telecom equipment manufacturer, working on distributed transaction systems, message relays, and bar code technology.

In 1978 Tim left Plessey to join D.G Nash Ltd, where he wrote among other things typesetting software for intelligent printers, a multitasking operating system, and a generic macro expander.

A year and a half spent as an independent consultant included a six month stint as consultant software engineer at CERN, the European Particle Physics Laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland. Whilst there, he wrote for his own private use his first program for storing information including using random associations. Named “Enquire”, and never published, this program formed the conceptual basis for the future development of the World Wide Web. I could go on and on forever telling you about this person, but my report is not about him.

From 1981 until 1984, Tim was a founding Director of Image Computer Systems Ltd, with technical design responsibility. In 1984, he took up a fellowship at CERN, to work on distributed real-time systems for scientific data acquisition and system control.

In 1989, he proposed a global hypertext project, to be known as the World Wide Web. Based on the earlier “Enquire” work, it was designed to allow people to work together by combining their knowledge in a web of hypertext documents. He wrote the first World Wide Web server and the first client, a wysiwyg hypertext browser/editor which ran in the NeXTStep environment. This work was started in October 1990, and the program “WorldWideWeb” first made available within CERN in December, and on the Internet at large in the summer of 1991.

Through 1991 and 1993, Tim continued working on the design of the Web, coordinating feedback from users across the Internet. His initial specifications of URIs, HTTP and HTML were refined and discussed in larger circles as the Web technology spread.

In 1994, Tim joined the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS)at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). as Director of the W3 Consortium which coordinates W3 development worldwide, with teams at MIT and at INRIA in France. The consortium takes as it goal to realize the full potential of the web, ensuring its stability through rapid evolution and revolutionary transformations of its usage.

In 1995, Tim Berners-Lee received the Kilby Foundation’s “Young Innovator of the Year” Award for his invention of the World Wide Web, and was corecipient of the ACM Software Systems Award. He has been named as the recipient of the 1996 ACM Kobayashi award, and corecipient of the 1996 Computers and Communication (C&C) award.

He has honorary degrees from the Parsons School of Design, New York (D.F.A., 1996) and Southampton University (D.Sc., 1996), and is a Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society. This has just been about Tim, but here is the real hsitory of the WWW.

3. History of the WWW dates –

“Information Management: A Proposal” written by Tim BL and circulated for comments at CERN (TBL). Paper “HyperText and CERN” produced as background (text or WriteNow format). Project proposal reformulated with encouragement from CN and ECP divisional management. Robert Cailliau (ECP) is co-author. The name World-Wide Web was decided because the name tells you what the reasorce does. HyperText is the language that users who want homepages on the internet use to write them. (See a sample of this on last page).

In November of 1990 Initial WorldWideWeb program developed on the NeXT (TBL) . This was a wysiwyg browser/editor with direct inline creation of links. This made the WWW easier to use and navigate without having to type long numbers. Technical Student Nicola Pellow (CN) joins and starts work on the line-mode browser. Bernd Pollermann (CN) helps get interface to CERNVM “FIND” index running. TBL gives a colloquium on hypertext in general. When this happend the WWW really started sprouting because this new browsers made the WWW easier to navigate.

4. History of the World Wide Web dates 1991-1993

In 1991 a line mode browser (www) released to limited audience on “priam” vax, rs6000, sun4. On the 17th of May a general release of WWW software was made avalible on Cern servers. This allowed people to start ther own internet providing such as America Online and South Carolina SuperNet. On the 12th of June a siminar was held for the WWW that allowed people to come in and see this new software in progres. I would like to skip ahead to present day because more intersting things are happening now.

5. Present Day World Wide Web and Internet reasorces-

The World Wide web today is the most popular reasource on the internet. Facts show that the internet has an average 45 million users on a day with one more joining every eight seconds. The internet transmits at a maximum speed of 100mb per second. Present day internet is fast and relyable, it is also very popular. The internet started out as just a few computers linked together, and now look what we have. The internet will live on forever, and so will the WWW. I belive that the WWW will be replaced by something in the next 10 years.

The Internet is a complex web of interconnected servers and workstations that span the globe, linking millions of people and companies. But there is a dark side: The convenient availability of valuable and sensitive electronic information invites severe misuse in the form of stolen, corrupted, or destroyed data found therein. Compounding this problem is the unfortunate fact that there are ample opportunities to intercept and misuse information transmitted on the Internet.

For example, information sent across telephone lines can not only be seen, but also can be easily manipulated and retransmitted, or software can be developed to do something as fundamental as deny Internet service. Preventing unauthorized access is a cost that should be factored into every Internet equation. What follows is an explanation of Internet security and the concept of Firewalls.

What Makes the Internet Vulnerable? Let’s look at some of the most common security threats: Impersonating a User or System – To authenticate Internet users, a system of user-Ids and passwords is used. Anyone intent on gaining access to the Internet can repeatedly make guesses until the right combination is found, a simple but time consuming process made all the easier by programs which systematically try all character combinations until the correct one is eventually generated.

User-IDs and passwords can also be trapped by finding security holes in programs; a person looking to abuse the Internet finds these holes and uses the information leaked through them for his or her own personal agenda. Even someone who has been entrusted with high-level network access, such as a system administrator, can misuse his or her authorization to gain access to sensitive areas by impersonating other users. Eavesdropping – By making a complete transcript of network activity, sensitive data such as passwords, data, and procedures for performing certain functions can be obtained.

Eavesdropping is can be accomplished through the use of programs that monitor the packets of information transmitted across the network; or, less often, by tapping network circuits in a manner similar to telephone wiretapping. Regardless of technique, it is very difficult to detect the presence of an intruder. Packet Replay – The recording of transmitted message packets over the network is a significant threat for programs requiring authentication sequences because an intruder saves and later replays (retransmits) legitimate authentication sequences to gain access to a system.

Packet Modification – This significant integrity threat involves one system intercepting and modifying a packet destined for another system; more significantly, in many cases, packet information can be just as easily destroyed as it can be modified. Denial of Service – Multi-user, multi-tasking operating systems are subject to denial of service attacks where one user can render the system unusable by hogging a resource or by damaging or destroying resources so that they cannot be used.

Service overloading, message flooding, and signal grounding are three common forms of denial-of-service attacks. While system administrators must protect against these types of threats without denying access to legitimate users, they are very hard to prevent. Many denial-of-service attacks can be hindered by restricting access to critical accounts, resources, and files, and by protecting them from unauthorized users. Many invasive Internet opportunities exist for access to corporate and personal information. These instances do occur and care should be taken to guard against them.

This is the function of a firewall: To provide a barrier between an Internet server and anyone intent on invading its sensitive data. Countering the Threat with a Firewall As the name implies, an Internet Firewall is a system set up specifically to shield a Web site from abuse and to provide protection from exposure to inherently insecure services, probes, and attacks from other computers on the network. A Firewall can be thought of as a pair of mechanisms: one, which exists to block traffic, and the other that exists to permit traffic.

Some firewalls place a greater emphasis on blocking traffic, while others emphasize permitting traffic. A major Firewall benefit is centralized security through which all Internet access must pass, which is far easier to maintain since there are fewer servers to update and fewer places in which to find suspected security breaches. The most important thing to remember is that a Firewall should be designed to implement an access control policy that best fits your specific needs to protect your unique data and resources.

Components of a Firewall Now, let’s looks at the individual components of a Firewall and how they operate: First, it is important to realize that the term Firewall defines a security concept rather than a specific device or program. A Firewall takes many forms, from a router that filters TCP/IP packets based on information in the packet to sophisticated packet filtering, logging, and application gateway servers which closely scrutinize requested functions.

Often firewalls are a collection of systems, each providing a piece of the overall security scheme. Acer has stepped up to the challenge by manufacturing gateway servers for a broad range of Firewall applications. The AcerAltos product family, from the entry-level applications AA900 Single Pentium and AA900Pro Single Pentium Pro servers to the mid-range AA9000 Dual Pentium and AA9000Pro Dual Pentium Pro servers, to the AA19000 Dual Pentium Pro server, fit any size Firewall application.

AcerAltos servers can provide the reliability and fault tolerance required by demanding Firewall applications. Packet Filtering – Accomplished by using a packet filtering router designed to examine each packet as it passes between the router’s input/output interfaces, services can be limited or even disabled, access can be restricted to and from specific systems or domains, and information about subnets can be hidden. The following packet fields are available for examination: Packet type – such as IP, UDP, ICMP, or TCP

Source IP address – the system from which the packet was sent Destination IP address – the system to which the packet is being sent Destination TCP/UDP port – a number designating a service such as telnet, ftp, smtp, nfs, etc. Source TCP/UDP port – the port number of the service on the host originating the connection The decision to filter certain protocols and fields depends on the site security policy; i. e. , which systems should have Internet access and the type of access permitted.

The Firewall’s location will influence this policy; for example, if a Firewall is located on a site’s Internet gateway, the decision to block inbound telnet access still permits access to other site systems, or, if it is located on a subnet, the decision to block inbound telnet to the subnet will prevent access from other site subnets. While some services such as FTP or telnet are inherently risky, blocking these services completely may be too harsh a policy; however, not all systems, though, require access to all services.

For example, restricting telnet or FTP access from the Internet to only those systems requiring such access can improve security without affecting user convenience. On the other hand, while services such as Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) or Network Time Protocol (NTP) may seem to pose no threat, restricting these protocols helps create a cleaner network environment, thereby reducing the likelihood of exploitation from yet-to-be-discovered vulnerabilities and threats.

Unfortunately, Packet Filtering routers suffer from a number of weaknesses: The filtering rules can be difficult to specify; testing must be done manually; the filtering rules can be very complex depending on the site’s access requirements; and no logging capability exists, thus if a router’s (lack of) rules were to still let dangerous packets through, they may go undetected until a break-in has occurred. In addition, some routers filter only on the destination address rather than on the source address.

Event Logging-Used to detect suspicious activity that might lead to break-ins, a host system with packet-filtering capability can more readily monitor traffic than a host in combination with a packet-filtering router, unless the router can be configured to send all rejected packets to a specific logging host. In addition to standard logging that would include statistics on packet types, frequency, and source/destination address, the following types of activity should be captured:

Connection Information to include the point of origin, destination, username, time of day, and duration. Attempts Use of Any Banned Protocols such as TFTP, domain name service zone transfers, portmapper, and RPC-based services, all of which would be indicative of probing or attempts to break in. Attempts to Spoof Internal Systems to identify traffic from an outside system attempting to masquerade as an internal system. Routing Re-Directions to identify access from unauthorized sources (unknown routers). A downside to logging is that Logs will have to be read frequently.

If suspicious behavior is detected, a call to the site’s administrator can often determine the source of the behavior and put an end to it, however the Firewall administrator also has the option of blocking traffic from the offending site. Application Gateways-Also referred to as Proxy Servers. A site would use an application gateway server such as an AcerAltos server to provide a guarded gate through which application traffic must first pass before being permitted access to specific (pre-defined) systems.

These gateway servers are used in conjunction with packet filtering and event logging to provide a higher level of security for applications that are not blocked at the firewall; examples include telnet, FTP, and SMTP. They are located where all traffic is destined for a host within a subnet; data is first sent to the application gateway, and any traffic not directed at the application gateway will be rejected via packet filtering. The application gateway then passes authorized traffic to the subnet, rejecting all unauthorized traffic.

Here are a number of advantages over the default mode of permitting application traffic to pass directly to internal hosts: Information Hiding – The names of internal systems are not made known via DNS to outside systems; only the application gateway host name is made known. Robust Authentication and Logging – Application traffic can be pre-authenticated before it reaches internal hosts and can be logged more effectively than standard host logging. Cost-Effectiveness – Third-party authentication or logging software/hardware need be located only at the application gateway.

Less-Complex Filtering Rules – The rules at the packet filtering router are less complex than if the router needed to filter application traffic and direct it to a number of specific systems; the router need only allow application traffic destined for the application gateway and reject the rest. Note that an application server is application specific; to support a new application protocol, new proxy software must be developed for it. Several proxy application tool kits have been developed and can be used as a starting place to develop your own gateway software.

Alternatively, packages have appeared on the market that offers a complete solution in lieu of costly development time. An application gateway is the focal point of all traffic to and from the Internet. Selecting the proper server hardware is critical to efficient, reliable Internet access. Underestimating the load with a server too small produces bottlenecks that affects every Internet user, while overestimating the load with a server too large wastes money, which affects the corporation.

Acer has effectively addressed this problem with a broad range of servers and upgrade options. Selecting the proper server is made easier because of the inherent flexibility of the AcerAltos product line — from the uni-processor 133MHz Pentium AA900 and the 180MHz/256KB / 200MHz/256KB Pentium Pro AA900Pro to the dual-processor 166MHz Pentium AA9000 and the 200MHz/256KB Pentium Pro AA9000Pro and AA19000 models — offers the appropriate level of power that best fits the application.

The expandability and scalability of the AcerAltos product line ensure incremental growth and performance improvement with minimal cost. Other Technologies-There are other emerging technologies that, while not new, are just now gaining recognition and standardization. Certain industry niches such as financial services require a higher degree of security. It is imperative for these companies to maintain the safety of financial data and build customer trust; Internet transactions must be made as safe, if not more, as traditional transactions.

To do this, these and other organizations have begun relying on two closely linked technologies: Authentication and Encryption. An application of encryption, which further enhances privacy, is the Virtual Private Network (VPN). Authentication is the process in which the receiver of a digital message can be confident of the identity of the sender and integrity of the message. Authentication protocols can be based on secret key cryptosystems or public key signature systems.

Secret key cryptosystems use a key or seed to encode data transmitted over the Internet. Once encoded by the sender, it takes the same or different key to decode it on the receiving end. Only the sender and the receiver know the keys. Should an unauthorized person intercept the message, it is unreadable and nearly impossible to decode without a great deal of time and a powerful computer. Public key technology uses the concept of digital signatures to assert that a named person wrote or otherwise agreed to the document on which the signatures appear.

The signature is an unforgettable piece of data allowing the recipient, as well as a third party, to verify both that the document did originate from the person who signed it and that the document has not been altered since it was signed. A secure digital signature system thus consists of two parts: a method of signing a document so that forgery is unfeasible and a method of signature verification. Moreover, secure digital signatures cannot be repudiated; that is, the signer of a document cannot later disown it by claiming it was forged, since each digital signature is registered with a Certificate Authority.

Within our society there has been a revolution, one that rivals that of the Industrial Revolution. The Technological Revolution. At the head of this revolution is the Internet. A place full of information, adventure, and even for some, romance. In our society today everyone has heard of this technological wonder, and many use it on a daily basis, but for some the question still remains What is the Internet, and where did it come from? Some thirty years ago, the RAND Corporation, American’s foremost Cold War think-tank, faced a strange strategic problem. How could the US authorities successfully communicate after a nuclear war?

Post nuclear America would need a command-and-control network, linked from city to city, state-to-state, and base-to-base. But no matter how thoroughly that network was armored or protected, its switches and wiring would always be vulnerable to the impact of atomic bombs. A nuclear attack would reduce any conceivable network to tatters. And how would the network itself be commanded and controlled? Any central authority, any network central citadel, would be an obvious and immediate target for an enemy missile. RAND mulled over this grim puzzle in deep military secrecy, and arrived at a daring solution.

The network would have no central authority. Furthermore, it would be designed from the beginning to operate while in tatters. The principles were simple, the network itself would be assumed to be unreliable at all times (Krol 11). It would be designed from the get-go to transcend its own unreliability. All the nodes (computers hooked to the network) in the network would be equal in status to all other nodes, each node with its own authority to originate, pass, and receive messages. The messages themselves would be divided into packets, each packet separately addressed.

Each packet would begin at some specified source node, and end at some other specified destination node, winding its way through the network on an individual basis (Krol 11). The particular route that the packet took would be unimportant. Only final results would count. Basically, the packet would be tossed like a hot potato from node to node, more or less in the direction of its destination, until it ended up in the proper place. If big pieces of the network had been blown away, that simply wouldn’t matter; the packets would still stay air born, lateralled wildly across the network by whatever node happened to survive.

The National Physical Laboratory in Great Britain set up the first test network on these principles in 1968. Shortly afterward, the Pentagon’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) decided to fund a larger, more ambitious project in the USA. In the fall 1969, the first node was installed in UCLA, and by December 1969 there were four nodes on the infant network, which was rightly named ARPANET, after its Pentagon sponsor (Overview of Internet Technology). The four computers could transfer data on dedicated high-speed transmission lines. They could even be programmed remotely from other nodes.

Thanks to ARPANET, scientists and researchers could share one another’s computer facilities by long-distance. By the second year of operation, however, and odd fact became clear. ARPANET’s users had warped the computer-sharing network into a dedicated, high-speed, federally subsidized electronic post office. The main traffic on ARPANET was not long-distance computing. Instead, it was news and personal messages. Researchers were using ARPANET to collaborate on projects, to trade notes on work, and eventually, to downright gossip and schmooze.

People had their own personal user accounts on the ARPANET computers, and their own personal address for electronic mail (email) (Overview of Internet Technology). Throughout the 70s, ARPANET’s network grew, its decentralized structure made expansion easy. As long as individual machines could speak the packet-switching lingua franca of new, anarchic network, their brand names, and their content, and even their ownership, were irrelevant. The ARPANET’s original standard for communication was known as NCP, “Network Control Protocol,” (Moschovits 62) but as time passed and the technique advanced.

NCP was surpassed by a higher-level, more sophisticated standard known as TCP/IP (Overview of Internet Technology). TCP, or “Transmission Control Protocol,” converts messages into streams of packets at the source, and then reassembles them back into messages at the destination (Krol 23). IP, or “Internet Protocol,” handles the addressing, seeing to it that packets are routed across multiple nodes and even multiple networks with multiple standards (Krol 20). As the 70s and 80s advanced, many very different social groups found themselves in possession of powerful computers.

It was fairly easy to link these computers to the growing network-of-networks. As the use of TCP/IP became more common, entire other networks fell into digital embrace of the Internet, and messily adhered. Since the software called TCP/IP was public-domain, (Overview of Internet Technology) and the basic technology was decentralized and rather anarchic by its very nature, it was very difficult to stop people from barging in and linking up somewhere-or-other. In point of fact, nobody wanted to stop them from joining this branching complex of networks, which came to be known as the “Internet”.

Connecting to the Internet cost the taxpayer little or nothing, since each node was independent, and had to handle its own financing and its own technical requirements. The more the merrier. Like the phone network, the computer network became steadily more valuable as it embraced larger and larger territories of people and resources. A fax machine is only valuable if everybody else has a fax machine. Until they do, a fax machine is just a curiosity. ARPANET, too, was a curiosity for a while, and then computer networking became an utter necessity.

In 1984 the National Science Foundation got into the act, through its Office of Advanced Scientific Computing. The new NSFNET set a blistering pace for technical advancement, linking newer, faster, shinier supercomputers, through thicker, faster links, upgraded and expanded, again and again, in 1986, 1988, and 1990 (Krol 12). The nodes in this growing network-of-networks were divided up into basic varieties. Foreign computers, and a few American ones, chose to be denoted by their geographical locations. The others were grouped by the six basic Internet “domains”: gov, mil, edu, com, org, and net.

Gov, Mil, and Edu denoted governmental, military and educational institutions. Com, however, stood for “commercial” institutions, which were soon bursting into the network like rodeo bulls, surrounded by a dust-cloud of eager nonprofit “orgs. ” (The “net” computers served as gateways between networks) (Kehoe 2). ARPANET itself formally expired in 1990, a happy victim of its own overwhelming success. (Overview of Internet Technology) Its users hardly noticed, for ARPANET’s functions not only continued but steadily improved.

In 1971, a mere thirty years ago, there were only four nodes in the ARPANET network. Today there are tens of thousands of nodes in the Internet, scattered over forty-two countries, with more coming on-line every day (Cerf). Three million, possibly four million people use this gigantic mother-of-all computer networks. The Internet’s pace of growth in the 90s is spectacular, almost ferocious. Last year the Internet was growing at a rate of twenty percent a month and the number of “host” machines with direct connection to TCP/IP has been doubling every year since 1988 (Cerf).

The Internet is moving out of its original base in military and research institutions, and into elementary and high schools, as well as into public libraries and even coffee shops. Long distance computing was an original inspiration of ARPANET and is still a very useful service, at least for some. Programmers can maintain accounts on distant, powerful computers, run programs there or write their own. Scientists can make use of powerful supercomputers a continent away. Libraries offer their electronic card catalogs for free search. Enormous CD-Rom catalogs are increasingly available through this service.

And there are fantastic amounts of free software available. The headless, anarchic, million-limbed Internet is spreading like bread mold. Any computer with sufficient power is a potential spore of the Internet, and today such computers sell for less than $2,000 and are in the hands of people all over the world. ARPA’s network, designed to assume control of a ravaged society after nuclear holocaust, has been surpassed by its mutant child the Internet, which is thoroughly out of control, and spreading exponentially through the post Cold War electronic global village.

The spread of the Internet in the 90s resembles the spread of personal computing in the 1970s, though it is even faster and perhaps much more important. More important, perhaps, because it may give those personal computers a means of cheap, easy storage and access that is truly planetary in scale. The future of the Internet bids fair to be bigger and exponentially faster. Commercialization of the Internet is a very hot topic today, with every manner of wild new commercial information – service promised. The federal government, pleased with an unsought success, is also very much in the act.

NREN, the National Research and Education Network, was approved by Congress in fall 1991, as a five year, $2 billion project to upgrade the Internet “backbone”. NREN is now fifty times faster than the fastest network in 1991, allowing the electronic transfer of the entire Encyclopedia Britannica in one hot second (EFF Information Infrastructure). Computer networks worldwide now feature 3-D animated graphics, portable computers (PALMs) and cellular phone links to the Internet, and this is only the beginning.

As we enter this new millennium, the Internet will be the road we drive on to get us to the next level of technological greatness. As astonishing as man walking on the moon, who would have thought that a device created to help during the worlds worst hour has now become the device that has united the globe. ARPANET may have got the ball rolling but this animal the Internet is on a blazing run to who knows where. We can only sit back, hang on, and enjoy the ride as we the technological generation wait for the next great technological wonder to change everything once more.

The Internet is, quite literally, a network of networks. It is comprised of ten thousands of interconnected networks spanning the globe. The computers that form the Internet range from huge mainframes in research establishments to modest PCs in people’s homes and offices. Despite the recent hype, the Internet is not a new phenomenon. Its roots lie in a collection of computers that were linked together in the 1970s to form the US Department of Defense’s communications systems.

Fearing the consequences of nuclear attack, there was no central computer holding vast amounts of data, rather the information was ispersed across thousands of machines. A set of rules, of protocols, known as TCP/IP was developed to allow disparate devices to work together. The original network has long since been upgraded and expanded and TCP/IP is now a “de facto” standard. Millions of people worldwide are using the Internet to share information, make new associations and communicate.

Individuals and businesses, from students and journalists, to consultants, programmers and corporate giants are all harnessing the power of the Internet. For many businesses the Internet is becoming integral to their operations. Imagine the ability to send and receive data: messages, notes, letters, documents, pictures, video, sound- just about any form of communication, as effortlessly as making a phone call. It is easy to understand why the Internet is rapidly becoming the corporate communications medium.

Using the mouse on your computer, the familiar point-and-click functionality gives you access to electronic mail for sending and receiving data, and file transfer for copying files from one computer to another. Telnet services allow you to establish connections with systems on the other side of the world as if they were just next door. This flood of information is a beautiful thing and it can only open the minds of society. With the explosion of the World Wide Web, anyone could publish his or her ideas to the world.

Before, in order to be heard one would have to go through publishers who were willing to invest in his ideas to get something put into print. With the advent of the Internet, anyone who has something to say can be heard by the world. By letting everyone speak their mind, this opens up all new ways of thinking to anyone who is willing to listen. Moreover, the Internet is an information resource for you to search, gathering new data on key search spects of your market. Perhaps most importantly, the Internet offers a new way of doing business.

A virtual market-place where customers can, at the push of a button, select goods, place an order and pay using a secure electronic transaction. Businesses are discovering the Internet as the most powerful and cost effective tool in history. The Net provides a faster, more efficient way to work colleagues, customers, vendors and business partners- irrespective of location or operating system harnessing this powerful resource gives companies strategic advantages by leveraging information into essential business asset. The technology of the future” here today. This is a fact.

Businesses making the transition will, and are prospering; however those that do not will most certainly suffer the consequences. One of the most commonly asked questions is, “Will the Net help me sell more product? ” The answer is yes, but in ways you might not expect. The Internet is a communication “tool” first, not and advertisement medium. Unlike print or broadcasting media, the Internet is interactive; and unlike the telephone, it is both visual and content rich. A Web site is an excellent way to reduce costs, improve customer service, disseminate information nd even sell to your market.

Perhaps, the most important facts about the internet are that it contains a wealth of information, that can be send across the world almost instantly, and that it can unite people in wildly different locations as if they were next to each other. The soundest claims for the importance of the Internet in today’s society are based upon these very facts. People of like minds and interests can share information with one another through electronic mail and chat rooms. E-mail is enabling radically new forms of worldwide human collaboration.

Approximately 225 millions of people can send and receive it and they all epresent a network of potentially cooperating individuals dwarfing anything that even the mightiest corporation or government can muster. Mailing-list discussion groups and online conferencing allow us to gather together to work on a multitude of projects that are interesting or helpful to us. Chat rooms and mailing lists can connect groups of users to discuss a topic and share ideas. Materials from users can be added to a Web site to share with others and can be updated quickly and easily anytime.

However, the most exciting part of the Internet is its multimedia and hypertext capabilities. The Web provides information in many different formats. Of course, text is still a popular way to transmit information, but the Web also presents information in sound bites, such as music, voice, or special effects. Graphics may be still photographs, drawings, cartoons, diagrams, tables, or other artwork, but they also may be moving, such as animation video. Hypertext links allows users to move from one piece of information to another. A link might be an underlined word or phrase, an icon or a symbol, or a picture, for example.

When a link is selected, usually by clicking the mouse on the link, the ser sees another piece of information, which may be electronically stored on another computer thousands of miles away. Of major importance is the fact that the Internet supports online education. Online education introduces unprecedented options for teaching, learning, and knowledge building. Today access to a microcomputer, modem, telephone line, and communication program offers learners and teachers the possibility of interactions that transcended the boundaries of time and space.

Even from an economic standpoint, the costs of establishing a brand new educational program or a few thousand students are far less than the cost of a building to house the same number of students. New social and intellectual connectivity is proliferating as educational institutions adopt computer-mediated communication for educational interactions. There are many school based networks that link learners to discuss, share and examine specific subjects such as environmental concerns, science, local and global issues, or to enhance written communication skills in first- or second- language proficiency activities.

Online education is a unique expression of both existing and new attributes. It shares certain attributes with the distance mode and with the face-to-face mode; however, in combination, these attributes form a new environment for learning. Online education, on the other hand, is distinguished by the social nature of the learning environment that it offers. Like face-to-face education, it supports interactive group communication. Historically, the social, affective, and cognitive benefits of peer interaction, and collaboration have been available only in face-to-face learning.

The introduction of online education opens unprecedented opportunities for educational interactivity. The ediation of the computer further distinguishes the nature of the activity online, introducing entirely new elements to the learning process. The potential of online education can be explored through five attributes that, taken together, both delineate its differences from existing modes of education and also characterize online education as a unique mode.

They may learn independently, at their own pace, in a convenient location, at a convenient time about a greater variety of subjects, from a greater variety of institutions or educators/trainers. But no matter how great and significant the effects of the Internet in our ives might be, there are some quite considerable consequences and drawbacks. A very important disadvantage is that the Internet is addictive. One of the first people to take the phenomenon seriously was Kimberly S. Young, Ph. D. , professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh.

She takes it so seriously, in fact, that she founded the Center for Online Addiction, an organization that provides consultation for educational institutions, mental health clinics and corporations dealing with Internet misuse problems. Psychologists now recognize Internet Addiction Syndrome (IAS) as a new llness that could ruin hundreds of lives. Internet addicts are people who are reported staying online for six, eight, ten or more hours a day, every day. They use the Internet as a way of escaping problems or relieving distressed moods. Their usage can cause problems in their family, work and social lives.

They feel anxious and irritable when offline and craved getting back online. Despite the consequences, they continue using regardless of admonishments from friends and family. Special help groups have been set up to give out advice and offer links with other addicts. Internets Anonymous and Webaholics are two of the sites ffering help, but only through logging onto the Internet. The study of 100 students by Margaret Martin of Glasgow University found: One in six (16%) felt irritable, tense, depressed or restless if they were barred from using the Internet.

More than one in four (27%) felt guilty about the time they spent online. One in ten (10%) admitted neglecting a partner, child or work because of overuse. One in twenty five (4%) said it had affected their mental or physical health for the worse. Another Ph. D. psychologist Maressa Hecht Orzack posits that people use the Internet compulsively because it so easily facilitates the reward response ommon to addictive behavior. “If they are lonely and need compassion, camaraderie or romance, it can be found immediately. If they are looking for sex or pornography, they need only to click a button.

They can experience the thrill of gambling, playing interactive games from the comfort of their chairs. They can entertain fantasies by pretending to be other people, or engaging interactive, role-playing games. The reward received from these activities can manifest itself physically, so that the person begins to crave more of it. ” The effects lead to headaches, lack of concentration and tiredness. Addicts ust not cut off access altogether but they should set time limits and limit Internet usage to a set number of hours each day.

Robert Kraut Doctoral Psychologist says referring on the subject: “We have evidence that people who are online for long periods of time show negative changes in how much they talk to people in their family and how many friends and acquaintances they say they keep in contact with. They also report small but increased amounts of loneliness, stress and depression. What we do not know is exactly why. Being online takes up time, and it may be taking time away from sleep, social contact r even eating. Our negative results are understandable if people’s interactions on the net are not as socially valuable as their other activities.

Another considerable drawback of the Internet is that it is susceptible to hackers. Hackers are persons that have tremendous knowledge on the subject and use it to steal, cheat or misuse confidential or classified information for the sake of fun or profit. As the world increases its reliance on computer systems, we become more vulnerable to extremists who use computer technology as a weapon. It is called cyber-terrorism and research groups within the CIA and FBI say yber-warfare has become one of the main threats to global security. But how serious is hacking?

In 1989, the Computer Emergency Response Team, a nonprofit organization that monitors security issues throughout America from its base at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh reported 132 computer intrusions. Last year they recorded 2341! And in recent months, a few celebrated cases have shed a new light on the hacker’s netherworldly activities. One notorious hacker is American Kevin Mitnick, a 31-year-old computer junkie arrested by the FBI in February for allegedly pilfering more than $1 million worth of data and 20. 00 credit-card numbers through the Internet.

Still, the new wave of network hacking is presenting fresh problems for companies, universities and law-enforcement officials in every industrial country. In July, John Deutch, head of the CIA, told Congress that he ranked information warfare as the second most serious threat to the national security, just below weapons of mass destruction in terrorist hands. The Internet suffers around a million successful penetrations every year while the Pentagon headquarters of the US military has 250. 000 attempts to hack into computers. But what can be done for hacking?

There are ways for corporations to safeguard against hackers and the demand for safety has led to a boom industry in data security. Security measures range from user Ids and passwords to thumbprint, voiceprint or retinal scan technologies. Another approach is public key encryption, used in software packages such as Entrust. An information system girded with firewalls and gates, broken vertically into compartments and horizontally by access privileges, where suspicion is the norm and nothing can be trusted, will probably reduce the risk of information warfare as we know it today to negligible levels.

Yet, increasingly intrusive and somehow antithetical to the purposes for which science in general is purposed. It is no accident that the World Wide Web was invented to enable particle physicists to share knowledge. Michael Binder, assistant deputy at the industry department of United States asks another key question: “How would you regulate the Internet? ” Computer and legal experts all agree that enforcement is difficult. Still, a committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has made several recommendations. One would make it illegal to possess computer hacking programs, hose used to break into computer systems.

Another would make the use of computer networks and telephone lines used in the commission of a crime a crime in itself. The committee also recommends agreements with the United States that would allow police officials in both countries to search computer data banks. But for the time being, Binder says, the government is in no rush to rewrite the statute book. “We don’t know how it will evolve. We don’t want to stifle communication. We don’t want to shut down the Net. ” The problem with regulating the Internet is that no one owns it and no one controls it.

Messages are passed from computer system to computer system in milliseconds, and the network literally resembles a web of computers and connecting telephone lines. It crosses borders in less time than it takes to cross most streets, and connections to Asia or Australia are as commonplace as dialing your neighbor next door. It is the Net’s very lack of frontiers that make law enforcement so difficult. Confronted with the difficulty of trying to grab onto something as amorphous as the Net, some critics and government officials are hoping that Internet service providers can police the Net themselves.

However, Ian Kyer, President of Computer Law Association Inc. and a lawyer believes that much of the debate about the Internet arises because it is so new. “We’re just sort of waking up to it. Now that it’s an everyday thing, it’s coming to the attention of the legislators and police forces, and I think they’re not going to like what they see. One of the real problems with the law of the Internet is deciding, where does the offence occur? ” The best guide to the way the law should work is to study the past and the present, not to attempt to predict every possible future.

As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said long ago, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. ” When a new media technology emerges, the best thing to do is to wait and see what problems actually emerge, not panic about what could happen. Once we understand the actual risks, we can legislate accordingly and with full regard to the competing interests at stake. But there is another problem that practically circulates through the Internet: The viruses. They can move stealthily and strike without warning.

Yet they have no real life of their own, and goo virtually unnoticed until they find a suitable host. Computer viruses- tiny bits of programming code capable of destroying vast amounts of stored data- bear an uncannily close relationship to their biological namesake. And like natural viruses are constantly changing, making them more and more difficult to detect. It is estimated that two or three new varieties are written each day. Most experts believe that a virus is created by an immature, disenchanted computer whiz, frequently called a “cracker”.

The effects may be benign: on variation of the famous “Stoned” virus merely displays a message calling for the legalization of marijuana. Other iruses, however, can scramble files to create a frenzy of duplication that may cause a computer’s microchips to fail. The rapid increase in computer networks, with their millions of user exchanging vast amounts of information, has only made things worse. With word-processing macros embedded in text, opening e-mail can now unleash a virus in a network or a hard disk. Web browsers can also download running code, some of it possibly malign.

Distributing objects over global networks without a good way to authenticate them leads to similar risks. Crackers have also succeeded in tainting software sold by brand-name anufacturers. A clutch of companies offer antiviral programs, capable of detecting viruses before they have the chance to spread. Such programs find the majority of viruses but virus detection is likely to remain a serious problem because of the ingenuity of crackers. One new type of virus, known as polymorphic, evades discovery by changing slightly each time it replicates itself.

Another extremely important issue about they Internet is child pornography. Computer technology is providing child molesters and child pornographers with powerful new tools for victimizing children. The result is an explosive growth n the production and distribution of illegal child pornography, as well as new forms of child predation. Research carried out at Stockholm University identified 5651 postings of child pornography in four discussion groups. Children around the world are being sexually assaulted, molested and exploited by people who also misuse computers and related technology.

The abuse is being photographed and distributed to an international marketplace of child pornography consumers via the Internet. That marketplace- along with related Internet sites that encourage child sexual abuse- is leading to new assaults against children. No longer are schools, public libraries and homes safe harbors from sexual pedophiles- people whose sexual fantasies focus on girls or boys- from around the world. In the past photographs of children being raped, sexually abused and exploited were sold at high prices through tightknit, difficult-to-access networks.

Today, those illegal pictures are available for free online, at any hour of the day. Anyone with rudimentary computer skills and an interest in the material can obtain it. Computer networks can also allow pedophiles to identify and contact potential victims without revealing their identities. Often, adult predators pretend to be children until they have gained their victims’ confidence. Federal law defines child pornography as photographs or video that depict people under the age of 18 involved in sexually explicit conduct- such as sexual intercourse, bestiality, masturbation and sadistic or masochistic abuse.

Also prohibited are pictures involving children that include a “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or public area”. The Government has introduced a number of measures to deal with pornography and obscene material, including the use on computers. The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1998 increased the maximum sentence for possession of indecent photographs of children up to 5 years in prison, a $250. 000 fine, or both. People convicted of distributing child pornography face up to 15 years in prison or/and a $300. 000 fine.

It also gave the police the power to arrest without warrant people suspected of obscenity and certain child pornography offences and greater powers to search and seize obscene material and child pornography. It also closed a potential legal loophole by extending the law to cover simulated child pornography manufactured and stored on computers. In Singapore authorities announced plans to establish a “neighborhood police post” on the Internet to monitor and receive complaints of criminal activity- including the distribution of child pornography.

And in the United States there has been introduced a bill- vocally opposed by civil liberties organizations and computer-user groups- that would outlaw the electronic distribution of words and images that are “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy or indecent. ” However, Federal agencies lack the manpower to cope with all the criminal activity taking place online. Few local law enforcement officers are trained in omputer technology. Moreover, Internet providers generally fail to educate their customers about ways to protect children from sexual predators.

Few schools or libraries offer real safety training programs for children online. Many parents have no idea what threats exist or even how the technologies in question work. Last but not least is the report to our privacy when online. These days, the most skilful manipulators of new information and communications technology to build up files on individuals are private companies collecting personal data on tens of millions of people. Simon Davies, the British head of Privacy International, a human rights watchdog group, says that every citizen of an industrialized country appears today in about 200 different data bases.

Such mines of information are centralized, sifted through and correlated to produce very detailed profiles of consumers. The files are then resold to all kinds of firms, which use them to sharpen their marketing strategies, assess the economic reliability of customers and adjust to specific commercial demands. The Internet is an ideal tool for this meticulous task of categorizing the population. It is an extraordinary source of data as well as a practical way to handle such nformation and circulate it.

To make matters worse, the Internet is a world of invisible tracks. You get the impression when you surf the Web that you leave no traces behind you. The truth is rather different. Some sites place spying devices, or “cookies”, on your computer’s hard drive the moment you log to them, so they can tell which pages of the site you have looked at, when you looked and for how long. A survey last year by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) showed that a quarter of the 100 most popular sites on the Web use cookies to obtain profiles of their users.

When you next visit them, they can resent you with advertising tailored to your interests, or even send you without your knowledge programs like Java Applets, which can reconfigure a site according to each visitor’s tastes. Arguments persist that the erosion of privacy is not such a big deal; the economic benefits of information availability and mobility, it is said outweigh limitations on our personal privacy. Is privacy an ethical nicety, an expendable luxury, then, or is it a basic natural right that needs legal protection?

Some philosophers and legal scholars have argued that privacy is an intrinsic good, implying that the right to privacy is fundamental and irreducible. Others contend that privacy is more of an instrumental good. Hence the right to privacy is derived from other rights such as property, bodily security and freedom. While both approaches have validity, the latter seems more compelling. It is especially persuasive when applied to those rights involving our liberty and personal autonomy.

A primary moral foundation for the value of privacy is its role as a condition of freedom: A shield of privacy is absolutely essential if one is freely to pursue his or her projects or cultivate intimate social relationships Under the directive, that came into effect on 25 October 1998, the processing f data about ethnic origins, political opinions, religious and philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, health and sex life, is prohibited except where there are special exemptions or derogations.

Moreover, in each of the European Union’s fifteen Member State, a special authority is to protect individual’s rights and freedoms with regard to the processing of personal data. It is to guarantee citizens the right to be informed, to have access to data concerning them and the right to correct it, and to erase data whose processing does not comply with the provisions of the directive. Article 25 states the principle hat the transfer of personal data to third countries may only take place if the receiving countries offer a level of protection that is “adequate” within the meaning of EU legislation.

In a globalized economy where information about consumers is the new gold mine, the stakes are huge, involving no more and no less than the future of all banking and trade transactions, especially electronic. The United States has already gone on the offensive by accusing Europe of using privacy protection laws to erect barriers around the valuable European market of 370 million people. President Bill Clinton’s Internet policy adviser Ira Magaziner has even hreatened to go to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about it.

At the same time he insists that the US is just as concerned to protect the privacy of its citizens as European governments are. And all studies show that Internet commerce can not succeed unless consumers can count on information about themselves being kept confidential. There are currently about 250 bills relating to the Internet pending in Congress. Many of those deal specifically within privacy. However, only very few of these have become a law. That is largely because the Clinton administration and Congress have taken a largely wait-and-see approach to this conflict.

Most lawmakers feel the Internet develops too quickly for static laws to work effectively. Instead, politicians from Vice President Al Gore down are encouraging the Internet industry to regulate itself, while suggesting that their patience is not inexhaustible. It will be very difficult to regulate the Internet because it is global and decentralized, and it is very hard to identify Internet users. The key is developing something that is enforceable. Good intentions are one thing, but in the self-regulatory environment, if somebody is hurt by the misuse of personal information, who pays?

Who provides a remedy to that harmed individual? Nobody does! Privacy is a tough area for personal injury lawyers because it is difficult under our tort law to prove that somebody has been harmed. It is very hard to prove damage to reputation of intentional infliction of emotional distress in cases involving disclosure of personal information. Many individuals and organizations are now relying more heavily on digital networks as they routinely communicate by e-mail, post messages to electronic bulletin boards on the Internet and visit Web sites.

But in the process they become more exposed and vulnerable to those seeking to collect and sell their personal data. When users visit Web sites they often fill out detailed personal profiles that become grist for marketing lists sold to third parties. Digital networks have also made consumer information even more widely and easily available the use of these networks greatly expands the capability of checking up on someone’s personal background or receiving an electronic list of prospective customers quickly and inexpensively. Indeed we are moving perilously close to the reality of immediate online personal data.

More disturbing than the loss of our privacy as consumers is the loss of privacy about our financial affairs. Once again government data banks have sually provided the building blocks for these records. Certain financial information that was always in the public domain, such as real estate and bankruptcy records, is now treated as a basic commodity. Data brokers such as Information America, Inc. allow their subscribers quick online access to the county and court records for many states. Their vast databases contain business records, bankruptcy records, lawsuit information and property records, including liens and judgement.

By computerizing these real estate records, liens, incorporations, licenses and so on, they become more than public documents. They re now on-line commodities, more easily accessed and distributed than their physical counterparts. In addition, this data can be recombined with other personal and financial background. The most recent assault on privacy has developed in the health care industry, in which patient records have also become commodities for sale. These records, containing highly sensitive and revealing information, are being collected and stored in databases maintained by hospitals.

Thus, medical privacy seems destined to be another victim of our evolving information technologies. By putting so much medical data online without proper safeguards the Government, he Health Care Industry and the Information Industry are clearly undermining the foundation to the confidential doctor-patient relationship. It seems quite evident that our right to informational privacy- the right to control the disclosure of and access to one’s personal information- has been sacrificed for the sake of economic efficiency and other social objectives.

As our personal information becomes tangled in the Web of information technology, our control over how that data will be utilized and distributed is notably diminished. Our personal background and purchases are tracked by many companies hat consider us prospects for their products or services; our financial profile and credit history is available to a plethora of “legitimate” users, and our medical records are more widely accessible than ever before. The Net effect is that each of us can become an open book to anyone who wants to take the time to investigate our background.

Another adverse consequence of all these is that we can be more easily targeted and singled out either as individuals or as members of certain groups. Data based technology makes it easy to find and exploit certain groups based on age, income level, place of residence, or purchasing habits. At the same time online data banks now make it especially simple to pinpoint individuals electronically. If public polity makers do become convinced that privacy is worth preserving, what should be done? Are there any viable solutions?

Further complicating the issue, of course, are legitimate economic considerations. Privacy can not be accomplished without incurring some costs. And we can not ignore the economic benefit of acquiring and distributing information and using data as a commercial tool to target the right customers. If the information flow about consumers is overly constrained, a substantial negative economic impact can not be iscounted. In addition, there must be stricter controls for an especially sensitive information such as medical data.

If a centralized national database becomes a reality, it will be necessary to achieve a broad public consensus on the definition of the health care trustees who should have access to that data. In summary, then, if informed consent is made mandatory for the reuse of consumer data and there are stricter safeguards for more critical information such as medical data, we can begin to make some progress in protecting privacy rights. But unless we should come to terms with this problem the boundaries between what is pu

So you believe Al Gore created the Internet? Well thats not possible, because I did. Yes, its true, a few years ago I was sitting in my basement with nothing to do and suddenly the idea came to me: why not create an inter-connected network of networks that will allow users to send mail instantly, download copyrighted songs, and order pizza, all from the comfort of their own living room? OK, so maybe I didnt exactly invent the Internet, but neither did Al Gore. So who was the genius behind the information superhighway, you ask?

Well lets take a step back to the sixties, a decade when Cold War tension caused nationwide fear of nuclear warfare. Early in the decade, two groups of researchers, privately owned RAND Corporation (Americas leading nuclear war think-tank) and federal agency ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), grappled with a bizarre strategic mystery: in the event of nuclear war, how could political and military officials communicate successfully? It was obvious that a network, linking cities and military bases, would be necessary.

But the advent of the atomic bomb made switches, wiring, and command posts for this network highly vulnerable. A nuclear-safe network would need to operate with missing links and without central authority. In 1964, RAND Corporations Paul Barran made public his solution to the problem. Essentially, the concept was simple. Barrans network would be assumed to be unreliable at all times. Information would be broken into many small pieces called packets and then sent to various points, or nodes, in the network until they reached their destination.

ARPA embraced Barrans idea for three reasons. First, if nuclear bombs blew away large components of the network, data would still reach its destination. Second, it would be relatively secure from espionage, since spies tapping into parts of the network would be able to intercept only portions of transmissions. Lastly, it would be much more efficient because files and transmissions couldnt clog portions of the network. Only five years after Barran proposed his version of a computer network, ARPANET went online.

Named after its federal sponsor, ARPANET initially linked four high-speed supercomputers and was intended to allow scientists and researchers to share computing facilities by long-distance. By 1971, ARPANET had grown to fifteen nodes, and by 1972, thirty-seven. ARPAs original standard for communication was known as Network Control Protocol or NCP. As time passed, however, NCP grew obsolete and was replaced by a new, higher-level standard known as TCP-IP, which is still in use today.

TCP, or Transmission Control Protocol, is responsible for converting messages into streams of packets at the source of the transmission and then assembling the streams at the final destination. IP, or Internet Protocol ensured that packets were routed across multiple nodes and networks, even those using the original NCP standard. The Internet, as it came to be called, spread like wildfire. Since software for TCP-IP was available to the public and the technology for networking was decentralized by its very nature, nodes and networks easily joined in.

Each node covered its own expenses, and thus there was no disapproval for expansion. Like the telephone, the Internet was relatively useless without universal participation. In 1989, ARPANET was completely eliminated in favor of TCP-IP, which already contained over 300,000 nodes. Practical applications for the Internet popped up everywhere. Graduate students at North Carolina and Duke invented an electronic bulletin board called Usenet and researchers at the University of Minnesota developed a primitive search engine called Gopher.

In 1991, the foundation for the modern Internet was built when Swiss Internet user Tim Berners-Lee released his system of Internet hypertext. Prior to hypertext, Internet use was limited to nerds who knew the commands needed to communicate through the text based network. Hypertext allowed users to link words, pictures, and files with mouse clicks. It wasnt long before University of Illinois student Marc Andressen and fellow computer programmers invented the first Web browser called Mosaic. The introduction of Web browsers spawned a new era of communication and, in response to the 1993 release of Mosaic, Internet use grew 341,634%.

You may have noticed that Al Gores name was never mentioned in this brief history of the Internet. While Gore did in fact help secure government funding for a related project in the 1980s, he did not invent the Internet. In fact, there is no specific creator of the Internet, nor is there a date when the Internet came into being. It evolved over thirty years from the governments way of post-nuclear war communication to todays Information Superhighway. The number of hosts now far exceeds ten million, and hundreds of millions of users from over 150 countries are connected.

WAP stands for Wireless Application Protocol. The idea has been developed by some of the wireless telecommunications giants such as Nokia and Ericsson. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) uses the Internet as a gateway for the transmission of the protocol. WAP has brought the Internet and the sub-services that it provides right into our lives as we are on the move. WAP brings us information right to the screen of our mobile phone. WAP offers the possibility to call specific WAP pages directly from the Internet; these WAP pages can be seen in a display, but their presentation is reduced and without illustrations and charts.

The possibilities of WAP are nearly endless: Entertainment – sending messages – calling sport results, stock exchange quotations, arrivals and departures of airplanes and trains – (nearly) everything is possible. Especially in business WAP seems to be the \”star performer\” as to corporate communication solutions. Trends in WAP Customers willing to make use of these new possibilities need a WAP phone. This is a GSM mobile phone with incorporated modem and WAP browser. The data is transmitted with the usual transmission rate of 9. Bit/s.

As to the consumers’ interest in WAP there are still controversies. Mobile phones recorded in the UK very high sales rates during the 2nd quarter of 2000, however the sales rates of WAP phones were not that good. At the end of May 2000 there were worldwide more than 150,000 WAP pages and the offer of WAP pages continues to increase with explosive growth rates. (Forrester Research, 2000) International analysts predict that the demand for appropriate equipment will increase rapidly in the coming few months.

After the online boom in 1990’s WAP will be the next growth industry of the twenty-first century. The conditions seem to be ideal: The consumers’ interest in online services and e-commerce does not stop to show an upward trend. For the time being there are worldwide several millions of persons using mobile phones, their number is still growing. WAP is based on GSM technology, the worldwide most used mobile phone system that has turned out to be the standard on all continents.

Only in the USA there are more systems competing with GSM). Forrester Research believes in their study that in 2002 worldwide more than 100 million persons will use WAP phones. A forecast of the producer Ericsson confirms this trend, too: in 2001 nearly 50% the persons using mobile phones are expected to take advantage of WAP. For a study conducted by NOP Research Group among Internet users in Great Britain, France and Germany, 9%, 22% and 11% respectively declared to have the intention to buy a WAP phone during the next 12 months.

A direct connection between the intention to use both WAP services and Internet is already existing: in the 3 countries, only 8% in total of the interviewed persons declaring themselves to be an \”Internet beginner\” were interested in buying a WAP phone while 28% of the \”Internet experts\” confirmed their intention to buy a WAP phone. Kaufcom (Wapitout) in Switzerland until the end of May 200. 000 WAP phones were sold. At that time in Switzerland more than 40. 0 persons made a daily use of WAP – almost one out of five persons in possession of a WAP phone went online! The pioneers regarding Internet surfing are the Japanese.

When Europe started the first WAP tests, Japan saw a real boom of mobile data services. This boom started with \”i-mode\”, a service offered by the worldwide largest mobile telephony provider NTT DoCoMoInc, that used a protocol similar to the WAP technology. Despite additional costs of approx. 35 ATS per month this service recorded 18 months after its start more than 3 million users.

Recently, Merriam-Webster announced that, based on “online lookups,” the number one word of the year was “blogs” (Morse, Page 1). Their definition of a blog is “a web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer” (Morse, Page1). This definition is inaccurate based on my research, as blogs are not always “personal” and can include more than one author. Throughout my research, many bloggers in the blogoshere have referred to websites as blogs that discuss business only, business and personal details, and more than mere “reflections” of a personal nature.

As blogs become more popular and affect different forms of communication with a higher degree of magnitude, I am confident that the definition of blogs will morph closer to my definition of blogs (short for weblog, a web site that contains an online journal including, but not limited to, reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer(s)) than the Merriam-Webster definition. This paper will discuss blogs (what they are), bloggers (who they are), blogging (should you do it and is it profitable), and the impact of blogs on media.

I will start by talking about how blogs started, and who some bloggers are. Next, I will discuss the amount of revenue that can be made, and how that revenue is made, from starting a blog. Finally, I will show the impact blogs have had on the mainstream media, specifically, the most recent Presidential Election. The culture of the internet has created a subculture of bloggers that, as evidenced by the number of persons looking to find a definition of the word (however inaccurate the definition may be), is growing in popularity and is therefore a prescient topic for persons to be informed about.

Blogging started, albeit without a proper name and with an even more vague definition, as soon as the internet was invented. Just as writing a journal started with the first writers thousands of years ago, blogs arose at the same time as the medium of the internet was born. This created some new challenges to the conventional writer. According to The Handbook of Digital Publishing, the greatest strength of publishing online material is “displaying the interrelated nature of information connected with hyperlinks” (Kleper, Page 197). The use of hyperlinks is extensive in blogs, confirming Kleper’s thesis.

The value of hyperlinks are determined by the author of the blog and how they choose to use their hyperlinks. Mostly, I have found hyperlinks used as a reference to, and compliment of, the idea the blogger is trying to impress upon the reader. For instance, if I’m writing a blog about Winston Churchill, I can create a hyperlink to an encyclopedia entry online describing Mr. Churchill, which will let the reader of my blog know who I am talking about and give an impression of what context I reference Mr. Churchill.

I don’t have to provide a biography of Mr. Churchill in the blog, and waste the time of those who know of him already, but others that don’t know of Mr. Churchill (should learn! ) can click on the link and more fully understand what I am writing about. This is a valuable tool for the writer if used correctly. Writing with hyperlinks is different from traditional serial prose writing, but not excessively different. The main difference between traditional writing and writing for a blog is that a blog is a cumulative piece of writing that needs to be continuously updated and revised (Kleper, Page 194).

Once you write an article in print, that article is done. Blogs need to be written and added to over and over, especially considering “the prospect of finding timely information with each site visit is among the strongest incentives for repeat visits” (Kleper, Page 194) Keep in mind however, that although repeated revision and an eye-catching web page are preferred over bland pages, observations suggest that after the first visit, the usefulness of the site is what ultimately motivates the user to return (Kleper, Page 196).

You can have a blog about paint drying, update it very often and work hard describing the process in great detail, but it is unlikely to become widely read. Some popular bloggers today include Hugh Hewitt (www. hughhewitt. com), Josh Michael Marshal (www. talkingpointsmemo. com), and Glenn Reynolds (www. instapundit. com). Although I’ve chosen political bloggers to comment on here, be advised that blogging can be done by anyone with internet access about any topic. In fact, there is even a blog dedicated solely to shaving, www. shavingstuff. m (Brewer, Page 1).

The rise of in the number of blogs is a testimonial to how many different topics are covered. In January of 2002, there were about 100,000 websites dedicated solely to blogging (Gard, Page 1). Today, there are over 6 million blogs (Gard, Page 1). The vast majority of bloggers are under 30, and most bloggers are under 19 (McGann, Page 1). These demographics indicate that blogging is on the rise, and many wonder if it can be a legitimate source of income. Like most things, the answer to that depends on several factors.

Time, talent, and the level of effort put into the blog most likely will determine the success the writer achieves, measured in how many readers and consequently how much income is possible. Blogging is a sole-proprietorship classification of business in an industry that follows the characteristics of monopolistic competition, namely easy entry into the industry (few barriers) and unique content among competitors (Case and Fair, Page 281). Starting a blog takes little more than an internet connection, computer, and a small monthly fee.

Because anyone can create a blog, there are many blogs around. This means the content of each blog must be unique and interesting in order to succeed commercially. Bloggers can earn income three different ways, and, considering that the “monetization of the internet will increase 30% over the next years,” it might be profitable to learn how bloggers earn revenue (Meeker, Page 1). First, bloggers can find advertisers to provide different companies that promote their products or services on the blog page (Rowse, Page 1) This is typical on many websites that exist today.

Banner ads, ads before being transfered to the desired page (precommercials), and pop-up ads are all forms of advertising. As a sole-proprietor, the major difficulty you face is finding advertisers that want to promote their products on your site. This is where a company like Blogads comes in handy. Blogads will look at the quality of your site and number of visitors and then find companies to advertise their product on your website for you (Rowse, Page 1). The more visitors you have, the more you get paid for each advertisement.

In some cases, advertisers pay a small commission to the owner of a website that redirects a customer to their site. For example, anytime you click on a textlink and get transferred to Amazon. com, if you purchase the product that linked you to Amazon, the owner of the website that transferred you to Amazon gets a commission, based on the amount you spent (Rowse, Page 1). Another way to earn income from blogging is by starting a niche blog that members are willing to pay to see the content of (Rowse, Page 1).

One of the most amazing stories I found in researching this paper was that of OhMyNews. m. According to Spencer Ante of Business Week Magazine, OhMyNews. com earns money through members of the site paying for the content of it and “the barely profitable site has been widely credited with helping elect the country’s new President, Roh Moo Hyun” (Ante, Page 1). OhMyNews. com has individuals go out and blog different stories, then directs readers to the stories editors like the most. Many readers found out about former small time attorney Roh Moo Hyen through OhMyNews. com, and propelled him to the presidency through their support.

Businesses that are constantly changing, like many technical industries, can also have members that will pay for constantly updated content. Techdirt. com is a blog that charges each member a monthly fee and allows access of up to the minute information about online publishing (Rowse, Page 1). Many blogs have followed this model, usually for niche markets that wouldn’t appeal to laypersons not in a specific industry. There is great debate among bloggers whether free information is the goal and ultimate aspiration of blogging; or, the opposite view of profit through membership fees, is the future and best way to proceed.

As of now, most blogs are free to read and no membership is required. Only time will tell whether pay-for-view blogging will become the norm or not. The third and final way to earn income from blogging is the easiest: ask your readers for donations. Many blogs have a “tip jar” that allows readers to contribute to the blog at the readers discretion (Rowse, Page 1). Much like PBS, some blogs can make a nice profit by simply asking for money. Andrew Sullivan, of www. andrewsullivan. com, makes “$6000 per month off of donations” (Bushell, Page 1).

In order to make any significant sum of money through donations, you would need a lot of readers, a few wealthy readers who like your site a lot, or a really good story that makes people pity you and decide to help you out. Indeed, although not reliable enough to source, there are internet rumors of people running up credit card debt and begging others to help them, with some degree of success being reported. This is probably not the best way to earn a living, but as a way to keep a blog going, it certainly can’t hurt. Making a living off of a blog is difficult right now, mainly because of the high level of competition.

Many professional bloggers are former, or current, journalists with many industry contacts and years of experience. Since political blogs, basically online editorials, are currently the most profitable blogs, without gravitas it would be hard to make any money blogging. An example of how to gain credibility and therefore readers which leads to revenue couldn’t be more canonical than the story of www. powerlineblog. com.

Certainly creating more than just a “personal journal of reflection” as the folks at Merriam-Webster would have you believe, the founders of Powerlineblog. m (Paul Mirengoff, Scott Johnson, and John Hinderacker) were a group of successful attornies who decided to write a nonpersonal blog about political issues, mainly from a Midwestern perspective (they live in Minnesota). Being conservative, they were one of the first groups to notice problems with Dan Rather’s story about George W. Bush and his National Guard record. The Powerline crew got together experts that roundly criticized the “scoop” that Rather claimed he got, and eventually had so much evidence (they are all attornies) they demanded CBS recant the story.

CBS, Dan Rather in particular, would not recant the story. Much like the figure Rather treated worse than Saddam Hussein, Richard Nixon, Rather refused to admit his mistake until guilt was no longer deniable. The “scoop” was based on documents received from a known (and vocal) Bush-hater.. The documents were so obviously fake that experts from CBS would not authenticate them before the story aired. The fake documents were identified as fraudulent within hours of airing once the men from Powerline got on the case, yet Rather arrogantly took over a full week to admit his error.

The three small-time attorney’s from Minnesota were instrumental in forcing Rather to admit his mistake, possibly causing his early resignation. Without the power of the internet and the Powerline blog, this scenario would have unfolded much differently, although no one can be sure how. In closing, I have defined (more accurately than Merriam-Webster) what a blog is. The possibility of creating a blog is open to everyone and I would highly encourage it, but if one lesson can be learned from this paper it is this: blogging for profit is very tough.

Much like other areas of life, don’t blog for money but blog because you enjoy it. With several different ways to earn revenue, you might be able to make a little extra cash, but it would be a very tough way to make a living. As blogging matures and technology advances, there are limitless possibilities for weblogs. Being familiar with the form and concept of blogs can only be an asset for most people. Suggested areas of further research include finding advertising for your blog by attending trade shows and advertising your blog (on industry related sites).

Also, methods of forming links with similar minded blogs can be a worthy enterprise resulting in increased site visits. Further information regarding people other than Dan Rather who have felt the sting of bloggers can be found with research of Trent Lott and Howard Dean. As A. J. Leibling once said, “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” (Simpson, Page 82). With the power of a blog, everyone now can own their own version of Leibling’s press, and the power of that concept is freedom at its highest form.

A common thread through all techniques discussed is the need for data. Fortunately, a natural byproduct of users accessing WWW pages is a dataset that contains the sequence of URLs they visited, how long they viewed them, and at what time. This dataset is called the click stream. To maximize its potential, managers can merge the click stream with demographic and purchase information. Three potential sources exist for collecting click stream data: (1) The host server (the computer of the site being visited) keeps a record of visits, usually called a server log.

As a user requests a page, the server records identifying information (IP address, previous URL visited, and browser type) in the server log. (2) A third party can capture information about web requests. For example, if a user contacts an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or Commercial On-line Service (COS), such as AOL, it can record any requests the user makes as it relays them to the requested server. Because many ISPs and COS’s cache their users’ requested pages, they do not pass all requests on to the server; instead, they serve many pages from local cache archives to speed up responses to user requests.

Unfortunately, this means that server logs contain only a subset of the viewings that occur. Dreze and Zufryden [1998] discuss some of the challenges of using server log data to measure advertising effectiveness. (3) A final-and perhaps the most reliable-source of click stream data is a program installed on the computer where the browser program is running that can “watch” the user and re-cord the URLs of each page viewed in the browser window as well as other application programs that the user is running.

It records the actual pages viewed, and thus avoids the problem of cached requests. Such a program can also record how long windows are active. The drawback is that the analyst must choose the individuals and obtain their consent to participate in such a panel. Generally web users are randomly sampled to construct a representative sample. The information from this sample can be projected to the national population using statistical inference. The largest provider of such information is Media Metrix [Coffey 1999].

The click stream of an actual user session as collected by Media Metrix shows that the user frequently views the same page repeatedly and sometimes pauses to do other tasks between page views (for example run other applications or watch television). Only five of the 12 viewings the user requested could generate a “hit” to the server. This illustrates the advantage of collecting data at a user’s machine and not from a host site since it includes all requests, eliminating a potential source of bias. Information about where and how frequently users access web sites is used for various tasks.

Marketers use such information to target banner ads. For example, users who often visit business sites may receive targeted banner ads for financial services even while browsing at no business sites. Web managers may use this information to understand consumer behavior at their site. Additionally, it can be used to compare competing web sites. Members of the financial community use such information to value dot com companies. Analysts use click stream information to track trends in a particular site or within a general community.

Financial analysts find this type of intelligence useful for assessing the values of companies because many traditional accounting and finance measures can be poor predictors of firms’ values. Another use of click stream data is to profile visitors to a web site. Identifying characteristics about visitors to a site is an important precept of personalization. One way to find out characteristics of visitors is to ask them to fill out a survey. However, not everyone is willing to fill them out, creating what is known in marketing research as a self-selection bias.

The information may be inaccurate as well, for example visitors may give invalid mailing addresses to protect their privacy or inaccurately report incomes to inflate their egos. Also, completing a survey takes time, and the effort required may severely skew the type of individuals that complete it and the results. An alternative way to profile users is with click stream data. The demographic profiles of sites reported by companies like Media Metrix can be used to determine what type of individuals visit a site. For example, Media Metrix reports that 66 percent of visitors to ivillage. m are female.

Even without knowing anything about a user except that they visit ivillage. com, the odds are two to one that a visitor is female. This is quite reasonable because ivillage. com offers content geared toward issues of primary concern to women. Some gaming sites appeal primarily to teenage boys, and sports sites may draw predominately adult men. On the other hand, such portals as Yahoo! and Excite draw audiences that are fairly representative of the web as a whole. Media Metrix can identify demographic characteristics of visitors using information provided to them by panelists.

However, simply a knowledge of the web sites visited by a user and profiles of these web sites (that is, the demographic characteristics of a sample of users) is enough to make a good prediction about a visitor’s demographics. For example, suppose we wish to predict whether a user is a woman. In general, about 45 percent of web users are female. Therefore without knowing what sites a person visited one would guess that there is a 45 percent probability of being female and a 55 percent probability of being male.

If forced to choose, one would guess the user to be male, but this would be an inaccurate guess since the odds are almost equal. However, if one knows that this individual visited ivillage. com, whose visitors are 66 percent women, the hypothesis that this user is female can be improved. This is a Bayesian hypothesis updating problem, and an analyst could apply Bayes formula to recompute the probability that the user was female using this new information: The original probability of being female is denoted by p_=.45, and the new information we have is p=.66. The updated probability or posterior probability of our hypothesis is denoted by p_=.62.

In other words, the probability this is a female user has increased from 45 percent to 62 percent. While most of the web sites visited by this individual indicate the user is most likely a female, some of the sites (aol. com, eplay. com, halcyon. com, lycos. com, and netradio. net) visited might point to the individual being male. However, based on information from all 22 sites the probability that the user is female is 99. 97 percent.

To assess the accuracy of this technique I applied it to actual usage information from a sample of 19,000 representative web users with one month of usage and known gender. There is a great deal of variation in users in this sample, such as some users visit only one site, while others may visit hundreds. If the model predicts more than an 80 percent probability that the user is male then the user is predicted to be male. Similar predictions are made for female users. There was enough information to classify 60 percent of users as either male or female. percent of users classified as male are male, and 96 percent of users classified as female are female.

The agreement between the predictions and actual accuracy validates the accuracy of these techniques. More advanced techniques that appropriately account for statistical dependence between web site visits can increase the accuracy of these predictions. In this example, all of the web sites visited by a user were known, but this is not typical. However, many web advertising agencies, such as Double-Click and Fly-cast, have such information for their advertising partners since they serve all their partners’ banner ads.

These partners give them wide coverage of the web. User profiling techniques allows them to accurately predict characteristics of their users without ever having to ask a user to fill out a survey. Predicting the genders of an individual seems innocuous, but the same techniques can be applied to other more sensitive demographic variables, such as income (for example, does a user make more than $75,000). Just as there are sites that provide valuable information about gender, there are sites that provide information about income (for example, millionaire. m, wsj. com, businessweek. com).

While this example illustrates that these techniques can be used successfully, questions about privacy need to also be considered before using these techniques in practice. The collection, processing, and use of click stream data is not cost free, as some would claim. A major portal can collect 30 to 50 gigabytes of information from web accesses each day in a server log. Even a small site will generate several megabytes. To analyze these large datasets, managers need data mining and statistical techniques.

These techniques generally require skill and their inaccurate applications can result in poor or misleading predictions about visitors and what they want to see. If, for example, a visitor is wrongly classified as male, the visitor could be shown messages that would not appeal to a female user or even worse cause her to leave the site and never return. Therefore, to apply these techniques appropriately, one should take into account the value of personalization and the costs of misclassifying a visitor.

Netscape’s Client Side State definition:Cookies are a general mechanism which server side connections (such as CGI scripts) can use to both store and retrieve information on the client side of the connection. The addition of a simple, persistent, client-side state significantly extends the capabilities of Web-based client/server applications. Kington, Andy, Andys HTTP Cookie Notes, Available from http://www. illuminatus. com/cookie_pages/ [modified 6 June 1997, cited 14 March, 1999] In English, this means that webservers can create web pages that will customize from user to user.

By saving these preferences on your computer, the web page can reload appearing to your chosen options. This is accomplished by retrieving the cookie, through your browser, when you access the web page. The problem with privacy begins with the cookie revealing personal information that you do not wish to be available. Your browser is probably revealing more than you might want: which computer you are coming from, what software and hardware you are using, details of the link you clicked on, and possibly even your email address.

Junkbusters, How Web Servers’ Cookies Threaten Your Privacy, [Online], Available from http://www. junkbusters. com/ht/en/cookies. html, [written 11 December, 1998, cited 14 March, 1999] By receiving this information, the webservers could sell it as part of an advertising database resulting in both electronic and paper junk mail. Legislative action has been enacted to curtail the illegal use of personal information. “The WWW offers a wide variety of communication, information and interaction. Cookies provide for necessary customization. But the Internet is not outside the law.

Existing regulations, targeted at protecting personal information, limit the use and application of cookies. Current cookie usage violates such norms. Content providers continuing to use cookies that violate these regulations and browser producers unwilling or incapable of bringing their products into accordance with these laws both risk legal liability. It should be their concern to avoid legal action; and it should be our concern to safeguard our privacy. ”

Mayer-Schoenberger, Viktor, “The Internet and Privacy Legislation: Cookies for a Treat? West Virginia Journal of Law and Technology, [journal online], Available from http://www. wvjolt. wvu. edu/wvjolt/current/issue1/articles/mayer/mayer. htm, [cited 14 March, 1999] Another possibility of potential privacy violation is cookies retrieving information from other locations on your hard drive. The safety of personal information stored on the user’s hard drive has also been of concern in the cookie debate. Concerns have been raised about the possibility of cookies being written that would allow access to other information that the user has stored.Pitt, Andrew, Internet Privacy: The Cookie Controversy, [online], Available from http://www. cookiecentral. com/ccstory/cc3. htm, [cited 14 March, 1999]

I feel that the best way to minimize your risk is to be careful with allowing sites to place cookies in your system. This can easily be accomplished by changing your internet settings to allow manual confirmation of each cookie. You can prevent any cookies from being sent to your system using the browser options

. In Internet Explorer 4. choose the View, Internet Options command, click the Advanced tab and click the Disable All Cookie Use option. In Netscape 4. 0, choose the Edit, Options command, click on Advanced and click the Disable Cookies option. After that, no cookies will be stored on your system. You will need to turn cookies back on if you want to use any online services that require them. You can also choose the option to prompt you before accepting a cookie, but at many sites you will be continually closing the warning dialog box.

Some thirty years ago , the Rand corporation , America’s formost cold war think tank, faced a strange straegic problem. How could the US authrieties succesfully communicate after a nuclear war? Postnuclear America would need a comand-and-control network, linked from city to city , state to state, base to base . But no matter how throughly that network was armored or protected , its switches and wiring would always be vulnerable to the impact of atomic bombs. A nuclear attack would reduce any conceivable network to tatters.

And how would the network itself be commanded nd controlled ? Any central authority, any network central citadel, would be an obvious and immediate target for man enemy missle. The center of the network would be the very first place to go. RAND mulled over this grim puzzle in deep military secrecy, and arrived at a daring solution made in 1964. The principles were simple . The network itself would be assumed to be unreliable at all times . It would be designed from the get-go to tyranscend its all times . It would be designed from the get-go to transcend its own unrreliability.

All the nodes from computers in he network would be equal in status to all other nodes , each node with its own authority to originate , pass , and recieve messages. The messages would be divided into packets, each packet seperatly addressed. Each packet would begin at some specified source node , and end at some other specified destination node . Each packet would wind its way through the network on an individual basis. In fall 1969, the first such node was insalled in UCLA. By December 1969, there were 4 nodes on the infant network, which was named arpanet, after its Pentagon sponsor.

The four computers could even be programed remotely from the other nodes. hanks to ARPANET scientists and researchers could share one another’s computer facilities by long -distance . This was a very handy service , for computer- time was precious in the early 70s. In 1971 ther were fifteen nodes in Arpanet; by 1972, thirty-seven nodes. And it was good. As early as 1977, TCP/IP was being used by other networks to link to ARPANET. ARPANET itself remained fairly tightly controlled,at least until 1983,when its military segment broke off and became MILNET.

TCP/IP became more common,entire other networks fell into the digital embrace of the Internet,and messily adhered. Since the software called TCP/IP was public domain and he basic technology was decentralized and rather anarchic by its very nature,it as difficult to stop people from barging in linking up somewhere or other. Nobody wanted to stop them from joining this branching complex of networks, which came tobe known as the “INTERNET”. Connecting to the Internet cost the taxpayer little or nothing, since each node was independent, and had to handle its own financing and its own technical requirements. The more, the merrier.

Like the phone network, the computer network became steadily more valuable as it embraced larger and larger erritories of people and resources. A fax machine is only valuable if everybody eles a fax machine. Until they do, a fax is just a curiosity. ARPANET, too was a curiosity for a while. Then computer networking became an utter necessity. In 1984 the National Science Foundation got into the act,through its office of Advanced Scientific Computing. The new NSFNET set a blisteing pace for technical advancement linking newer, faster, shinier supercomputers, through thicker, faster links,upgraded and expanded,again and again,in l986,l988,l990.

And other government agencies leapt in: NASA, National Institutes of Health, Department of Energy, each of them maintaining a digital satrapy in the INTERNET confederation. The nodes in this growing network-of-networks were divided up into basic varieties. Foreighn computers,and a few American ones chose to be denoted by their geographical locations. The others were grouped by the six basic Internet domains –gov, {government} mil {military}edu{education} these were of course, the pioneers Just think, in l997 the standards for computer networking is now global. In 1971, there were only four nodes in the ARPANET network.

Today there re tens of thousands of nodes in the Internet,scattered over forty two countries and more coming on line every single day. In estimate, as of December,l996 over 50 million people use this network. Probably, the most important scientific instrument of the late twentieth century is the INTERNET. It is spreading faster than celluar phones,faster than fax machines. The INTERNET offers simple freedom. There are no censors,no bosses,etc. There are only technical rules, not social, political,it is a bargain you can talk to anyone anywhere,and it doesnt charge for long distance service. It belongs to everyone and no one.

The most widely used part of the “Net” is the world Wide Web. Internet mail is E mail a lot faster than the US Postal service mail Internet regulars call the US mail the “snailmail” File transfers allow Internet users to access remote machines and retrieve programs or text. Many internet computers allow any person to acess them anonymously to simply copy their public files,free of charge. Entire books can be transferred through direct access in a matter of minutes. Finding a link to the Internet will become easier and cheaper. At the turn of the century, Network literacy will be forcing itself into every individuals life.

The Popularity Of The Internet Has Hrown Immeasurably In The Past Few Years. Along with it the so-called “hacker” community has grown and risen to a level where it’s less of a black market scenario and more of “A Current Affair” scenario. Misconceptions as to what a hacker is and does run rampant in everyone who thinks they understand what the Internet is after using it a few times. In the next few pages I’m going to do my best to prove the true definition of what a hacker is, how global economic electronic warfare ties into it, background on the Internet, along with a plethora of scatological material urely for your reading enjoyment.

I will attempt to use the least technical computer terms I can, but in order to make my point at times I have no choice. There are many misconceptions, as to the definition, of what a hacker truly is, in all my research this is the best definition I’ve found: Pretend your walking down the street, the same street you have always walked down. One day, you see a big wooden or metal box with wires coming out of it sitting on the sidewalk where there had been none. Many people won’t even notice. Others might say, “Oh, a box on the street. “. A few might wonder what it does and then move on.

The hacker, the true hacker, will see the box, stop, examine it, wonder about it, and spend mental time trying to figure it out. Given the proper circumstances, he might come back later to look closely at the wiring, or even be so bold as to open the box. Not maliciously, just out of curiosity. The hacker wants to know how things work. (8) Hackers truly are “America’s Most Valuable Resource,”(4:264) as ex-CIA Robert Steele has said. But if we don’t stop screwing over our own countrymen, we will never be looked at as anything more than common gutter trash.

Hacking computers or the sole purpose of collecting systems like space-age baseball cards is stupid and pointless; and can only lead to a quick trip up the river. Let’s say that everyone was given an opportunity to hack without any worry of prosecution with free access to a safe system to hack from, with the only catch being that you could not hack certain systems. Military, government, financial, commercial and university systems would all still be fair game. Every operating system, every application, every network type all open to your curious minds.

Would this be a good alternative? Could you follow a few simple guidelines for he offer of virtually unlimited hacking with no worry of governmental interference? Where am I going with this? Right now we are at war. You may not realize it, but we all feel the implications of this war, because it’s a war with no allies, and enormous stakes. It’s a war of economics. The very countries that shake our hands over the conference tables of NATO and the United Nations are picking our pockets.

Whether it be the blatant theft of American R&D by Japanese firms, or the clandestine and governmentally-sanctioned bugging of Air France first-class seating, or the cloak-and-dagger hacking of he SWIFT network (1:24) by the German BND’s Project Rahab(1:24), America is getting screwed. Every country on the planet is coming at us. Let’s face it, we are the leaders in everything. Period. Every important discovery in this century has been by an American or by an American company. Certainly other countries have better profited by our discoveries, but nonetheless, we are the world’s think-tank.

So, is it fair that we keep getting shafted by these so-called “allies? “. Is it fair that we sit idly by, like some old hound too lazy to scratch at the ticks sucking out our life’s blood by the gallon? Hell no. Let’s say that an enterprising group of computer hackers decided to strike back. Using equipment bought legally, using network connections obtained and paid for legally, and making sure that all usage was tracked and paid for, this same group began a systematic attack of foreign computers.

Then, upon having gained access, gave any and all information obtained to American corporations and the Federal government. What laws would be broken? Federal Computer Crime Statutes specifically target so-called “Federal Interest Computers. “(6:133) (i. e. : banks, telecommunications, military, etc. Since these attacks would involve foreign systems, those statutes would not apply. If all calls and network connections were promptly paid for, no toll-fraud or other communications related laws would apply.

International law is so muddled that the chances of getting extradited by a country like France for breaking into systems in Paris from Albuquerque is slim at best. Even more slim when factoring in that the information gained was given to the CIA and American corporations. Every hacking case involving international break-ins has been tried and convicted based on other crimes. Although the media may spray headlines like Dutch Hackers Invade Internet” or “German Hackers Raid NASA,” those hackers were tried for breaking into systems within THEIR OWN COUNTRIES… ot somewhere else.

A hacker who uses the handle of 8lgm in England got press for hacking world-wide, but got nailed hacking locally(3). Australia’s Realm Hackers’: Phoenix, Electron & Nom hacked almost exclusively other countries, but use of AT&T calling cards rather than Australian Telecom got them a charge of defrauding the Australian government(3). Dutch hacker RGB got huge press hacking a US military site and creating a “dquayle” account, but got nailed hile hacking a local university(3). The list goes on and on.

I asked several people about the workability of my proposal. Most seemed to concur that it was highly unlikely that anyone would have to fear any action by American law enforcement, or of extradition to foreign soil to face charges there. The most likely form of retribution would be eradication by agents of that government. Well, I’m willing to take that chance, but only after I get further information from as many different sources as I can. I’m not looking for anyone to condone these actions, nor to finance them.

I’m only interested in any possible legal ction that may interfere with my freedom. We must take the offensive, and attack the electronic borders of other countries as vigorously as they attack us, if not more so. This is indeed a war, and America must not lose. There have always been confrontations online. It’s unavoidable on the net, as it is in life, to avoid unpleasantness. However, on the net the behavior is far more pronounced since it effects a much greater response from the limited online environments than it would in the real world.

People behind such behavior in the real world can be dealt with or avoided, but online they cannot. In the real world, annoying people don’t impersonate you in national forums. In the real world, annoying people don’t walk into your room and go through your desk and run through the town showing everyone your private papers or possessions. In the real world, people can’t readily imitate your handwriting or voice and insult your friends and family by letter or telephone. In the real world people don’t rob or vandalize and leave your fingerprints behind. The Internet is not the real world.

All of the above continually happens on the Internet, and there is little anyone can do to stop it. The perpetrators know full well how impervious they are to retribution, since the only people who can put their activities to a complete halt are reluctant to open cases against computer criminals due to the complex nature of the crimes. The Internet still clings to the anarchy of the Arpanet that spawned it, and many people would love for the status quo to remain. However, the actions of a few miscreants will force lasting changes on the net as a whole.

The wanton destruction of sites, the petty forgeries, the needless break-ins and the poor blackmail attempts do not go unnoticed by the authorities. I personally could care less what people do on the net. I know it is fantasy land. I know it exists only in our minds, and should not have any long lasting effect in the real world. Unfortunately, as the net’s presence grows larger and larger, and the world begins to accept it as an entity in and of itself, it will be harder to convince those inexperienced users that the net is not real.

I have always played by certain rules and they have worked well for me in the years I’ve been online. These rules can best be summed up by the following quote, “We are taught to love all our neighbors. Be courteous. Be peaceful. But if someone lays his hands on you, send them to the cemetery. ” The moment someone crosses the line, and interferes with my well-being in any setting (even one that is arguably unreal such as the Internet) I will do whatever necessary to ensure that I can once again go about minding my own business unmolested.

I am not alone in this feeling. There are hundreds of net-loving anarchists who don’t want the extra attention and bad press brought to our little fantasy land by people who never learned how to play well as children. Even these diehard anti-authoritarians are finding themselves caught n a serious quandary: do they do nothing and suffer attacks, or do they make the phone call to Washington and try to get the situation resolved? Many people cannot afford the risk of striking back electronically, as some people may suggest.

Other people do not have the skill set needed to orchestrate an all out electronic assault against an unknown, even if they pay no heed to the legal risk. Even so, should anyone attempt such retribution electronically, the assailant will merely move to a new site and begin anew. People do not like to deal with police. No one LOVES to call up their local law enforcement office and have a nice chat. Almost everyone feels somewhat nervous dealing with these figures knowing that they may just as well decide to turn their focus on you rather than the people causing problems.

Even if you live your life crime-free, there is always that underlying nervousness; even in the real world. However, begin an assault directed against any individual, and I guarantee he or she will overcome such feelings and make the needed phone call. It isn’t the “hacking” per se that will cause anyone’s downfall nor bring about governmental regulation of the net, but the unchecked attitudes and gross disregard for human dignity that runs rampant online. What good can come from any of this? Surely people will regain the freedom to go about their business, but what of the added governmental attentions?

Electronic Anti-Stalking Laws? Electronic Trespass? Electronic Forgery? False Electronic Identification? Electronic Shoplifting? Electronic Burglary? Electronic Assault? Electronic Loitering? Illegal Packet Sniffing equated as Illegal Wiretaps? (7:69) The potential for new legislation is immense. As the networks further permeate our real lives, the continual unacceptable behavior and following public outcry in that setting will force the ruling bodies to draft such laws. And who will enforce these laws? And who will watch the watchmen?

Often times these issues are left to resolve themselves after the laws have passed. Is this the future we want? One of increased legislation and governmental regulation? With the development of the supposed National Information Super- Highway, the tools will be in place for a new body to continually monitor traffic for suspect activity and uphold any newly passed legislation. Do not think that the ruling forces have not considered that potential. The Information Age has arrived and most people don’t recognize the serious nature behind it.

Computers and the related technology can either be the answer to the human races problems or a cause for the demise of the race. Right now we rely on computers too much, and have too little security to protect us if they fail. In the coming years, we will see amazing technology permeate every part of our lives, some of which will be welcomed, some won’t, and some will be used against us. If we don’t learn to handle the power that computers give us in the next few years, we will all pay dearly for it. Remember the warning. The future is here now and most people aren’t ready to handle it.

Now, with the click of a button, consumers are buying just about anything imaginable, and all from the convenience of the internet. People no longer have to leave their homes, work or where ever there is internet access to make important purchases. Technology has advanced so that companies are conducting business around the world with out ever meeting. No longer do consumers or businessmen have to shake to complete a deal or a sale, but merely click down on the mouse and the numbers change. Some internet companies have never seen their customers and yet some traditional retailers have not yet acknowledged the internet.

However, ‘convergence is the new religion (‘The Real…’; 53). ‘; Big companies are changing the business world as we see it through the internet. June 1, Merrill Lynch announced it was joining the internet revolution and would begin selling stocks for $29. 95 a trade (Cropper 60). A division of the Sabre Holdings Company of Fort Worth, Texas and Preview Travel, an exclusive partner of America Online, announced they were both merging to form one of the nations largest internet commerce sites with an expected revenue of nearly one billion dollars (Jones C-7).

Companies are merging and joining the internet all out of the internet revolution craze. The internet is revolutionizing the way the world is doing business through faster, easier and more direct consumer access to their desired companies. Of course, such direct contact to these companies means that the ‘middleman’; is often eliminated. People like accountants, travel agents and stockbrokers are all ending up with commissions being cut and even losing their jobs. ‘My commission was first cut from 10% to 8% and now to 5% on plane tickets. People are now buying their tickets online. Its much easier than going to travel agency (Halbert, intrv).

People can also manage their money from home with on-line banking, which is now offered by many banks, which also eliminates the need for an accountant. Companies like E-trade and Ameritrade are taking the jobs away from stock brokers by offering $8 trades on-line as well. All these transactions eliminate jobs and are dangerous too. ‘Most online purchases today are completed with out a customers actual signature (Swisher R-22). ‘; This means that anyone with access to a credit card number can make a purchase with the holder knowing, until he gets his statement. Electronic commerce is easy, but dangerous

Then again, that is what Mr. Aminifard and his company is alert for. If companies know how to detect fraudulent transactions, then they can obviously avoid them. ‘With a few clues, you can pretty much guess (with 90% certainty) that an order is going to be fraudulent (Swisher R-22). ‘; Companies want to avoid these transactions because they are left with the credit card bill in the end. There is obvious security in the internet and that is one reason companies continue to expand and people continue to buy. Companies are joining the internet revolution and for good reasons, if they don’t their competitors will.

The internet is the great equalizer. It can make small companies seem like large companies and…large companies take care, for the formerly minor competitor may take your business (Goodman 112). ‘; The internet is saving time and money. ‘British Telecommunications will save a billion dollars next year by sourcing exclusively through the internet (Goodman 112). ‘; Companies like Sears, the nations leading seller of appliances, need not to spend money on establishing a delivery system when they begin selling more products online because one is already established (Coleman A-4).

The internet can save consumers time and effort as well because they can research the product before they phone in the order or go to the store. Companies are making purchases a lot more accessible. Investment companies such as Merrill Lynch, Ameritrade, E-trade and Charles Schwab all give detailed reports, graphs, analysis and many other tools to keep track of stocks and other investments. They also allow the investor to take all responsibility and buy, sell or trade as much as they want for a minimal fee.

In the first two months of 1999 alone, the number of trades executed over the internet has increased by 25% to 425,000 per day (Wilson 36). ‘; Internet trading is growing steadily and the same can be said for on-line banking. ‘From 1993 to 1998, the typical U. S. banks assets grew at 8%. Over the same period, Telebank, the nations largest on-line bank, grew at 53% per year (Wilson 35). ‘; This is a great sign for the public. With so much competition with online trading and banking, companies are constantly offering cheaper trading rates and boosting interest rates to gain the attention of potential customers.

Banks are also saving money through the web too with the cost of an in perosn transaction costing $1. 07 and an on-line transaction costing only $. 01, as reported in ‘Can Online Banking Replace Conventional Banks? (32). ‘; With the holidays soon approaching, companies are rushing to update their internet sites for the shopping season. Department stores such as J. C. Penny, Nordstrom, Sears and K-Mart are all upgrading for the rush. Tiffany, having sworn never to sell their diamonds and pearls over something as common as the web, are doing just that (‘The Real…’; 53).

Excite. com has introduced an electronic ‘wallet’; just in time for the holidays. The wallet stores money and scrambled credit card information on a personal computer in a way that is only accessible to the owner (Swisher R-22). A perfect solution to the over crowded shopping malls this season is to shop online. Sites will be quicker, as in terms of transaction process and more products will be available, which will hopefully boost revenue from the $8. 2 billion from last years shopping season, to something greater (Coleman A-4). Electronic commerce has certainly been beneficial to many companies.

Dell Computers, who generates more than $12 million from their website everyday, claims that internet sales account for nearly half of their overall sales (McUsic C-4). With e- commerce in the U. S. alone set to rise from $12 billion a year to $41 billion a year by 2002, companies are not hesitating to join the revolution. (‘The Real…’; 53). The internet is simply easier for consumers and businesses to deal with. Sabre Holding Corporation and Preview Travel is strictly on-line agencies and when their merger completes, expected revenue of $1 billion is more than likely to happen.

Travelers can get as much and even more information on their planned destination from on-line sites than from conventional travel agencies. This might be bad for travel agents, but there is simply plenty more information, it is quicker and easier to use the internet. The internet has really exploded since it’s beginning in 1968 (see Appendix Graph 1). There are now thousands of sites all around the world, some generating billions of dollars and others for amusement. Whatever their intention, the internet revolution is in full effect.

Businesses have really found comfort in the web. ‘The [internet] revolution is sweeping the world (Goodman 113). ‘; Multi-billion dollar companies are all using the web. Microsoft, K-mart, Nordstrom, Dell Computers, Gateway Computers, Macintosh, AT&T, America Online and many other mass money producing companies all have joined the internet revolution. There are companies still joining the revolution, no matter how big or small they are because they know that some day, they too can be as large and as powerful as the companies who have already taken part of the internet.

The internet literally provides all of our necessities at the tip of our fingertips. The internet revolution has provided us with a fast, convenient and direct contact to virtually anything we want. The revolution is available to anyone, so as Davis Goodman titles his article and reminds us all, ‘It’s Your Internet: Don’t leave it to your competitors (112). ‘; The opportunities are endless with the internet revolution. It is just up to the willingness and determination of the people to see how far it will go.

In today’s fast paced world of internet commerce it would be hard to accomplish many of the tasks without the creation of “cookies. ” Since their advent, cookies have been given a bad name and associated immediately with a loss of privacy. In April of 2001 a newspaper article defined cookies as, “programs that Web sites put on your hard disk.

They sit on your computer gathering information about you and everything you do on the Internet, and whenever the Web site wants to it can download all of the information the cookie has collected. www. howstuffworks. com) This article could not be any farther from the truth. Cookies are not programs and do not perform any actions as they sit on your hard drive.

According to Netscape, “Cookies are a general mechanism which server side connections (such as CGI scripts) can use to both store and retrieve information on the client side of the connection. The addition of a simple, persistent, client-side state significantly extends the capabilities of Web-based client/server applications.

As cookies have emerged to the forefront their association with their user’s privacy has become more of an issue as time progresses. Even though cookies serve an important role in today’s e-commerce and advertising industries, it is impossible not to think of them as a breach in user security. There is something about a seemingly forced piece of information being saved on your computer for the use of a computer hundreds or even thousands of miles away. One can only think of one word. Privacy. Who’s to say that company’s are using the information gathered by these cookies and using them for good.

How do I know that you are collecting cookies for your own advertising or e-commercial purposes rather than probing me as a candidate for the ever-present adware? Do I want vendors to know exactly what it is I usually shop for when I get online? Do I really need to save my shopping time by one or two clicks with the sacrifice of decreased privacy? These are questions that each user asks themselves when we look at our internet security settings or when we are denied access to a site based on our cookie settings.

Many companies have been labeled with improper actions concerning cookies. A company named DoubleClick was forced to reach a settlement in 2002 for improper conduct concerning cookies. DoubleClick failed to keep their findings private to the companies as well as use the information for strictly commercial purposes. DoubleClick is an example of many companies that have been forced to pay settlements for improper use of cookie information. (EPIC, 2002)

Though cookies are quickly becoming essential to a pleasurable web experience, users must decide whether the decreased security is worth the benefits. The onus of whether you accept a cookie or not is on the individual. Some of us don’t mind the extra clicks to get to what we want. After all, why do we need someone to remind us of what we want or send us extra advertisements? Most people just do not care. Whether cookies continue to remain a nuisance to the internet community or they emerge as an epidemic in internet privacy; only time will tell.

During the past decade, our society has become based solely on the ability to move large amounts of information across large distances quickly. Computerization has influenced everyone’s life. The natural evolution of computers and this need for ultra-fast communications has caused a global network of interconnected computers to develop. This global net allows a person to send E-mail across the world in mere fractions of a second, and enables even the common person to access information world-wide.

With advances such as software that allows users with a sound card to use the Internet as a carrier for long distance voice calls and video onferencing, this network is key to the future of the knowledge society. At present, this net is the epitome of the first amendment: free speech. It is a place where people can speak their mind without being reprimanded for what they say, or how they choose to say it. The key to the world-wide success of the Internet is its protection of free speech, not only in America, but in other countries where free speech is not protected by a constitution.

To be found on the Internet is a huge collection of obscene graphics, Anarchists’ cookbooks and countless other things that offend some eople. With over 30 million Internet users in the U. S. alone (only 3 million of which surf the net from home), everything is bound to offend someone. The newest wave of laws floating through law making bodies around the world threatens to stifle this area of spontaneity. Recently, Congress has been considering passing laws that will make it a crime punishable by jail to send “vulgar” language over the net, and to export encryption software.

No matter how small, any attempt at government intervention in the Internet will stifle the greatest communication innovation of this century. The overnment wants to maintain control over this new form of communication, and they are trying to use the protection of children as a smoke screen to pass laws that will allow them to regulate and censor the Internet, while banning techniques that could eliminate the need for regulation. Censorship of the Internet threatens to destroy its freelance atmosphere, while wide spread encryption could help prevent the need for government intervention.

The current body of laws existing today in America does not apply well to the Internet. Is the Internet like a bookstore, where servers cannot be expected to eview every title? Is it like a phone company who must ignore what it carries because of privacy? Is it like a broadcasting medium, where the government monitors what is broadcast? The trouble is that the Internet can be all or none of these things depending on how it’s used. The Internet cannot be viewed as one type of transfer medium under current broadcast definitions.

The Internet differs from broadcasting media in that one cannot just happen upon a vulgar site without first entering a complicated address, or following a link from another source. “The Internet is much more like going into a book store and hoosing to look at adult magazines. ” (Miller 75). Jim Exon, a democratic senator from Nebraska, wants to pass a decency bill regulating the Internet. If the bill passes, certain commercial servers that post pictures of unclad beings, like those run by Penthouse or Playboy, would of course be shut down immediately or risk prosecution.

The same goes for any amateur web site that features nudity, sex talk, or rough language. Posting any dirty words in a Usenet discussion group, which occurs routinely, could make one liable for a $50,000 fine and six months in jail. Even worse, if a magazine that commonly runs ome of those nasty words in its pages, The New Yorker for instance, decided to post its contents on-line, its leaders would be held responsible for a $100,000 fine and two years in jail. Why does it suddenly become illegal to post something that has been legal for years in print?

Exon’s bill apparently would also “criminalize private mail,” … “I can call my brother on the phone and say anything–but if I say it on the Internet, it’s illegal” (Levy 53). Congress, in their pursuit of regulations, seems to have overlooked the fact that the majority of the adult material on the Internet comes from overseas. Although many U. S. government sources helped fund Arpanet, the predecessor to the Internet, they no longer control it. Many of the new Internet technologies, including the World Wide Web, have come from overseas.

There is no clear boundary between information held in the U. S. and information stored in other countries. Data held in foreign computers is just as accessible as data in America, all it takes is the click of a mouse to access. Even if our government tried to regulate the Internet, we have no control over what is posted in other countries, and we have no practical way to top it. The Internet’s predecessor was originally designed to uphold communications after a nuclear attack by rerouting data to compensate for destroyed telephone lines and servers.

Today’s Internet still works on a similar design. The very nature this design allows the Internet to overcome any kind of barriers put in its way. If a major line between two servers, say in two countries, is cut, then the Internet users will find another way around this obstacle. This obstacle avoidance makes it virtually impossible to separate an entire nation from indecent information in other countries. If it was physically possible to isolate America’s computers from the rest of the world, it would be devastating to our economy.

Recently, a major university attempted to regulate what types of Internet access its students had, with results reminiscent of a 1960’s protest. A research associate at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study of pornography on the school’s computer networks. Martin Rimm put together quite a large picture collection (917,410 images) and he also tracked how often each image had been downloaded (a total of 6. 4 million). Pictures of similar content had recently been declared bscene by a local court, and the school feared they might be held responsible for the content of its network.

The school administration quickly removed access to all these pictures, and to the newsgroups where most of this obscenity is suspected to come from. A total of 80 newsgroups were removed, causing a large disturbance among the student body, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, all of whom felt this was unconstitutional. After only half a week, the college had backed down, and restored the newsgroups. This is a tiny example of what may happen if the government tries to impose censorship Elmer-Dewitt 102).

Currently, there is software being released that promises to block children’s access to known X-rated Internet newsgroups and sites. However, since most adults rely on their computer literate children to setup these programs, the children will be able to find ways around them. This mimics real life, where these children would surely be able to get their hands on an adult magazine. Regardless of what types of software or safeguards are used to protect the children of the Information age, there will be ways around them. This necessitates the education of the children to deal with reality.

Altered views of an electronic world translate easily into altered views of the real world. “When it comes to our children, censorship is a far less important issue than good parenting. We must teach our kids that the Internet is a extension and a reflection of the real world, and we have to show them how to enjoy the good things and avoid the bad things. This isn’t the government’s responsibility. It’s ours (Miller 76). ” Not all restrictions on electronic speech are bad. Most of the major on-line communication companies have restrictions on what their users can “say. ” They must respect their customer’s privacy, however.

Private E-mail content is off limits to them, but they may act swiftly upon anyone who spouts obscenities in a public forum. Self regulation by users and servers is the key to avoiding government imposed intervention. Many on-line sites such as Playboy and Penthouse have started to regulated themselves. Both post clear warnings that adult content lies ahead and lists the countries where this is illegal. The film and videogame industries subject themselves to ratings, and if Internet users want to avoid government imposed regulations, then it is time they begin to regulate themselves.

It all oils down to protecting children from adult material, while protecting the first amendment right to free speech between adults. Government attempts to regulate the Internet are not just limited to obscenity and vulgar language, it also reaches into other areas, such as data encryption. By nature, the Internet is an insecure method of transferring data. A single E-mail packet may pass through hundreds of computers from its source to destination. At each computer, there is the chance that the data will be archived and someone may intercept that data. Credit card numbers are a frequent target of ackers.

Encryption is a means of encoding data so that only someone with the proper “key” can decode it. “Why do you need PGP (encryption)? It’s personal. It’s private. And it’s no one’s business but yours. You may be planning a political campaign, discussing our taxes, or having an illicit affair. Or you may be doing something that you feel shouldn’t be illegal, but is. Whatever it is, you don’t want your private electronic mail (E-mail) or confidential documents read by anyone else. There’s nothing wrong with asserting your privacy. Privacy is as apple-pie as the Constitution.

Perhaps you think your E-mail is legitimate enough that encryption is unwarranted. If you really are a law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide, then why don’t you always send your paper mail on postcards? Why not submit to drug testing on demand? Why require a warrant for police searches of your house? Are you trying to hide something? You must be a subversive or a drug dealer if you hide your mail inside envelopes. Or maybe a paranoid nut. Do law-abiding citizens have any need to encrypt their E-mail? What if everyone believed that law-abiding citizens should use postcards for their mail?

If some brave soul tried to assert his privacy by using an envelope for his mail, it would draw suspicion. Perhaps the authorities would open his mail to see what he’s hiding. Fortunately, we don’t live in that kind of world, because everyone protects most of their mail with envelopes. So no one draws suspicion by asserting their privacy with an envelope. There’s safety in numbers. Analogously, it would be nice if everyone routinely used encryption for all their E-mail, innocent or not, so that no one drew suspicion by asserting their E-mail privacy with encryption.

Think of it as a form of solidarity (Zimmerman). Until the development of the Internet, the U. S. government controlled most new encryption techniques. With the development of faster home computers and a worldwide web, they no longer hold control over encryption. New algorithms have been discovered that are reportedly uncrackable even by the FBI and the NSA. This is a major concern to the government because they want to maintain the ability to conduct wiretaps, and other forms of electronic surveillance into the digital age.

To stop the spread of data encryption software, the U. S. government has imposed very strict laws on its exportation. One very well known example of this is the PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) scandal. PGP was written by Phil Zimmerman, and is based on “public key” encryption. This system uses complex algorithms to produce two codes, one for encoding and one for decoding. To send an encoded message to someone, a copy of that person’s “public” key is needed. The sender uses this public key to encrypt the data, and the recipient uses their “private” key to decode the message.

As Zimmerman was finishing his program, he heard about a proposed Senate bill to ban cryptography. This prompted him to release his program for free, oping that it would become so popular that its use could not be stopped. One of the original users of PGP posted it to an Internet site, where anyone from any country could download it, causing a federal investigator to begin investigating Phil for violation of this new law. As with any new technology, this program has allegedly been used for illegal purposes, and the FBI and NSA are believed to be unable to crack this code.

When told about the illegal uses of him programs, Zimmerman replies: “If I had invented an automobile, and was told that criminals used it to rob banks, I would feel bad, too. But most people agree the benefits to society that come from automobiles — taking the kids to school, grocery shopping and such — outweigh their drawbacks. ” (Levy 56). Currently, PGP can be downloaded from MIT. They have a very complicated system that changes the location on the software to be sure that they are protected. All that needs to be done is click “YES” to four questions dealing with exportation and use of the program, and it is there for the taking.

This seems to be a lot of trouble to protect a program from spreading that is already world wide. The government wants to protect their ability to legally wiretap, but what ood does it do them to stop encryption in foreign countries? They cannot legally wiretap someone in another country, and they sure cannot ban encryption in the U. S. The government has not been totally blind to the need for encryption. For nearly two decades, a government sponsored algorithm, Data Encryption Standard (DES), has been used primarily by banks.

The government always maintained the ability to decipher this code with their powerful supercomputers. Now that new forms of encryption have been devised that the government can’t decipher, they are proposing a new standard to replace DES. This new standard is called Clipper, and is based on the “public key” algorithms. Instead of software, Clipper is a microchip that can be incorporated into just about anything (Television, Telephones, etc. ). This algorithm uses a much longer key that is 16 million times more powerful than DES.

It is estimated that today’s fastest computers would take 400 billion years to break this code using every possible key. (Lehrer 378). “The catch: At the time of manufacture, each Clipper chip will be loaded with its own unique key, and the Government gets to keep a copy, placed in escrow. Not to worry, though the Government promises that they will use these keys to read your traffic only when duly authorized by law.

Of course, to make Clipper completely effective, the next logical step would be to outlaw other forms of cryptography (Zimmerman). “If privacy is outlawed, only outlaws will have privacy. Intelligence agencies have access to good cryptographic technology. So do the big arms and drug traffickers. So do defense contractors, oil companies, and other corporate giants. But ordinary people and grassroots political organizations mostly have not had access to affordable “military grade” public-key cryptographic technology. Until now. PGP empowers people to take their privacy into their own hands.

There’s a growing social need for it. That’s why I wrote it (Zimmerman). The most important benefits of encryption have been conveniently overlooked by the government. If everyone used encryption, there would be absolutely no way that an innocent bystander could happen upon something they choose not to see. Only the intended receiver of the data could decrypt it (using public key cryptography, not even the sender can decrypt it) and view its contents. Each coded message also has an encrypted signature verifying the sender’s dentity. The sender’s secret key can be used to encrypt an enclosed signature message, thereby “signing” it.

This creates a digital signature of a message, which the recipient (or anyone else) can check by using the sender’s public key to decrypt it. This proves that the sender was the true originator of the message, and that the message has not been subsequently altered by anyone else, because the sender alone possesses the secret key that made that signature. “Forgery of a signed message is infeasible, and the sender cannot later disavow his signature(Zimmerman). ” Gone would be he hate mail that causes many problems, and gone would be the ability to forge a document with someone else’s address.

The government, if it did not have alterior motives, should mandate encryption, not outlaw it. As the Internet continues to grow throughout the world, more governments may try to impose their views onto the rest of the world through regulations and censorship. It will be a sad day when the world must adjust its views to conform to that of the most prudish regulatory government. If too many regulations are inacted, then the Internet as a tool will become nearly useless, and the Internet as a ass communication device and a place for freedom of mind and thoughts, will become non existent.

The users, servers, and parents of the world must regulate themselves, so as not to force government regulations that may stifle the best communication instrument in history. If encryption catches on and becomes as widespread as Zimmerman predicts it will, then there will no longer be a need for the government to meddle in the Internet, and the biggest problem will work itself out. The government should rethink its approach to the censorship and encryption issues, allowing the Internet to continue to grow and mature.

Working with Internet does not mean just browsing www and sending and receiving e-mails. The Basic Structure of the Internet was developed through last 30 years of existence of the Internet. The Internet is a heterogeneous worldwide network consisting of a large number of host computers and local area networks. The Internet uses the TCP/IP suite of protocols. This allows the integration of a large number of different computers into one single network with highly efficient communication between them. This way, the user can access information on all kinds of host computers from a desktop PC, Macintosh, or whatever he/she has available.

TCP/IP, the communication standard underlying the Internet, originates from work done at the US-Department of Defense in the late 1960s. The first version of the Internet was built in 1969 and consisted of just four computers. In 1982 a set of specifications and protocols have been implemented, which became known as TCP/IP in reference to their two major elements, the “Transmission Control Protocol” and the “Internet Protocol”. The development and implementation of TCP/IP stimulated a massive growth process for the Internet. “By late 1987 it was estimated that the growth had reached 15% per month and remained high for the following two years.

By 1990, the connected Internet included over 3,000 active networks, over 3,000 active networks, and over 200,000 computers. By January 1992 the number of hosts on the Internet was 727,000, doubling about every 7 months. Various groups of users are connected to the Internet: universities and other educational institutions, government agencies, the military, and at an increasing number private businesses. The most fundamental function of the Internet is to pass electronic information from one computer to another. A 32 bit Internet Address or IP-Number identifies every computer on the network.

This number is commonly represented as four numbers joined by periods. The Internet uses these numbers to guide information through the network. This is called routing. For human users, however, such numbers are usually difficult to keep in mind. Therefore, computers are also identified by Domain Names, which are to some extent similar to mailing addresses. Special programs, called name servers, translate domain names into IP-Addresses. Internet services can be divided into two groups, communication services, and information services.

In the first group, the Internet mediates in the communication between two or more individuals. In the second group, the user turns to the Internet-service in search for some particular information. Communication services can roughly be compared to a telephone call, information services to a dictionary . The most important communication services on the Internet are electronic mail, Netnews and some derived services. Major information services are terminal emulation and file transfer, Gopher, WAIS, and World Wide Web. Electronic mail is the most popular and widely used network service.

It can be viewed as the electronic equivalent to a regular mail letter. When one user wants to send a message to another Internet user, he types the message into a special computer program, adds the e-mail address of the recipient, and sends the message off through the network. Typically, the message reaches its destination almost immediately, even when it is on another continent. Practically all gateways between the Internet and other computer networks can handle e-mail messages. Therefore, many more people can be reached by e-mail than are connected to the Internet via TCP/IP.

The major advantage of e-mail over regular mail is that an e- mail message comes in electronic form. Therefore, it can easily be handled and interpreted by a computer program. This feature is use by electronic discussion lists. They operate a database of subscribers and each incoming e-mail message is automatically distributed to each subscriber. Listserv, the most popular program for managing discussion lists also handles subscription via mail messages, archives incoming messages, and allows users to retrieve these and other archived files. Thousands of discussion lists focusing on all kinds of topics exist on the Internet.

Topics range from various hobbies, political discussions to operational aspects of different computer systems and research questions. For the user, discussion lists are an easy way to identify and contact a large number of people with similar interests. A discussion list can also be considered as a worldwide forum for expressing views and discussing opinions. While messages are automatically sent to all subscribed users in the case of a discussion list and one has to be subscribed in order to receive the messages, messages in Netnews are distributed between a net of servers.

Messages are organized in a hierarchy of newsgroups. Incoming messages are stored for a particular period in a publicly accessible area. Each user can connect to this area, browse through the stored messages, and respond to any one of them. This way Netnews allows for a better overview of ongoing discussions but requires the user to actively connect to the respective area. One of the reasons for the creation of a computer network like the Internet was to give users access to remote computers and to allow them to transfer files to and from this machine. These are typical demands for Telnet and FTP for file transfer protocol.

In both services, the user specifies a specific remote host through its IP-number or domain-name that he wants to access. When the user has an account on this remote host, he can work there just like on a local machine. With telnet available, increasingly Internet-sites allowed outside users to access some of their information services. Typical examples are electronic library card catalogs, campus information systems, and other database applications. Today, the electronic card catalogs of practically all-major libraries and many university libraries in Europe are publicly accessible through the Internet.

Many sites run large specialized information systems for the network community. A similar type of anonymous access is available through FTP. Many Internet sites allow users to log in as anonymous through FTP. The way the sites can make files publicly available. This system has led to a huge supply of freeware- and shareware-software that is distributed through this channel. Practically all network software is available in this way. In addition, information files specifications of network standards; research papers, multimedia files, and even the complete texts of classical books can be accessed through anonymous FTP.

When using an FTP client program to download files, assure yourself, that it is giving a bogus password, like [email protected] com, not your real one. If your browser lets you, turn off the feature that sends your e-mail address as a password for anonymous FTP sessions. The File Transfer Protocol, as its name states, is a set of rules that dictates how files should be transferred over the TCP/IP protocol. A basic FTP connection consists of a client and a server. The client gets a file by opening a connection to the server. Usually, the server is run on port 21, however, the system administrator can change this if he or she wishes.

In today’s society radio serves as a popular source of entertainment. Online radio stations have been popping up all over the internet. A relatively new radio website, www. radiofreecash. com, now offers it’s listeners money to tune in to their station. RadioFreeCash’s innovative pay-to-listen strategy benefits the web industry, but it may not benefit its listeners as much. Radio stations have been around since the 1920’s. “Some long term research indicates a very gradual decline in radio listening (LaRose, 160). ” Radio formats are constantly changing with new generations.

The generation of today can turn to computers for almost anything, and radio stations took note of this. “We view this period as a turning point for the radio broadcasting’ said investment bank Robertson Stephens in a recently released research report. ‘We see the internet medium as a tremendous opportunity for radio to reinvent itself (Stephens, 1). ‘” Online radio stations started in 1998 (LaRose, 131) and flourish in today’s computer society. “According to Arbitron, there are currently an estimated 30 million users of Internet Radio.

As the growth of broadband continues, that number is expected to triple by mid-2000 (theGlobe. com, 1). ” With such a big number of users wanting to listen to the radio while surfing the internet, the company RadioFreeCash was formed. RadioFreeCash was founded in September 1999 and has become very popular within the last year. RadioFreeCash is very similar to an online radio station. Members can choose from hundreds of musical channels, where they find formats that meet their personal tastes in music.

RadioFreeCash’s mission is to violently change the strategic landscape of delivering radio content and audio advertising over the internet (theGlobe. com, 2). ” So RadioFreeCash already had the music now it needed the advertising. RadioFreeCash uses outside companies to place banner and audio advertisements through it’s website and radio bar. So basically, RadioFreeCash members get paid “listening to tunes while chilling out at the computer” said Fox Anchor Shepherd Smith while interviewing RadioFreeCash’s CEO.

RadioFreeCash doesn’t charge a membership fee, but it does require some personal information. The information they require is your name, address, city, state, zip and then personal interests. Some personal interests might be travel, hobbies, sports, fashion, etc. you must choose at least three interests. After you fill in all this information you create a user name, start downloading and once that is done, enjoy the music and money. So what’s the catch? Your personal address and name are never given out, but your personal interests are given to the advertisers.

These interests “enable the creation of a loyal listener community of known demographics and predictable attributes, and thus commands much greater leverage with audio advertising clients world wide (theGlobe. com, 2). ” So then when a member listens to the online radio, advertisements will go across the radio bar or they might just pop out. This feature may be very disruptive at times. Advertisers still attract enough users to make money from advertising.

A study showed that “Eight out of 10 internet radio listeners claim they would be likely to seek information on products and services from a station web site (Stephens, 1). ” The big factor is that the members get paid to listen to the radio. Its all very simple. Users of RadioFreeCash will be compensated for every minute that they listen to the radio as well as for every minute that their friends and family they referred listen to the radio. So for example if you and all your referrals listened to the radio an average of six hours per day, RadioFreeCash will pay you and estimated $140 (see chart for better understanding).

RadioFreeCash has become one of the most popular online radio sites. This past September RadioFreeCash was the #1 Online Radio Station (to see how it compared to other online radio company refer to chart). This new industry is rising fast and sooner than we can say “radio” there will be three more of these pay-to-listen companies popping up like the advertisements do. This type of online radio listening is fun and rewarding, once you get past all the advertisements.

With the astonishing growth of the Internet, many companies are finding new and exciting ways to expand upon their business opportunities. There are very few successful companies that do not use computers in their everyday business activities, which also means there are few companies that do not use e-commerce. To emphasise the point that the effect of the Internet is so widespread in todays business communities, one online article stated that more than 100000 companies have Internet addresses, and 20000 companies have home pages on the Internet as of February 1999.

These numbers have more than tripled since 1995, and the trend shows no signs of slowing. But what exactly is e-commerce? To most casual Internet surfers, e-commerce means online shopping V workaholics pointing their web browser to Amazon. com to order an emergency present because they forgot someones birthday again. (Weiss, 1999) As we will soon find out, this is far from the case. Simply put, e-commerce is the exchange of business information between two or more organizations. An example of this would be buying and selling products or services over the Internet.

E-commerce became very popular soon after it proved to be an efficient means to conduct long distance transactions. The purpose of this report is to discuss some of the advantages and disadvantages of e-commerce, as well as examining its potential for the future of business. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce has developed very rapidly in the last few years and has left some people wondering what it is all about. “Most people think e-commerce is just about buying and selling things over the Internet. ” (Wareham, 2000) E-commerce is a broad term describing the electronic exchange of business data between two or more organizations’ computers.

Some examples might be the electronic filing of your income tax return, on-line services like Prodigy, and on-line billing for services or products received. E-commerce also includes buying and selling any item over the Internet, electronic fund transfer, smart cards, and all other methods of conducting business over digital networks. The primary technological goal of e-commerce is to integrate businesses, government agencies, and contractors into a single community with the ability to communicate with one another across any computer platform. (Edwards, 1998)

Electronic commerce was built on a foundation that was started more than 125 years ago with Western Union’s money transfer as an example of telegraph technology. In the early 1900s the advent of credit cards as a payment system revolutionised the process of automated commerce functions. In the mid 1980s the introduction of the ATM card was the latest improvement to electronic commerce. The Internet was conceived in 1969 when the Department of Defence began funding the research of computer networking. The Internet, as a means for commerce, did not become reality until the 1990s.

Before this time, it was mainly a tool for the army, and a research device for some American universities. Its popularity grew when it proved to become a fast and efficient means to conduct long distance transactions, as well as an effective way to distribute information. Clearly, E-commerce will change the face of business forever. Companies that are thousands of miles away can complete business transactions in a matter of seconds as well as exchange information. As one online article explained: Dell Computers sells more than $14 million worth of computer equipment a day from its web-site.

By taking their customer service department to the web Federal Express began saving $10,000 a day. The Internet provides businesses with the opportunity to sell their products to millions of people, 24 hours a day. (Baxton, 1999) Figure #1 shows the amount of revenues generated by the on the Internet dating back to 1996 as well as estimating possible revenues through the year 2002. With 1998, revenue equalling almost 74 billion dollars and experts predicting that it will climb to as much as 1,234 billion dollars by the year 2002, anyone can see that e-commerce is the wave of the future.

Figure #1- Internet generated revenues in US dollars. Source: NUA Internet Surveys “Without a doubt, the Internet is ushering in an era of sweeping change that will leave no business or industry untouched. In just three years, the Net has gone from a playground for nerds into a vast communications and trading centre where some 90 million people swap information or do deals around the world. Imagine: It took radio more than 30 years to reach 60 million people, and television 15 years. Never has a technology caught fire so fast. ” (Edwards, 1998) „h International Distribution

The number one advantage that e-commerce possesses is speed. The Internet and World Wide Web gives businesses opportunities to exchange messages or complete transactions almost instantaneously. Even with the slowest connections, doing business electronically is much faster than traditional modes. With increased speeds of communication, the delivery time is expedited and that makes the whole transaction from start to finish more efficient. Also, you can find practically any product available for sale on the Internet, as one author put it from books and compact disks (from www. azon. com) to French bread (available from www. sourdoughbread. com), (Buskin, 1998)

Even more significant is the fact that information appearing on the Internet can be changed extremely rapidly. This gives business owners the ability to inform customers of any changes to the service that you are offering. This also allows for you to update marketing and promotional materials as often and as frequently as you would like. The second advantage of the electronic commerce is the opportunity it offers to save on costs.

By using the Internet, marketing, distribution, personnel, phone, postage and printing costs, among many others, can be reduced. You can start doing business in cyberspace for as little as $100. Most businesses will spend more than this but compared to the cost of opening a physical store, the savings are tremendous. These funds can then be diverted to marketing and advertising of your product or service. Cyberspace knows no national boundaries. That means you can do business all over the world as easily as you can in your own neighbourhood.

Since the Internet connects everyone in cyberspace, information is transmitted at the speed of sound or the speed of light, depending on your connection. Either way, distance becomes meaningless, which makes you able to link to anyone on the globe and anyone on the globe can link to you. The ability to provide links makes doing business on the Internet attractive to customers in any part of the world. Using the web to provide customer support is an excellent vehicle to help build the reliability and effectiveness of your product or service.

The ability to provide on-line answers to problems through email or an provide an archive section of frequently asked questions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, builds customer confidence and retention. In fact, a whole series of IBM E-commerce commercials were based on this one single point. The Internet tends to be a more personal environment. People expect to get a real person when they send mail. This can work to your advantage as a small start-up company, or when you are a large corporation. No matter what business you are involved in, an online-help feature is an extraordinary advantage to have.

A potential source of trouble is customer concerns with privacy and security. Anything sent over the Internet is sent through several different computers before it reaches its destination. The concern regarding Internet security and privacy is that unscrupulous hackers can capture credit card or checking account data as it is transferred or break into computers that hold the same information. Security on the Internet is much like security for your home. There is a point when the effort outweighs the advantages. As with your home you usually stop adding security features when you feel safe.

Making a customer feel safe is what is important in doing business on the Internet. Even though no one can guarantee 100% security of transferring financial information over the Internet, e-commerce is still safer than using credit cards at an actual store or restaurant, or paying for something with the use of a 1-800 number (unknown author, 1999). Also, every time you throw away a credit card receipt you could make yourself vulnerable to fraud. But how do we, as consumers, know this for sure? What precautions do e-commerce websites take to avoid such problems? The answer is simple: encryption.

Ever since the 2. 0 versions of Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, transactions can be encrypted using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), an Internet protocol that creates a secure connection to the server, protecting the information as it travels over the Internet. SSL uses public key encryption, one of the strongest encryption methods around. A way to tell that a Web site is secured by SSL is when the URL begins with https instead of http. Browser makers and credit card companies are also promoting an additional security standard called Secure Electronic Transactions (SET).

SET encodes the credit card numbers that sit on vendors servers so that only banks and credit card companies can read the numbers. Obviously no e-commerce system can guarantee 100-percent protection for your credit card, but you are less likely to get your pocket picked online than in a real store (Weiss, 1999). E-commerce is based on the assumption that the participants will pay for what they buy. There has been a noted reluctance among Internet users to actually pay, particularly for the digital goods and services.

As a result, much of the current business on the Internet is funded using business models other than user-pays, primarily advertising and sponsorship. If a company is selling something, then they need to find a way to accept payment that is not only convenient for them, but most importantly, convenient for the customers. Setting up a simple web site can be very inexpensive, but if you are unsure of how to go about creating one, a simple web site thus may not be so simple. And if you dont know what you are doing, your site will definitely not be effective.

A functional web site with online ordering requires expertise in four different areas. If a business owner does not have HTML , CGI scripting, ODBC, and special programs for online clearing options experience, they may want to consider outsourcing. Outsourcing is the use of a third party service company to provide the missing pieces to complete the total functionality of the business. This is a cost-effective way to allow a site to get up and running much faster and concentrate on the product or service rather than getting overwhelmed with the technical challenges.

Finally, a possible disadvantage to e-commerce is not having a strong organizational commitment. A functional web site that is going to be successful will soon need additional resources in technology and skills. E-commerce is evolving at a very rapid rate and the business owner must be willing to evolve with it. Newer and more advanced technology will cost more, but should be supplemented by additional revenues. Also, the company must be willing to change the entire business or start a new one when they can see the need for change.

Yahoo started as a commercial operation in 1995, with a simple, if enormous, list of Web sites to help people navigate the Web. But like the Web itself, Yahoo is changing fast. The once amazing ability to search the entire World Wide Web became outdated in a Net instant, so Yahoo, at the tender age of two years, began reinventing itself as a place to trade stocks, make travel reservations, and conduct commerce. (Hof, 1998) Rest assured the future of e-commerce is intact and ever changing. “Like electricity, antibiotics, or the car, the Internet is a revolutionary technology. France, 1999)

It is quite evident that e-commerce is only gaining speed. As one article stated, The growth of e-commerce wont diminish, it will become such a pervasive influence on how a company works that all functions within an organization will have a stake in their e-commerce strategy. (Wareham, 2000) With Internet traffic doubling every 100 days the digital economy is alive and growing. The huge growth of virtual communities are causing shifts in economic power from large corporations to smaller businesses. “Virtual communities erode the marketing and sales advantages of large companies.

A small company with a better product and better customer service can use these communities to challenge larger competitors–something it probably could not do in the real world. ” (CommerceNet, 1999) With many of the technological advances in the banking, on-line trading and retail industries, e-commerce will soon become the foundation of our life just as radio, telephone and television have in the past. Technology has a place in everyone’s day to day activities and soon e-commerce will be a major factor in the decisions we have to make. Remember, e-commerce is more complex than just buying that special someones birthday present.

E-commerce, along with the Internet, is an outlet for business. It is a way for the new guy to compete with the proven giants in the industry. An example of this would be the launch of Wal-Marts new web site intended to compete with industry monster Amazon. com. Their new business venture allows Wal-Mart to go outside its usual corporate sphere for Web-savvy talent geared for dot. com commerce, such as engineers, programmers and marketers. It also provides them with the necessary Web-wampum V such as options, warrants and shares thats essential to attracting top talent.

Simply put, the Internet and the use of e-commerce provides many opportunities for even the smallest of businesses to compete with large corporations, in essence leveling the playing field. With the steady growth of the Internet, and the fact that every year more and more families are plugging in and surfing the web, can a company survive without the use of the Internet and e-commerce? Probably, but not for long. The Internet and e-commerce are here to stay, so businesses can either change with the times, or get left behind. The choice is theirs to make.

Today a profound shift in the privacy equation is under way. Technology brings enormous efficiency to the collection, sorting and distribution of personal information. This efficiency has revolutionized countless organizations but it has also increased opportunities for snooping. The ability of computers to sift though personal information may make much of your life an open book, unless privacy policies are implemented. In many countries a large number of records are public, available to anyone.

In the United States, for example, public records typically include voter registration lists, Department of Motor Vehicle records, federal tax liens, arrest and conviction records, court proceedings and judgments, bankruptcy and probate records, and lists of births, deaths and marriage licenses. Additional information is available in commercial directories and databases, including phone books, city directories, professional directories and newspaper databases.

Many records that we think are confidential today such as credit reports, income-tax records, social security records, loan applications, bank account records, credit card records, Telephone Company records, military records and medical records may not be confidential tomorrow. If a curious neighbor wants to know something about you, it takes some expense and effort but with the rise of computer databases and the Internet, it’s getting easier to correlate information and develop a profile of somebody.

Already, some companies are beginning to offer services that collect personal information and sell it on CD-ROMs or online. Take police reports, for example, they are public. The Internet will make this kind of information extraordinarily public, unless the rules change. The way to protect privacy in this age of information technology is to develop respect for the privacy of personal information. We shouldn’t ban the collection of legitimate information or deny organizations the benefit of databases.

Sharing information can be appropriate in some commercial settings. Many consumers appreciate having products and services tailored to their individual needs or profiles, as long as their privacy isn’t unduly compromised. But to protect privacy, access should be denied to people who don’t have a legitimate reason for the information they seek. A nosy neighbor shouldn’t be able to check your credit rating.

Society must define the appropriate purposes for specific kinds of information and fashion ways to confine the use of the information to those purposes. It won’t be easy, but it is possible. Individuals and organizations can do their part by making the protection of privacy an important objective. As people wake up to how much information about them is stored on computers and how it can be used, the issue of privacy will command more and more the attention from the powers that be.

The privacy concerns of the Lotus and Equifax “MarketPlace: Households” mailing lists consisted of true product dissemination and how it would be controlled, resale of the data and would consumers be able to delete their names from the database or make corrections before hitting the market? There were also concerns that not everyone in the database had agreed to participate. These were certainly legitimate regards of the consumers. It’s clearly a control issue and scary to think that a stranger is controlling how your personal information is used. In lieu of so much criticism Lotus and Equifax canceled the product.

So you believe Al Gore created the Internet? Well that’s not possible, because I did. Yes, it’s true, a few years ago I was sitting in my basement with nothing to do and suddenly the idea came to me: why not create an inter-connected network of networks that will allow users to send mail instantly, download copyrighted songs, and order pizza, all from the comfort of their own living room? OK, so maybe I didn’t exactly invent the Internet, but neither did Al Gore. So who was the genius behind the information superhighway, you ask?

Well let’s take a step back to the sixties, a decade when Cold War tension caused nationwide fear of nuclear warfare. Early in the decade, two groups of researchers, privately owned RAND Corporation (America’s leading nuclear war think-tank) and federal agency ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), grappled with a bizarre strategic mystery: in the event of nuclear war, how could political and military officials communicate successfully? It was obvious that a network, linking cities and military bases, would be necessary. But the advent of the atomic bomb made switches, wiring, and command posts for this network highly vulnerable.

A “nuclear-safe” network would need to operate with missing links and without central authority. In 1964, RAND Corporation’s Paul Barran made public his solution to the problem. Essentially, the concept was simple. Barran’s network would be assumed to be unreliable at all times. Information would be broken into many small pieces called “packets” and then sent to various points, or nodes, in the network until they reached their destination. ARPA embraced Barran’s idea for three reasons. First, if nuclear bombs blew away large components of the network, data would still reach its destination.

Second, it would be relatively secure from espionage, since spies tapping into parts of the network would be able to intercept only portions of transmissions. Lastly, it would be much more efficient because files and transmissions couldn’t clog portions of the network. Only five years after Barran proposed his version of a computer network, ARPANET went online. Named after its federal sponsor, ARPANET initially linked four high-speed supercomputers and was intended to allow scientists and researchers to share computing facilities by long-distance.

By 1971, ARPANET had grown to fifteen nodes, and by 1972, thirty-seven. ARPA’s original standard for communication was known as “Network Control Protocol” or NCP. As time passed, however, NCP grew obsolete and was replaced by a new, higher-level standard known as TCP-IP, which is still in use today. TCP, or “Transmission Control Protocol,” is responsible for converting messages into streams of packets at the source of the transmission and then assembling the streams at the final destination.

IP, or “Internet Protocol” ensured that packets were routed across multiple nodes and networks, even those using the original NCP standard. The Internet, as it came to be called, spread like wildfire. Since software for TCP-IP was available to the public and the technology for networking was decentralized by its very nature, nodes and networks easily joined in. Each node covered its own expenses, and thus there was no disapproval for expansion. Like the telephone, the Internet was relatively useless without universal participation.

In 1989, ARPANET was completely eliminated in favor of TCP-IP, which already contained over 300,000 nodes. Practical applications for the Internet popped up everywhere. Graduate students at North Carolina and Duke invented an electronic bulletin board called Usenet and researchers at the University of Minnesota developed a primitive search engine called Gopher. In 1991, the foundation for the modern Internet was built when Swiss Internet user Tim Berners-Lee released his system of Internet “hypertext.

Prior to hypertext, Internet use was limited to “nerds” who knew the commands needed to communicate through the text based network. Hypertext allowed users to link words, pictures, and files with mouse clicks. It wasn’t long before University of Illinois student Marc Andressen and fellow computer programmers invented the first “Web browser” called Mosaic. The introduction of Web browsers spawned a new era of communication and, in response to the 1993 release of Mosaic, Internet use grew 341,634%. You may have noticed that Al Gore’s name was never mentioned in this brief history of the Internet.

While Gore did in fact help secure government funding for a related project in the 1980’s, he did not invent the Internet. In fact, there is no specific creator of the Internet, nor is there a date when the Internet came into being. It evolved over thirty years from the government’s way of post-nuclear war communication to today’s Information Superhighway. The number of hosts now far exceeds ten million, and hundreds of millions of users from over 150 countries are connected. Sorry Al, the Internet would have done just fine without you.

Most Internet users are either not charged to access information, or pay a low-cost flat fee. The Information SuperHighway, on the other hand, will likely be based upon a pay-per-use model. On a gross level, one might say that the payment model for the Internet is closer to that of broadcast (or perhaps cable) television while the model for the Information SuperHighway is likely to be more like that of pay-per-view T. V. “Pay-per-use” environments affect user access habits.

“Flat fee” situations encourage exploration. Users in flat-fee environments navigate through webs of information and tend to make serendipitous discoveries. Pay- er-use” situations give the public the incentive to focus their attention on what they know they already want, or to look for well-known items previously recommended by others.

In “pay-per-use” environments, people tend to follow more traditional paths of discovery, and seldom explore totally unexpected avenues. “Pay-per-use” environments discourage browsing. Imagine how a person’s reading habits would change if they had to pay for each article they looked at in a magazine or newspaper. Yet many of the most interesting things we learn about or find come from following unknown routes, bumping into things we weren’t looking for.

Indeed, Thomas Kuhn makes the claim that, even in the hard sciences, real breakthroughs and interesting discoveries only come from following these unconventional routes [Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962]). And people who have to pay each time they use a piece of information are likely to increasingly rely upon specialists and experts. For example, in a situation where the reader will have to pay to read each paragraph of background on Bosnia, s/he is more likely to rely upon State Department summaries instead of paying to become more generally informed him/herself.

And in the 1970s and 1980s the library world learned that the introduction of expensive pay-per-use databases discouraged individual exploration and introduced the need for intermediaries who specialized in searching techniques. Producers vs. Consumers On the Internet anyone can be an information provider or an information consumer. On the Information SuperHighway most people will be relegated to the role of information consumer.

Because services like “movies-on-demand” will drive the technological development of the Information SuperHighway, movies’ need for high bandwidth nto the home and only narrow bandwidth coming back out will likely dominate. (see Besser, Howard. “Movies on Demand May Significantly Change the Internet”, Bulletin of the American Association for Information Science, October 1994) Metaphorically, this will be like a ten-lane highway coming into the home and only a tiny path leading back out (just wide enough to take a credit card number or to answer multiple-choice questions).

This kind of asymmetrical design implies that only a limited number of sites will have the capability of outputting large volumes of bandwidth onto the Information SuperHighway. If such a configuration becomes prevalent, this is likely to have several far-reaching results. It will inevitably lead to some form of gatekeeping. Managers of those sites will control all high-volume material that can be accessed. And for reasons of scarcity, politics, taste, or personal/corporate preference, they will make decisions on a regular basis as to what material will be made accessible and what will not.

This kind of model resembles broadcast or cable television much more so than it does today’s Internet. The scarcity of outbound bandwidth will discourage individuals and small roups from becoming information producers, and will further solidify their role as information consumers. “Interactivity” will be defined as responding to multiple-choice questions and entering credit card numbers onto a keypad. It should come as no surprise that some of the major players trying to build the Information SuperHighway are those who introduced televised “home shopping”.

Information vs. Entertainment The telecommunications industry continues to insist that functions such as entertainment and home shopping will be the driving forces behind the construction of the Information SuperHighway. Yet, there is a growing body of vidence that suggests that consumers want more information-related services, and would be more willing to pay for these than for movies-on-demand, video games, or home shopping services. Two surveys published in October 1994 had very similar findings.

According to the Wall Street Journal (Bart Ziegler, “Interactive Options May be Unwanted, Survey Indicates,” Oct. , 1994, page B8), a Lou Harris poll found that “a total of 63% of consumers surveyed said they would be interested in using their TV or PC to receive health-care information, lists of government services, phone numbers of businesses and non-profit groups, product reviews and imilar information. In addition, almost three-quarters said they would like to receive a customized news report, and about half said they would like some sort of communications service, such as the ability to send messages to others.

But only 40% expressed interest in movies-on-demand or in ordering sports programs, and only about a third said they want interactive shopping. ” A survey commissioned by MacWorld (Charles Piller, “Dreamnet”, MacWorld, Oct 1994, pages 96-105) which claims to be “one of the most extensive benchmarks of consumer demand for interactive services yet conducted” found that “consumers re much more interested in using emerging networks for information access, community involvement, self-improvement, and communication, than for entertainment.

Out of a total of 26 possible online capabilities, respondents rated video-on-demand tenth, with only 28% indicating that this service was highly desirable. Much more desirable activities included on-demand access to reference materials, distance learning, interactive reports on local schools, and access to information about government services and training. Thirty-four percent of the sample was willing to pay over $10 per month for distance earning, yet only 19% was willing to pay that much for video-on-demand or other entertainment services.

If people say they desire informational services more than entertainment and shopping (and say that they’re willing to pay for it), why does the telecommunications industry continue to focus on plans oriented towards entertainment and shopping? Because, in the long run, the industry believes that this other set of services will prove more lucrative. After all, there are numerous examples in other domains of large profits made from entertainment and shopping services, and very few such examples from informational services.

It is also possible that the industry believes that popular opinion can easily be shifted from favoring informational services to favoring entertainment and shopping. For several years telecommunications industry supporters have been attempting to gain support for deregulation of that industry by citing the wealth of interesting informational services that would be available if this industry was freed from regulatory constraints. Sectors of the industry may well believe that the strength of consumer desire for the Information SuperHighway to meet information needs (as shown in these polls) is a result of this campaign.

According to this argument, if popular opinion can be swayed in one direction, it can be swayed back in the other direction Popular discourse would have us believe that the Information SuperHighway will just be a faster, more powerful version of the Internet. But there are key differences between these two entities, and in many ways they are diametrically opposed models. Privacy The metering that will have to accompany pay-per-view on the Information SuperHighway will need to track everything that an individual looks at (in case s/he wants to challenge the bill).

It will also give governmental agencies the pportunity to monitor reading habits. Many times in the past the FBI has tried to view library circulation records to see who has been reading which books. In the online age, service providers can track everything a user has bought, read, or even looked at. And they plan to sell this information to anyone willing to pay for it. In an age where people engage in a wide variety of activities online, service providers will amass a wealth of demographic and consumption information on each individual.

This information will be sold to other organizations who will use it in their marketing campaigns. Some organizations are already using omputers and telephone messaging systems to experiment with this kind of demographic targeting. For example, in mid-1994, Rolling Stone magazine announced a new telephone-based ordering system for music albums. After using previous calls to build “a profile of each caller’s tastes … custom messages will alert them to new releases by their favorite artists or recommend artists based on previous selections. (“Phone Service Previews Albums” by Laura Evenson, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/30/94, p D1)

Some of the early experiments promoted as tests of interactive services on the Information SuperHighway were ctually designed to gather demographic data on users. (“Interacting at the Jersey shore: FutureVision courts advertisers for Bell Atlantic’s test in Toms River”, Advertising Age, May 9, 1994) Conclusion No one can predict the future with certainty.

But we can analyze and evaluate predictions by seeing how they fit into patterns. And an analysis of the discourse around the Information SuperHighway shows remarkable similarity to that which surrounded cable TV nearly a quarter-century before. Though there is no guarantee that the promises of this technology will prove as empty as those f the previous technology, we can safely say that certain powerful groups are more interested in promoting hype than in weighing the possible effects of the Information SuperHighway.

The Information SuperHighway will not just be a faster Internet; in fact it is possible that many of the elements that current Internet users consider vital will disappear in the new infrastructure. Though the average consumer will have many more options than they do from their home television today, attempts at mass distribution will likely favor mainstream big-budget programs over those hat are controversial or appeal to a narrower audience.

It is possible that diversity available from all sources will decrease and independent productions will be even further marginalized. And the adoption of an asynchronous architecture (a ten-lane highway coming into the library or home with a tiny path leading back out) would pose a significant barrier to those seeking to be information providers, and would favor a model of relatively passive consumption. And the kind of massification and leveling of culture that will follow is likely to be similar to the effects of broadcast television on culture.

The Internet, first designed for the military and the scientific community, has grown larger and faster than anyone could have ever expected. Now being a potpourri of information, from business to entertainment, the Internet is quickly gaining respect as a useful and important tool in thousands of applications, both globally and domestically. But, the growth that the Internet has seen in the last few years has come with some growing pains.

Reports of harmful information reaching children are always painful to hear; who wouldn’t feel for a mother who lost a child to a pipe bomb that was built from instructions on the Internet? But the greatest pain thus far has been the issue of accessibility of pornography on the Internet, and it has many parents concerned. But is it as big of a threat as the media would like us to think, or has it been a bit exaggerated? On July 3, 1995, Time Magazine published a story called On a screen near you: Cyberporn.

This article discussed the types of pornography that could be found on the Internet such as, Pedophilia, S and M, urination, defecation, bestiality, and everything else in between. In Julia Wilkins’ Humanist article, she states that the Time magazine article was based on a George Town University undergraduate student’s law journal paper that claimed that 83. 5 percent of the pictures on the Internet were pornographic. Unfortunately, after Time published the article, it was discovered that the paper’s research was found to be wrong.

So wrong in fact that Time retracted the figure, which really was less then 1 percent, yet the damage had already been done (1). She also claimed that the article, which was the first of its kind, was responsible for sparking what can be compared to a Salem witch-hunt or the McCarthy hearings. In effect setting off many child protection and religious groups who were being fueled more by inaccurate data and a Moral Panic type attitude, than the facts (1). With government officials being pressured from these groups, they declared war and the anti-Internet campaign had begun.

The first attack came from Sen. Jim Exxon (D-Nebraska) in March 1995. He introduced legislation that made material considered obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent against the law (qtd. in Lead-up). This legislation made its way to the Telecommunication Reform Package, and ultimately to the Communication Decency Act (CDA). The Telecommunication Act, which includes the CDA was passed by the senate, the house, and signed by President Clinton on February 8, 1995.

Lead-up) The same day the CDA was signed, the opposition, led by the ACLU and other advocacy groups, along with industry leaders like AOL and Microsoft, filed suit in a Philadelphia District Court challenging the constitutionality of the new law (Kramer, qtd. in Lead-up). The ACLU v. Reno landmark case found that CDA violated the first amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional. Then on June 26, 1997, in the U. S. Supreme Court, in the appeal, Reno v.

ACLU, the justices reaffirmed that the CDA was unconstitutional and that it was a cure worse than the disease (Lead-up). By a vote of 7-2, the CDA and the Moral Panic went away (Wilkins). Or did it? Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that the Communication Decency Act was a violation of the first amendment and that the Internet is entitled to the highest level of free speech protection , there is a new less obvious threat to the freedom of speech (qtd. in Beeson). According to ACLU, the new threat is hiding in the smoke screen of Internet rating systems (Beeson 2).

These types of rating systems have been around for awhile, designed as a tool to protect children from inappropriate material and help businesses keep their Internet users focused. While benign on the surface, the ACLU warns the long-term ramification may in fact destroy the Internet and the rights that come with it. Parental level blocking programs are not only the most effective way to keep children from inappropriate information on the Internet, but unlike labeling systems, provide the rest of us with the freedom of information we deserve. The protection of children is the focus of most of the issues surrounding the Net today.

Protection from pornography seems to be the main focus, but there are others, such as information on bomb making or protection from cults and sexual predators. All these are examples of why parents want to block or protect their children from this information. All sides agree that parents should have tools to protect their children from these threats. There is software, developed and maintained by private companies that do not rely on a global system for its blocking mechanism, that a parent can buy and use in their home to block sites that are deemed inappropriate for children (Krantz 1).

Although these types of third party software do a good job in keeping undesirable information away from children, the ACLU warns that many of them don’t block sites that have not been rated, and are known to block some sites that wouldn’t be considered inappropriate for children (Beeson 10). A buyer beware attitude has been taken by ACLU in regards to these end user packages. Likewise, the ACLU warns against the new direction the industry is taking with a global labeling type systems and states many of the new rating schemes pose far greater free speech concerns than do end-user software programs (qtd. Beeson 10).

The Platform for Internet Content Selection(PICS) is the newest labeling scheme that is being embraced by Internet industry leaders. This is not a filter, but a labeling standard for creating filtering or blocking tools. In theory, it’s designed to be a labeling mechanism for web sites that then can be used by end user software (Webber 1). However, because the PICS system has many technological holes, it is getting opposition from many advocacy groups including the ACLU, ALA and the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

In early December 1997, the Internet industry leaders, along with the White House, armed with a goal to standardize an Internet rating scheme, held a summit about the issue of virtually protecting children. This was an attempt at collectively finding middle ground for protecting children from Internet porn. But, Bruce Handy, a reporter for Time describes government officials pleading with the private sector to develop a system that works, and the industry leaders looking for the potential profit that a clean and well-lighted Internet can bring (Handy 2).

Bringing big business and the government together to discuss the strategies of the subject was an image booster for both parties, but little else. And according to Berry Streinhardt of the ACLU, one of the few advocacy groups invited, This had seemed more like a trade show than a summit (qtd. in Handy). It ended up producing more questions than answers. One of the only questions answersed by the so called summit proved to many free speech advocacy groups that their collation with big business was crumbling and the new battle against rating systems would be fought alone.

Sold out by big businesses that fought gallantly beside the ACLU and in their fight against the CDA, are now seeing dollar signs that a Homogenized web could bring (Beeson 8). But, the free speech groups have some ammunition on their side, the first amendment for one and the technological shortcomings of the PICS system second. One such technological shortcoming questions how would a labeling system keep up with the ever-changing web. With new web content moving through cyberspace constantly, how can all that content be labeled?

Voluntary self-labeling is the answer according to the Clinton administration (Weber 1). But that brings up many of it’s own questions. The first question is: What happens if the webmaster -the person who creates the web site- decides not to volunteer? The answer is simple. The site is blocked, because the PICS system must, by default, block unlabeled sites in order to be effective; so much for voluntary (Webber 2). Another question is: If this voluntary system is truly voluntary what incentive would a webmaster have to label his site?

Or what would keep the webmaster from mislabeling? According to the ACLU, eventually a law would, because without a penalty system for misrating, the entire concept of a self-rating system breaks down. They also state that despite all good intentions… would lead to heavy handed government censorship (Beeson 8). This would convince most, that a labeling system is inappropriate for the Internet, but there are many more holes in the PICS scheme. Another hole in the PICS labeling system is the cost and the man hours required to do such a task.

It probably wouldn’t hurt empires like CNN or Microsoft to spend the man hours to label their entire web presence, but the ACLU states non-profit organizations would be impacted greatly by burdens that rating large sites would require (Beeson 6). We all know what would happen if organizations decided not to label themselves. So what choice would they have? They would have no choice and that is wrong. It’s wrong because the cost and burden of such a task would effectively shut most noncommercial speakers out of the Internet marketplace (Beeson 6). Along the same lines the, the U. S. Supreme Court In the landmark case, Reno v. ACLU, in regards to use age verification for internet forums, the Justices stated that it would be prohibitively expensive (qtd. in Beeson 6).

And according to the ACLU this ruling would also apply to self-rating for some organizations (Beeson 6). Even if pro-rates get past the shortcomings of government intervention and justify the costs to the self-rating proposals what they sometimes forget is that the Internet is global and knows no boundaries. Lets face it, the rest of the world gets a lot closer on the Internet. For the first time in the history of man, there is a nearly global system of communication.

Ever wondered what a Russians’ day is like? Just ask and you’ll probably get more answers than you originally wanted. Or look out the window onto a street in Cairo and see what’s happening there at that moment. These are some impractical examples of what global communication can do. The practical ones for both business and entertainment are obvious. But, rating this vast virtuosity presents an equally vast amount of problems, both technically and practically.

According to the ACLU, more than half of the information on the Net is from outside of the U. S. d they warn that a rating system would put up borders around the U. S. , making us what they call Fortress America (Beeson 7). This would again infringe upon the rights of the Net user both foreign and domestic, and devaluate the rich resources that we find on the web today. If we can’t rely on the PICS system to protect our children and our free speech ideals, why is it still being pursued as the standard? There are a couple reasons why the PICS system is still being pursued as the standard. The first reason is a monopoly. Two companies hold 90 percent of the browser market, Microsoft -no surprise-, and Netscape.

Both support PICS labeling software packages (Beeson 13). Unfortunately where these two companies go, most of the rest of the industry has no choice, but to follow. The second reason that the faulty PICS system is still being pursued is ignorance, pure and simple. The same ignorance and bad journalism that led to the CDA, and Julia Wilkins’ Moral Panic. The same Ignorance that held the bogus Time article up on the senate floor and claimed it as fact (Wilkins 2). And according to the ACLU it’s the same ignorance that can be related to burning down the house to roast the pigs (qtd. Beeson 2)

The bottom line, according to Julia Wilkins, is that children are very much the minority on the web and for every child on the Web there is an adult paying for it. And for those who have children and want to keep them safe, there is plenty of education and software out there to protect the children without sacrifice to the rights of the majority (4). Likewise in Tim Haight’s article, Do We Need Internet Content Rating, he agrees users have the right to protect themselves and their children, but it needs to be done without any burden or effect on the rights of others (2).

The ACLU also agrees, and has always agreed, with providing education to parents and fully endorses the parent’s rights to choose (Beeson 12). If not the PICS system, then what may we see in the future? That is yet to be seen. But it is clear to the ACLU in the white paper presented at the Internet summit in Washington which meticulously examined the free speech issue for all rating system, not just the PICS system. They urge industry leaders, policy makers, children groups and the Internet users to engage in genuine debate about free speech ramifications of the rating and blocking systems being proposed.

The ACLU also gives five recommendations and principals to help guide the debates. The first is: Internet users know best. Meaning that the individual adult user know best what information should or shouldn’t be filtered or blocked, whether for themselves or their children. The second ACLU principal is: Default setting on free Speech. They fear that setting the blocking mechanism up as default on software such as browsers, or search engines, would greatly restrict the freedom of speech. The third is: Buyers beware.

Again the ACLU stresses complete user control; control when the user wants to block and control to know what they are blocking. The fourth is: no government coercion or censorship. Remember the first amendment. Finally, the fifth ACLU recommendation is: Libraries are free speech zones. they claim that mandatory use of blocking software is a violation of the first amendment (qtd. in Beeson 5+). In conclusion, based on key short falls of the recently endorsed PICS content labeling system, we can see that parental level blocking systems are the only solution, at the present time, that can protect our children as well as are freedoms.

We see that a voluntary rating system will only lead to government censorship, and commercialized homogenized content. Potentially leaving the U. S. in a Fortress American Internet presence, instead of the important global one. While free speech advocacy groups, such as the ACLU, support parents and educators rights to choose, what is and isn’t appropriate for children. They continue warding caution that freedom of speech is one of our greatest freedoms, and not examining the long-term ramifications in a system such as PICS may someday cost us that freedom, and others.

This question has plagued many in years past and will continue to be a source of controversy for years to come. Supporters of Internet censorship believe that this new information medium, currently unregulated and expanding at an alarming rate, must be filtered and controlled to avoid the risk of so-called undesirable content being easily accessible by minors (or, in some cases, anyone). The goal of these individuals and organizations is, essentially, to have laws put in place like those to which the television and radio industry are subjected.

Many others strongly oppose any type of Internet censorship; they, along with other arguments, cite United States citizens constitutional right to Freedom of Speech. The majority of these advocates propose self-regulation for concerned individuals (such as parents). For the majority, the quick expansion of the Internet has come as a surprise; and matters such as this should be taken into careful consideration for the future of the Internet, our children, and, to some extent, our society. At first, the Internet was only used by military personnel for national security purposes.

Then, its horizon broadened to include computer hobbyists and corporations. Now, because of its flexibility and ease of use, it is part of the life of mainstream America. Because of this so-called explosion in the number of households and institutions going online, some have suggested that the Internet be regulated to keep indecent and vulgar content from appearing. Although bills have been proposed to do just what these people wish, as of this point, all of them have been struck down in the United States Congress. Pro Internet Censorship

Bills such as the Protection of Children from Computer Pornography Act of 1995 (PCCPA) began to appear before the House and Senate when organizations such as Enough is Enough lobbied the Senate for legislation to protect children from online pornography: Women speak with a special authority on the issue of pornographyfor we, and our children are its primary subjectsand its primary victims. Pornography demeans and degrades women, victimizes children and ruins men. It contributes to domestic and spouse abuse, rape, incest and child molestation.

And a great share of it is not protected speech, any more than libel, slander or false advertising is protected speech; therefore, it is not a 1st Amendment issue. It is not legal material. Many Americans do not realize this fact. (Dee Jepsen) Pornography is not the only means of content that many want regulated on the Internet; some contend that hate speech should not be allowed to be openly accessible either. Some oppose hate groups have used the Internet as a medium to spread their message, discovering that it costs much less, and reaches a larger audience than they were able to do beforehand.

Supporters of regulating the Internet believe that it is a powerful tool, which with near total anonymity is easy to abuse. They profess that scamming and harassing other users is not free speech and those people can not hide behind the First Amendment. When the Constitutional Decency Act (CDA) went on trial, the Justice Department argued that the CDA is necessary because “The Internet threatens to give every child a free pass into the equivalent of every adult bookstore and every adult video store in the country” (Mattos).

Supporters of the CDA, such as President Bill Clinton, believe the bill is Constitutional: “I remain convinced, as I was when I signed the bill, that our Constitution allows us to help parents by enforcing this Act to prevent children from being exposed to objectionable material transmitted through computer networks” (Clinton). With regulations to restrict indecent content put in place, children would be able to browse the Internet freely and there would be no need for filtering software or to monitor them. Laws passed to restrict free expression on the Internet would make it safer, easier, and more useful for all involved.

Con Internet Censorship Other activists believe that censoring the Internet is a ridiculous, unconstitutional, and impractical solution to the problems of indecent content. The majority of these opponents propose self-regulation, either through a parent watching his/her child or blocking software that does not let a child access inappropriate material. People against censoring the Internet feel that it would take a persons right to free expression away, which is what some feel is one of the most important assets of the Internet.

These activists have argued that the Constitutional Decency Act, which was brought before the Senate in the summer of 1996, is unjust and certainly not constitutional. By imposing broadcast-style content regulations on the open, decentralized Internet, the CDA severely restricts the First Amendment rights of all Americans and threatens the very existence of the Internet itself. Although they believe that the act is well intentioned, they insist that the CDA can never be effective at controlling content on a global medium, where a web site in Sweden is as close as a site in Connecticut.

The Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition (CIEC) case is based on the argument that the only effective and constitutional way to control childrens access to objectionable material on the Internet is to rely on user control. (“CIEC, The Internet Is Not A Television”). The CIEC challenged the CDA on the grounds that “the Internet is a unique communications medium, different from traditional broadcast mass media, which deserves broad First Amendment protections” (CIEC).

The media did not let this issue pass; condemning the CDA, James C. Plummer wrote in Consumers Research Magazine as follows: The CDA penalizes not only people who transmit or make available indecent and/or patently offensive material to minors, but also those who “knowingly permit any telecommunications facility under [his] control to be used for any activity prohibited. ” What does this mean? In effect, it means that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is legally liable for anything you email, post to a newsgroup, or put on a web page. (Plummer)

Microsoft CEO and computer industry expert Bill Gates in his book on the future of the Internet, The Road Ahead, asserts that the idea of having Internet Service Providers act as censors would be unreasonable: Some critics have suggested that communications companies be made gatekeepers, charged with filtering the content of what they carry. This idea would put companies in the business of censoring all communication. Its entirely unworkable, for one thing because the volume of communicated information is way too large.

This idea is no more feasible or desirable than asking a telephone company to monitor and accept legal responsibility for everything thats spoken or transmitted on its telephone wires. (Gates 310) The CDA, however, was struck down as unconstitutional. In his decision, Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter wrote: It is, of course, correct that statutes that attempt to regulate the content of speech presumptively violate the First AmendmentThat is as it should be. The prohibition against Government’s regulation of speech cannot be set forth any clearer than in the language of the First Amendment.

President Clinton, although steadfastly holding to the belief that censorship laws are necessary for the Internet, condones self-regulation of the Internet through the use of voluntary rating systems: [The Clinton Administration] vigorously supports the development and widespread availability of products that allow both parents and schools to block objectionable materials from reaching computers that children use. And we also support the industry’s accelerating efforts to rate Internet sites so that they are compatible with these blocking techniques.

Agreeing that the proposed CDA is unconstitutional, Judge Stewart Dalzell wrote that: the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion. (“ACLU v. Reno”) Some believe that creating a new set of laws for the Internet is unnecessary because federal, state and local laws already apply to users of the Internet if they are in the jurisdiction of said laws.

For example, child pornography is not legal online or off, and several cases have shown that the Internet does not condone libel without penalization. In conclusion, advocates for free speech on the Internet believe that any type of government interference would lead to chaos, and would not work in any way whatsoever, even if taking away the First Amendment in this situation were the correct thing to do. Personal Opinion Before starting this research paper, I believed that the Internet should be free from government regulation.

After comparing the cases of both sides, I still believe, now more strongly, that any interference would have negative results and would not be the least bit effective. The arguments of the supporters of Internet censorship were mostly rooted in moral issues, and as I see it, blatantly show a disregard for the First Amendment. It is obvious that the Internet has not brought about these new issues, but rather raised them to a more global level. Censoring the Internet would not fix any of the problems it is supposed it, but instead it would bring about more problems along with it.

Laws such as the CDA attempt to apply to the entire, global Internet. Even if it were plausible, enforcing United States laws in foreign countries would be absurd because the United States does not have jurisdiction in foreign countries. The government of the United States cannot rightfully, or practically, enforce any law that would affect the entire world. If a law were passed, it would not be able to be enforced and therefore would not work in any way for any amount of time.

As an avid Internet user, publisher, and activist, I believe that the U. S. government should treat U. S. citizen Internet publishers the same as print publishers. Since the First Amendment was ratified in the 18th century, the federal government has recognized the freedom of the press: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. (The Constitution of the United States of America)

The Internet is unlike any information medium in history. Though there are many similarities between the Internet and other means of communications, the free flow of information that the Internet provides makes it a unique medium. Unlike television and radio, the Internet allows users to access much information beyond just a channel-changing remote with only a limited number of stations. The ability of the Internet to provide access to information is only limited by those who use it.

Unlike traditional print media such as the newspaper, the Internet is relatively cheap and widely accessible. With a computer, network connection, and the proper software, anybody can become a web publisher. There is virtually no limit to how much content can be published on the Internet, whereas newspapers are limited by physical costs such as the cost of paper or the number of writers. The Internet is truly an exceptional, unmatched information medium and should be treated like one.

Most Internet users are either not charged to access information, or pay a low-cost flat fee. The Information SuperHighway, on the other hand, will likely be based upon a pay-per-use model. On a gross level, one might say that the payment model for the Internet is closer to that of broadcast (or perhaps cable) television while the model for the Information SuperHighway is likely to be more like that of pay-per-view T. V. “Pay-per-use” environments affect user access habits.

“Flat fee” situations encourage exploration. Users in flat-fee environments navigate through webs of information and tend to make serendipitous discoveries. Pay- er-use” situations give the public the incentive to focus their attention on what they know they already want, or to look for well-known items previously recommended by others.

In “pay-per-use” environments, people tend to follow more traditional paths of discovery, and seldom explore totally unexpected avenues. “Pay-per-use” environments discourage browsing. Imagine how a person’s reading habits would change if they had to pay for each article they looked at in a magazine or newspaper. Yet many of the most interesting things we learn about or find come from following unknown routes, bumping into things we weren’t looking for.

Indeed, Thomas Kuhn makes the claim that, even in the hard sciences, real breakthroughs and interesting discoveries only come from following these unconventional routes [Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962]). And people who have to pay each time they use a piece of information are likely to increasingly rely upon specialists and experts. For example, in a situation where the reader will have to pay to read each paragraph of background on Bosnia, s/he is more likely to rely upon State Department summaries instead of paying to become more generally informed him/herself.

And in the 1970s and 1980s the library world learned that the introduction of expensive pay-per-use databases discouraged individual exploration and introduced the need for intermediaries who specialized in searching techniques. Producers vs. Consumers On the Internet anyone can be an information provider or an information consumer. On the Information SuperHighway most people will be relegated to the role of information consumer.

Because services like “movies-on-demand” will drive the technological development of the Information SuperHighway, movies’ need for high bandwidth nto the home and only narrow bandwidth coming back out will likely dominate. (see Besser, Howard. “Movies on Demand May Significantly Change the Internet”, Bulletin of the American Association for Information Science, October 1994) Metaphorically, this will be like a ten-lane highway coming into the home and only a tiny path leading back out (just wide enough to take a credit card number or to answer multiple-choice questions).

This kind of asymmetrical design implies that only a limited number of sites will have the capability of outputting large volumes of bandwidth onto the Information SuperHighway. If such a configuration becomes prevalent, this is likely to have several far-reaching results. It will inevitably lead to some form of gatekeeping. Managers of those sites will control all high-volume material that can be accessed. And for reasons of scarcity, politics, taste, or personal/corporate preference, they will make decisions on a regular basis as to what material will be made accessible and what will not.

This kind of model resembles broadcast or cable television much more so than it does today’s Internet. The scarcity of outbound bandwidth will discourage individuals and small roups from becoming information producers, and will further solidify their role as information consumers. “Interactivity” will be defined as responding to multiple-choice questions and entering credit card numbers onto a keypad. It should come as no surprise that some of the major players trying to build the Information SuperHighway are those who introduced televised “home shopping”.

Information vs. Entertainment The telecommunications industry continues to insist that functions such as entertainment and home shopping will be the driving forces behind the construction of the Information SuperHighway. Yet, there is a growing body of vidence that suggests that consumers want more information-related services, and would be more willing to pay for these than for movies-on-demand, video games, or home shopping services. Two surveys published in October 1994 had very similar findings.

According to the Wall Street Journal (Bart Ziegler, “Interactive Options May be Unwanted, Survey Indicates,” Oct. , 1994, page B8), a Lou Harris poll found that “a total of 63% of consumers surveyed said they would be interested in using their TV or PC to receive health-care information, lists of government services, phone numbers of businesses and non-profit groups, product reviews and imilar information. In addition, almost three-quarters said they would like to receive a customized news report, and about half said they would like some sort of communications service, such as the ability to send messages to others.

But only 40% expressed interest in movies-on-demand or in ordering sports programs, and only about a third said they want interactive shopping. ” A survey commissioned by MacWorld (Charles Piller, “Dreamnet”, MacWorld, Oct 1994, pages 96-105) which claims to be “one of the most extensive benchmarks of consumer demand for interactive services yet conducted” found that “consumers re much more interested in using emerging networks for information access, community involvement, self-improvement, and communication, than for entertainment.

Out of a total of 26 possible online capabilities, respondents rated video-on-demand tenth, with only 28% indicating that this service was highly desirable. Much more desirable activities included on-demand access to reference materials, distance learning, interactive reports on local schools, and access to information about government services and training. Thirty-four percent of the sample was willing to pay over $10 per month for distance earning, yet only 19% was willing to pay that much for video-on-demand or other entertainment services.

If people say they desire informational services more than entertainment and shopping (and say that they’re willing to pay for it), why does the telecommunications industry continue to focus on plans oriented towards entertainment and shopping? Because, in the long run, the industry believes that this other set of services will prove more lucrative. After all, there are numerous examples in other domains of large profits made from entertainment and shopping services, and very few such examples from informational services.

It is also possible that the industry believes that popular opinion can easily be shifted from favoring informational services to favoring entertainment and shopping. For several years telecommunications industry supporters have been attempting to gain support for deregulation of that industry by citing the wealth of interesting informational services that would be available if this industry was freed from regulatory constraints. Sectors of the industry may well believe that the strength of consumer desire for the Information SuperHighway to meet information needs (as shown in these polls) is a result of this campaign.

According to this argument, if popular opinion can be swayed in one direction, it can be swayed back in the other direction Popular discourse would have us believe that the Information SuperHighway will just be a faster, more powerful version of the Internet. But there are key differences between these two entities, and in many ways they are diametrically opposed models. Privacy The metering that will have to accompany pay-per-view on the Information SuperHighway will need to track everything that an individual looks at (in case s/he wants to challenge the bill).

It will also give governmental agencies the pportunity to monitor reading habits. Many times in the past the FBI has tried to view library circulation records to see who has been reading which books. In the online age, service providers can track everything a user has bought, read, or even looked at. And they plan to sell this information to anyone willing to pay for it. In an age where people engage in a wide variety of activities online, service providers will amass a wealth of demographic and consumption information on each individual.

This information will be sold to other organizations who will use it in their marketing campaigns. Some organizations are already using omputers and telephone messaging systems to experiment with this kind of demographic targeting. For example, in mid-1994, Rolling Stone magazine announced a new telephone-based ordering system for music albums. After using previous calls to build “a profile of each caller’s tastes … custom messages will alert them to new releases by their favorite artists or recommend artists based on previous selections. (“Phone Service Previews Albums” by Laura Evenson, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/30/94, p D1)

Some of the early experiments promoted as tests of interactive services on the Information SuperHighway were ctually designed to gather demographic data on users. (“Interacting at the Jersey shore: FutureVision courts advertisers for Bell Atlantic’s test in Toms River”, Advertising Age, May 9, 1994) Conclusion No one can predict the future with certainty.

But we can analyze and evaluate predictions by seeing how they fit into patterns. And an analysis of the discourse around the Information SuperHighway shows remarkable similarity to that which surrounded cable TV nearly a quarter-century before. Though there is no guarantee that the promises of this technology will prove as empty as those f the previous technology, we can safely say that certain powerful groups are more interested in promoting hype than in weighing the possible effects of the Information SuperHighway.

The Information SuperHighway will not just be a faster Internet; in fact it is possible that many of the elements that current Internet users consider vital will disappear in the new infrastructure. Though the average consumer will have many more options than they do from their home television today, attempts at mass distribution will likely favor mainstream big-budget programs over those hat are controversial or appeal to a narrower audience.

It is possible that diversity available from all sources will decrease and independent productions will be even further marginalized. And the adoption of an asynchronous architecture (a ten-lane highway coming into the library or home with a tiny path leading back out) would pose a significant barrier to those seeking to be information providers, and would favor a model of relatively passive consumption. And the kind of massification and leveling of culture that will follow is likely to be similar to the effects of broadcast television on culture.

Without a doubt, the Internet is undergoing a major transition as it experiences a tremendous influx of new users. Due to the anarchic, distributed nature of the net, we cannot even begin to enumerate the population of the Internet or its growth. As more of the world’s population moves on-line, new concerns will arise which did not confront the earlier generations. The new culture will demand different resources, services and technology than the old generations expected and used. Already we can witness a clash between the emergent culture and the entrenched culture.

The largest conflicts occurring now are about sharing resources, the mpending commercialization of the net, and the growing problem of computer crime. The Internet was born in the union of government and researchers, and for two decades afterwards remained mostly the realm of those two groups. The net began as ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Net, designed to be decentralized to sustain operations through a nuclear attack. This nature persists today in the resilience of the net, both technologically and in its culture.

ARPANET was phased out in 1990 and the net backbone was taken over by NSFNET (National Science Foundation). Since 1969 the ain users of cyberspace have been involved in research or in the university community as computer experts or hackers, exploring the limitations and capabilities of this new technology. These people formed a cohesive community with many of the same goals and ethics. In addition to the homogeneity of the net, the small size contributed to a strong feeling of community.

There has been some conflict between the hackers and the researchers over sharing resources, and philosophies about security and privacy, but on the whole, the two groups have co-existed without major incident. The newest of the members of the so-called old generation are the university users who are not involved in research work on the net. Generally these are the students using the net for email, reading netnews and participating in interactive real-time conversations through talk, telnet or irc. This wave of people integrated smoothly with the community as it existed.

Still sharing the common research and education orientation, the community remained cohesive and the culture did not change much, perhaps it only expanded in the more playful areas. These users did not compete with the esearchers for resources other than computer time, which was rapidly becoming more available throughout the eighties. It is only in the past year or two that we have begun to see the explosion of the new generation on the Internet. Businesses have begun connecting themselves to the net, especially with the prospect of the NSFNET backbone changing hands to permit commercial traffic.

Public access nets run by communities or businesses are springing up in cities all over the world, bringing in users who know little about computers and are more interested in the entertainment and information they can glean from the net. Commercial providers like America Online and Compuserve are beginning to open gateways from their exclusive services to the open Internet, specifically allowing their users to access email, netnews and soon ftp and telnet services. The explosion of BBSs and the shared Fidonet software has brought many users who were previously unable to get an account through a university to the world of email and netnews.

At this point, anyone with a computer and a modem can access these most basic services. Several state s, such as Maryland, have begun efforts to connect all their residents to the net, often through their library system. The city of Cambridge, MA now offers access to the world wide web for short segments of time in its public libraries, and even several progressive coffeehouses in the San Francisco Bay area and soon in the Boston area are offering public net access. In the last 20 years, the net has developed slowly, adapting comfortably as its population grew steadily and shifted the culture to more diverse interests.

But as the net faces a huge increase in its users in a short time, the reaction is bound to be more severe, and debate will center around several key issues that were irrelevant in a small homogeneous community. The establishment of new customs concerning these issues will define the culture of the future Internet. Most resources on the net currently are not designed to handle the amount of usage that will occur within the next six months. Sites which offer access to ftp archives are particularly worried about the massive influx of new users from commercial services opening access soon.

America Online administrators addressed this issue in a recent piece of email to ftp sysadmins where they recognized the perceived problem and stated that they would “request that AOL members limit their FTP traffic to off-peak hours for sites” and “work ith administrators to help manage load problems. ” They offer to set up mirror sites for easier access to these resources. Unfortunately, this may not be adequate — it is certainly agreed by now that Internet users will need more patience in the future when accessing the information they want.

Many net users have been complaining recently about the influx of AOL users onto Usenet. Of course, perceptions of these new posters were not enhanced by a bug that caused their messages t o be reposted eight times. Newsgroups (such as alt. aol-rejects) were created specifically with the intent of nsulting AOL users and resenting their entrance onto Usenet. As the net becomes more crowded, we can expect more animosity and rivalry for “rights” to access resources. As the NSFNET backbone changes hands to allow business traffic, we will see even more of a business presence than that which already exists.

At the present time the ethics of business on the net are very unclear. The perception of commercial use as inappropriate use of the net still exists among many segments of the net community. Incidents such as the mass advertisements from the law team of Canter&Siegel have made many people fearful of the otential of abuse of access in cyberspace. On the other hand, useful services are coming on-line, especially with the advent of fill-out forms on the World Wide Web. With technology advancements like authentication and digital money, commercial activity will become even more widespread.

Computer crime becomes a much more immediate problem as the net’s population expands without control. The old and new generations on the net have different security and privacy needs, and different views of what constitutes a computer crime. Even as this conflict plays out on the net, the print media sensationalize very story of computer break-ins and computer pornography rings. Often crimes that only incidentally involve the net are promoted as being symptomatic of the destructive anarchy that exists on the net.

This attitude towards news about the net will eventually bring with it stricter laws governing cyberspace. Major concerns in net crime now involve break-ins, data theft, privacy violations and harassment. When the net was new, it existed solely for the purpose of cooperation and collaboration between researchers. Thus, resources were shared regularly and uncomplainingly. There were few enough sers that one could take the resources one needed without disturbing other people’s use of the net. Of course, there was not as much available then for which users would compete.

A few years ago, the idea of commercializing the net was a thought anathema to most of the users, but slowly and surely, businesses are establishing themselves on the net and will soon form a large portion of the traffic. The old generation fears the abuse of the anarchy of the net for advertising. Most people oppose intrusive methods of advertising, such as junk-mailing lists and “spamming” Usenet, or posting messages to many newsgroups as Canter&Siegel id. Individual choice in viewing promotional material is important to the older generations because this is not intrusive, and in fact supplies a desirable service.

Word of mouth is an important factor in deciding to view information about a product or a service. On the smaller net of the past, there was less crime, less reason for crime, and less vulnerability to major damage. The net was a homogeneous community, dedicated to collaboration, and the information stored on the net was hardly as sensitive as the information soon to be spreading across the net like credit card umbers, driver’s records, medical histories, proprietary information and sensitive financial information. The action most frowned upon by members of the old generation was misuse of resources.

Most realized that their systems and accounts were not very secure and tolerated some exploration by curious hackers (though not destruction of data). However, the old generation received a rude awakening in November 1988 with the Internet worm. As the worm spread to machines all over the nation, bringing down computer systems by the dozens, the net community began to realize that the ecurity of the net would help them protect their data and their resources. Although the worm was not a malicious invent ion, it was easy to conceive of a recurrence of the worm with destructive attributes.

In the early beginnings, many systems were open to all who wished to come and share data or read documents. Computer experts enjoyed exploring systems and finding entrances just for the knowledge to be gained from these activities. This “breaking in” to systems was not a major concern for users. Over time, though, people began to feel a right for privacy and security of their information and hackers fell into disfavor. Data theft was also not a big concern, as the purpose of the net was to share data, not to restrict information. There was very little personal or private information stored on the net.

The small community only included users with legitimate research concerns at the beginning, and cyberspace was not as anonymous as it is now, so harassment was not a concern. The new generation has heard of the infinite resources of the net and the hundreds of communities established on-line. In the last several years the news media have been trumpeting the magical things that the Internet can do for our society. Tantalized by these eports, thousands of people unaffiliated with research institutions or the government are streaming onto the Internet to access these resources.

This influx is causing a monumental change in the direction and the culture of the Internet. We are seeing the beginning of commercialization of the net. This definitely represents a trend away from the old attitudes, as commercial activity has been frowned upon for years. Now the people of the net demand commercial services, information about products, and companies demand access to consumers. It is unclear to me what the new generation of net users want in the form of dvertising. Within the last year, however, we have seen a frightening example of the potential of abuse of the Internet by advertisers with the law team of Canter and Siegel.

Their message which was posted to almost all newsgroups was considered very invasive and extremely inappropriate, yet the duo states that they considered the advertisement a success, and are willing to repeat it. Is this the kind of advertising the new generations want to see? Do we want our inboxes filled with junk email and our travels on the net interspersed by advertising? Because more of us will be on-line, and more of our commercial and usiness transactions will be taking place on-line in the future, crime will rise in cyberspace, and people will need to be protected.

Currently the net operates mostly in an anarchic state with sysadmins and government officials patrolling the borders. There may, however, be a call for greater security on the net. Because of the existence of much proprietary and personal information on the net in the future, access to sites will be restricted severely, and breaking into systems will become a more serious crime. Many people are willing to let the government install our safeguards, but here has been recent controversy about what kind of access the government should have to our information.

Computer crime has been sensationalized recently in the media, especially crimes linked to sex offenders or pornography distributers. I believe that this kind of reporting is detrimental to the future of the net because it may incite unnaturally stringent lawmaking in cyberspace. As the Internet grows to encompass a larger segment of the world’s population its diversity will increase until it begins to mirror the external world. We are beginning to see breakdown in the previously omogeneous characteristics of economic status and educational background.

In the San Francisco Bay area there are coffeehouses with cheap access to an on-line chat area that even homeless people can afford and indeed, many homeless people have come to find that these chat areas give them a sense of community and “home. ” Local library systems across the nation are providing net access. Maryland’s Sailor project is a good example – they provide gopher access in the libraries and through toll-free dialup, and individual libraries will begin to offer full access with mail, ftp and telnet. With he coming of the National Information Infrastructure, net access may become as common as telephone access.

It will cease to be merely a useful toy and tool for the research community and will be a simple fact of life, a point of access to a wealth of information and a meeting place for dispersed communities. We can easily expect conflict to arise in this nascent world net community simply because of differences in needs and visions for the net. An old attitude that makes it difficult to create harmony between the old generations and the new is the behavior of more experienced users towards `newbies’ on the net. In the past, one could expect other users to be somewhat familiar with computing environment.

People who asked too many `stupid’ questions were ostracized and `flamed. ‘ Now the net must handle a gigantic influx of users with less computer experience, who will ask thousands of questions in their exploration of the obscure operations of the Internet. People come to the net with great expectations of the vast resources available to them, and they do make use of them. Unfortunately, not all sites are able to accommodate the increase in traffic, especially with services like Compuserve and America On-line opening their ates to the Internet.

In a letter to ftp sysadmins, Robert Hirsh of AOL states that AOL will request that its members limit traffic to off-peak hours and that AOL will work with administrators to manage load problems, specifically by providing local mirror sites for AOL users and for Internet users. One Internet user from the University of Massachusetts voiced his fears in a post to the newsgroups alt. aol-sucks: “… careless actions by AOLers could seriously jeopardize access and availability on sites already overloaded and restricted. ‘ and“Those who depend on the Internet or legitimate information retrieval/sharing and communication will find themselves swamped in a sea of curiosity seekers, net. sex geeks, and those who are convince d that `telnet’ is synonymous with `Information Superhighway. ‘ ” The old generation perceives the new generations as overtaxing the resources and resents the burgeoning population. Conflicts are inevitable in the commercialization of the net. Simply, the old common philosophy was opposed to commercial activity on the net because the net existed solely for research purposes.

The new generations see the net as the center for many services and perations, and thus will require heavy commercialization of the net. Commercialization does promise to bring more advancement in technology and more investment in the net. The old generation is being forced to accept commercialization, and there has been little outcry over the appearance of commercial WWW sites. More than anything else, the old generation fears the intrusion of advertising, but this may become commonplace as people join the net through commercial providers and access commercial servers.

Beyond resource management and commercial use, the area of most concern policy-wise and legally is that of computer crime. The older generation were used to an anarchic Internet and some would like to continue this experiment in the spirit of freedom, but new users are demanding protections similar to those we enjoy in the physical world. I believe that the need for security is justified, though, because of the expanding and changing nature of the Internet. In particular, breaking in for exploratory purposes will be frowned upon.

As our cyber-dealings gain importance and we begin to think in terms of our cyber-personae as being extensions of ourselves into the realm of cyberspace, privacy violations, data theft and other rime will become more serious. We will spend more time in cyberspace handling our business correspondence, purchasing products, disseminating information and interacting with other people. Through these activities we will gain identities in cyberspace that will be as important to us as our identities in the physical world.

We will need to have easily available forms of authentication of people’s identities, probably through a digital signature. Will we need to ensure that people only have one identity in cyberspace? This may seem logical at first, just as in the physical world we are only one identity by the government for urposes of the law and finances. However, I believe that imposing too many restraints in cyberspace will fail, because there is a tradition of working around the technical solutions of authority to access greater freedom. Perhaps it will work in the business world, because fair dealings involve authentication of identity.

The net will become increasingly supported by commercial services, and many of the resources we now have free of charge will become commercial because they cannot serve the increasing population without funding. Advertisement will become a commonplace ccurrence on the net, though I hope that by convention it will remain unobtrusive. I fear that as more information about ourselves become available on-line, marketers will not resist the opportunity to use this knowledge to their advantage by targeting us for specific product pitches.

Cyberspace will be policed in the future. I envision an agreement between nations regarding illegal actions occurring in cyberspace on a international scope not unlike the current law of the sea. We will see the most control occurring where people get their access to the net. Walls will go up in cyberspace, information will be hidden nd restrained. We will still have hackers working their art on the net, finding ways around our technological barriers, and they will become more dangerous as we have more sensitive information on the net.

Crime stories on the net will be sensationalized because there will still be fear and misunderstanding of cyberspace, and because of the increasing importance of on-line security. The diversity of the emerging cultures will segment into like-minded communities. Information on the net is oriented towards serving interests and not uniting diverse interests. Thus, I fear that the ivision between the older generations and the new ones will become institutionalized as each culture builds the part of cyberspace in which they wish to exist, and there will be little communication between the parts culturally.

As we progress into the information age, everyone will move into cyberspace, just as most people have adopted telephones and integrated them into their homes and businesses. Thus, the on-line culture will slowly begin to duplicate the physical world in its inequalities and segmentation, its diversity and opportunity. Restrictions will go up and walls will be built in cyberspace. There will be laws and regional police to enforce those laws and monitor security in their regions.

We are undergoing a transition perhaps on the same scale as the transition to literacy several hundred years ago. For many centuries after writing began, this skill was left in the hands of the educated elite – mainly the church servants. When literacy finally came to the majority of the middle class and some of the lower class, the Renaissance began. Similarly, we are witnessing the opening of a new medium of information to the general populace, and we can only guess at the outcome.

The sign at Wal-Mart says, “99 Cents. ” Although, if you go through the checkout line and greet the cashier with merely a dollar, the cashier would laugh at you. The price isn’t ninety-nine cents, it’s $1. 06. The taxman at our friendly Raymore Wal-Mart claims an additional 7. 45% of one’s hard earned dollars. The additional seven cents doesn’t sound like much, but it is when it’s seven additional cents for each dollar of the thousands of dollars that a person spends at a business like Wal-Mart every year. These seven-cent deposits go to the Missouri and Raymore tax funds.

Taxes that help pay for public education, Medicaid, and other state and local services (Alster). There is only one problem, a new form of commerce is taking business away from normal “brick and mortar” businesses like Wal-Mart. This form of commerce isn’t new, it’s actually a few years old and it’s growing exponentially now. This new standard of commerce is called “electronic commerce” or “e-commerce. ” E-commerce comprised of $4 billion dollars in revenues in 1997 (“Let’s Not Rush”), which is almost negligible to the trillions of dollars done in total revenues in the United States.

Although, it is forecasted to be much more popular in the future. Shopping on the Internet has many benefits over shopping in local stores. E-Commerce, or electronic commerce, is commerce done over the Internet. The Internet is seen as the future for business and information technologies. Why would a person want to spend a few minutes getting dressed to drive fifteen minutes to Wal-Mart to spend an hour or two shopping, and another half an hour, on a good day, checking out and driving back home.

In the middle of all that, don’t forget the hassle of trying to find the right toy, while listening to obnoxious kids and dealing with sub-par customer service. There is another problem, most stores aren’t open 24 hours a day like Wal-Mart and QuickTrip. The biggest problem with regular business isn’t the customer service, or busy lines, it’s the six to eight percent sale price boost that occurs at the end of that busy line.

Until October 21, 2001, by the way of the Internet Tax Freedom act (“Bill”), any shopping done on the Internet with a business not located in your state of residence isn’t required to charge its customer a single cent of sales tax. In other words, a person saves 7. 45% by purchasing their goods from the Internet instead of Wal-Mart. That in itself is enough to bring booming business to the Internet, not to mention that you can buy stuff online at four in the morning with no clothes on and no one else in the world would ever know.

Although a person saves paying sales tax, the customer must pay for the products to be delivered. Depending on how much you spend on the Internet, this fee may be a little more or substantially less in relation to the money saved by not paying sales tax. There is a hidden cost for shipping when a person shops at Wal-Mart also. Don’t forget about the gas you burn driving there and back, the slow wear and tear on your vehicle of choice, and all the time you spend driving around town looking for the best prices.

On the Internet, there are web sites that tell you the best prices for products and where to get them. Buying some items on the Internet is the only way to go. Ever buy a computer for $2,000 and pay an additional $150 in taxes? Not on the Internet. It might cost forty dollars to have it shipped, but that extra $110 would fit nicely back into a wallet. The Internet tax Freedom Act from 1998 guarantees no sales taxes till after October 21, 2001. The act also founded a commission to research and plan a way to tax the Internet. The problem is very complex.

For instance, pretend person A owns a business on the Internet. Person A lives in Missouri but the computer that houses his business is in New York. Person B comes along and buys something from the web site. Person B lives in Kansas. The problem lies in that, Missouri, New York, and Kansas all want to collect that sales tax. A person shouldn’t have to pay tax on something three times though. The debate is over who gets the tax. On the other hand, what if the business is housed on a computer in London, England, then what happens?

Don’t forget that the next customer could be from China as well. New technologies lead to new problems. No matter what happens, if there is a sales tax, it will discriminate against somebody. The only explanation I can see is to not have a sales tax, but that discriminates against normal “brick and mortar” businesses, unless sales taxes are abolished nationally and higher income taxes are paid instead, which may be the only viable option. The Internet is a growing commerce, but it will never totally replace “brick and mortar” businesses.

When its 5:00 p. and there’s nothing in the fridge for dinner, ordering bread and lunchmeat on the Internet isn’t a feasible option, driving to Price Chopper is. Grocery stores probably have the least to worry about. Who would order milk or ice cream over the Internet? Non-consumable goods, on the other hand, have a lot to fear. Clothes, electronics, music, cars, furniture, toys, and many other items are quickly finding themselves on the Internet, all presently tax-free. Many items not included in general store stock are easily obtainable on the Internet.

There are generally more variations and brands to chose from on the Internet, all accessible without driving all over town. The largest fear for most people who are interested in shopping online is Internet security. People worry about their credit card numbers getting stolen, products not getting delivered, and other problems. The easiest answer to that is to use large well-known stores online. Don’t buy something from some guy who claims he has what you need. Seek other peoples’ opinions about the site as well.

E-mail the store and ask about their security issues, and as far as that goes, call them and place the order over the phone if too concerned. New 128-bit digital certificates used for encryption of messages on the Internet protect customers. If a person catches a message between a customer and the store, the person won’t be able to read it because its encrypted and it could take hours or days to crack the code (“Is it safe”). It’s more likely that a cashier at a local store would memorize your credit card numbers and use them later.

As far as security goes, when was the last time a person got robbed in the Internet store parking lot or got car-jacked on the way home? Ever have car problems while out shopping? Not on the Internet. The only thing you have to worry about is accidentally turning off the computer or the Internet service provider crashing. While shopping on the Internet, customers are in the safety and convenience of their own home. The Internet is undeniably the best source of information in the world, and it may very well be the next standard for commerce. No taxes and other benefits have made it possible for e-commerce to grow at an outlandish speed.

Taxing it would slow its growth, although, finding a way to tax it fairly is the hard part. “Brick and mortar” companies are in rich supplies these days. In the future, they will probably dwindle, but they’ll never disappear. Choosing the right product is a lot easier seeing it first hand, and some people enjoy shopping simply for the social activity. Meanwhile, the rest of us can sit around in our pajamas and buy stuff for great prices at two in the morning; paying shipping definitely sucks, but it’s better than paying Uncle Sam, at least for now.