Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: The Hazards of Developing the Internet
mog asks:
"I am currently starting a large research paper
for my senior High School English class, and
have chosen the topic "The Hazards of the Internet."
Obviously this is intended to mean the dangers of the
internet, but I have chosen to interpret it differently.
My interpretation is that of the dangers encountered upon
the development of the internet.
I am looking for any information anyone can supply me about
the Intellectual Property issues, Monopolies / OSS movement
issues, and the general issue of standardizing internet
protocols."
How about the minefield caused by viral licensing agreements proliferating around the internet?
Why not write a paper critical of the open source movement for a change, and see how it will be mainstreamed and become just another distribution mechanism and not an earth shattering revolution bringing movement.
call it hazards of the new millenium.
stuff like
1) a ring that allows/denies you entry into buildings, has all of your information, you can't buy or sell without it. it's like having a credit card/drivers license/SS card all in one with everything in a little ring you will be required to wear at all times.. Sign of the devil anyone?
2) new cars will all have black boxes that will allow police as well as 'security' companies to watch you. they will say this feature is to track down stolen cars, but it is also so they can follow you at all times and they will have control to turn off your car and make it unable to restart. they will also monitor your speed so police won't be monitoring speed in traffic as often.
3) men will be able to bear children within 10 years
4) all these prophecy theories..
The technology is here and they have been using similar technologies but never tell us about it. For instance, a friend of mine in the DEA says sometimes they get in a helicopter far above the perpetrators house and are able to view through the house and watch all activity.
To hell with Big Brother.
Join the rebellion to take back our country.
this makes me wish i worked at slashdot..
post requests like this would have gotten me through my english classes alot easier -=;[]
Sweated on the web? Damn, kids have it too easy nowadays...
Quite onestly, such an attempt makes me sick. You can do better than that, and you *know* it. Find your own ideas. Research what you want to. Don't expect others to do your work for you. It's offensive when you ask, you know?
Perhaps a paper discussing the hazards of investing on the internet.
This could take one of two major focuses:
1. The risk entailed in investing in companies with an Internet focus. The balloons keep on growing in size. Look out for that baby crawling around down on the carpet with the hatpin.
2. The risk entailed in investing in companies through the internet. All the day-traders in their cubicles near mine at work spend a lot of time on websites supposedly getting a good return on their investments.
There is more honesty and unbiased (read: un-bought) opinion in one day's worth of slashdot than six months of
hahhaha, this is rich. the vast majority of what is posted here on slashdot is mindless zealots bleating like the sheep that they are. you would be hard pressed to actually find anything here on slashdot that isnt heavaly biased.
Other side? On Slashdot? Surely you jest!
Nope... nobody in here but us monitor-tanned code cowboys...
BAH! what a waste of pixels to display that question. I'm upset my CPU wasted power interpreting that HTML! What a dumb question to be posted here...and for a high-school paper to. Hope you get 90+% on you 500 word essay buddy.
I did a similar paper for my Senior Research paper. I did it on ISDN and xDSL and stuff. I had almost a perfect paper, but got a B- because my instructor had no idea what I was talking about. (I doubt she ever even got in the internet before). Remember this is an English paper. It is to be read by an English major who probably took as few computer cources as possible (When mine went to school, there wasn't even a single computer in our town).
read some of Neal Stephenson's essays posted awhile back on slashdot. One specific essay was his "Cryptonomicon".
And like other's have said.. just search around. It's not that hard. Would have been faster than sending in the email to slashdot (and me and countless others replying).
- A backlash from those parties who depend on their ability to regulate others for their livelihood. Some of these agencies can fight back with legal, financial, political, or even military power.
- Irresponsible publication of information (or intentional or unintentional publication of disinformation) and irresponsible usage of information published. This is a risk whenever there is communication between two parties, and the only real solution to this is for people to become smarter. The increase of intelligence is only aided by the increase of information flow. Of course the parties that want to regulate the new medium will use this second category of risk to justify their regulating and reducing the information flow, conveniently reducing the threat to their power.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation site might be worth checking out, if you haven't already.A good set of articles (opinions) concerning the internet can be found at Lawrence Lessig's home page. Lessig is the Berkman Professor for Entrepreneurial Legal Studies at Harvard Law School. He also writes a regular column for the Industry Standard. I highly recommend that you read these articles as they are well written and highly thought provoking. Note: his article "Memo to the Leviathan" assumes the hypothetical role of a person that play's devil advocate to Lessig's opinions.
If you want to know the history of a lot of
the protocols that the internet uses, look
at the RFC's (start at www.ietf.org) and
browse from there. Some of them are highly
technical, but they go all the way back
to 1969.
Check out RFC 2555 for a little bit of histroy.
As food for thought, I give you the letter I wrote to a guy at antionline in response to an article he wrote there. This is just my opinion but it might offer some interesting lines of research for you.
Don,
Congragulations on an interesting article that has inspired this
response. I would like to begin by saying that I've been watching the
internet, and using it, for some eight years now in relative silence. I
tend to be quiet, but I really need to respond to this story. Don, with
all due respect, I don't think you really understand what is going on
here, nor do most people. I have heard the pundits, prognosticators and
'intelligentsia' discuss the internet and related phenomenon for years
and am stunned how off-base their comments seem to be. The internet is
about _liberation by information_, and it has brought about a war
between the masses and the 'guilds', the rulers; the emperors, if you
will. But here is what so few seem to understand: The information age,
whether it be driven by the internet or some descendent thereof, is
about the liberation by information _of the masses_, not those already
in possession of information and power.
For centuries the leaders of society, the control freaks, have exploited
and taken advantage of the masses and finally, the masses are going to
get theirs, as it were; not because of some philosophical manifesto or
belief, but because of the immutable direction in which technology is
taking us. No human being is really controlling this. It is precisely
when you jeopardize the control freaks' hold on the masses, through
public relations and image, that they get furious and start fighting.
For it is at that point that you begin to break their hold on power, and
they know it. The FBI has as much as admitted that this whole affair is
about image (see CNN). Isn't it always? Isn't it really about ego, about
public image and showing who's who? After all, your article appeared
only _after_ the 'hackers' attacked _your_ domain and perhaps hurt your
ego. Don't take this wrong, I just think this is the way we have
sub-consciously structured our society; it's just the way it is.
But even worse, if you control the purse directly they really get angry.
See the Recording Industries panic over mp3 to see my point.
Intellectual property rights are a total fraud. If I sell, or barter
something to you that I created in a totally original way, I've no moral
or ethical right to have any influence or control over what you decide
to do with it. But I do have the right to possess original named credit
for the work, or to not release it at all. Is this so difficult to see?
That this lie, the lie of profits based on interfering in the private
relations of other people bartering or selling your creation is one of
the most fantastic lies ever perpetuated by man, and the internet is
forcing it into the acid bath of truth, for all the world to see. It was
by _controlling information_ that the control freaks were able to
successfully perpetuate this lie for so many centuries. I encourage you
to objectively think about intellectual property rights and profits and
ask yourself if it makes any ethical sense.
The knee jerk reaction of the control freaks to the internet has been to
either reject it or, not surprisingly, to _try_ to control it. But this
is what is so 'insidious' about the internet: you cannot control
something that pushes the limits of technology _all the time_. What I
mean is, there is no way to censor or control an _interactive, real
time_ medium that connects essentially everyone over a network of wires,
with datagrams sent via NAPs operating at the fastest speeds technology
will allow! To do so would require technology _beyond_ what is presently
available as it must allow both the reading and _cross referencing_ of
packet header info, something currently not required. This is an obvious
contradiciton that is simply not possible. My theory is this, and I do
not believe it is all that remarkable: this network will _always_
function at the highest speed the technological infrastructure will
allow (because as the speed is made available, it is immediately used by
'consumers'), thereby negating the possibility of real, comprehensive
censorship (because that would require _greater_ speeds). This 'theory'
holds for any network, not just the internet. The market simply won't
bear the slow-down necessary for comprehensive censorship. The humor in
the inability of just about _everyone_ and _anyone_ to understand this
simple 'theory' is astounding: if you doubt this lack of understanding
read some of the ridiculous legislation coming out of Washington. It
reeks of fear, reactionary thought, ignorance and a general lack of
understanding.
So, this is what the 'hackers' are doing, in my opinion. They are
fighting control freaks and they deserve to win. You see, once you
become big and well known, you are a 'leader' and you have exploited
others to get where you are (I do not believe antionline is on this
level, and I do not agree with the cracker attack on them). You have
controlled information, held it from others, lied and generally
exploited people either: less intelligent than yourself (that should be
the worst crime in all U.S. law), or less knowledgeable than yourself
(probably because you controlled the info in the first place).
Don, I will repeat what I predicted some six years ago:
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, COPYRIGHTS, AND JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING WE
ARE ACCUSTOMED TO THAT HAS TO DO WITH CONTROLLING INFORMATION, WILL
VANISH IN TIME, NO MATTER HOW PAINFUL IT MAY BE FOR THOSE LOSING ITS
BENEFITS.
FOR ENTREPRENEURS, FAILURE TO UNDERSTAND THIS FACT WILL RESULT IN
BUSINESS FAILURE. PERIOD. THE RULES OF THE INDUSTRIAL AGE NO LONGER
APPLY.
YOU CANNOT STOP IT. NO ONE CAN.
I wish all these prognosticators would get the picture!
You wrote in your article that:
"I don't think that gives me the right to break into his house and bust
up his stuff. Yet it is O.K. for you guys to try and do that on a
regular basis."
Don, I see your point, but I just don't think the examples you juxtapose
commute.
"All hitting web pages does is screw up the free transfer of information
on the net. Isn't that what you are fighting for?"
Absolutely, but big sites like CNN, zdnet, microsoft, etc. are trying to
_stymie_ the free flow of info. They are the friends of intellectual
property rights advocates, Don! So standing against them is morally
just. So your point is only true if the crackers are attacking the
'underdogs', not the 'big guys'.
IMHO,
Peace
Lloyd
Ahem..excuse me? Monpolies exists wherever one company has nearly 100% control of a market segment.
The government often has _nothin_ to do with it.
'Natural' monopolies appear whenever someone owns a rare resource source (Cobalt, for example), owns or controls a distribution system that is extremely expensive or impossible to reproduce (water, the railroad in the Western US in the late 1800's, electrical grids, local phone systems), is uniquely situated geographically - to name just a few.
'Artificial' monopolies are often built the way M$ or, in years past IBM, has done it. That is to say by creating or coopting standards in one market (OS's, mainframes) to influence penetration in another market - ie. the famous Netscape/IE war waged by M$ by calling the browser 'a part of the Windows OS'. They can also be built by outright sabotage or threats to one's competitors, by dumping, by predatory pricing agreements, etc. - to name a few.
Amen. Now that's thinking through the question.
There are also some other essays he's written in the same directory.
chris
Hey do you have more information on this?
One of the things that made Hitler so dangerous was his rethoric power. I'm not surprised some of his speeches would still work today...
Yeah, good point. People with remaining touch on reality will just go elsewhere, and let you zealots wage your jihad independant of reality, slowly rendering yourselves irrelevant in the coming revolution.
Thanks for holding down the advance guard; too bad you were too busy focussing on the fight to see the war....
Yea - and I bet your one of those whinging gits who complained Mindcraft never asked for help setting up there Linux boxes. If they had I expect you would have said
"Why don't you research things on your own instead of spamming slashdot? Are you going to ask us to configure your box for you as well? Don't be pathetic...."
Whats pathetic is flaming a kid because he asked for help on his homework. If your really to important to be "sponged off" then you could have just ignored the artical rather than pumping your sorry ego by flaming the kid for not being as 3133T as you...
One of the big hassles I've come across developing web pages is cross-browser, cross-platform development. Internet Explorer has one kind of Document Object Model (DOM), for instance, and Netscape Navigator another, almost opposite DOM. (Makes JavaScript coding a real pain.) But what really irks me is how various browsers arbitrarily interpret W3C standards like HTML 4.
HTML 4 has new tags for making web pages accessible to visually impaired or mobility restricted people. Some browsers recognize these tags, others don't. For example, Explorer can use embedded keyboard commands to access menus on a page while Navigator cannot, although the current versions of both supposedly support the HTML 4 standard. To make things worse, Explorer provides some HTML 4 standards on some platforms but not on others. (Explorer is particularly adept at that.)
No wonder few developers are writing barrier free web pages. Who knows what platform or browser a user could be using.
The only proven way to counteract that is by intervening to restrict monopolists from certain busines practices.
Rather "Kid who dares ask questions instead of just digging up the same old sources over and over again". Education is 90% about learning to ask the right questions. If you don't lear that, it doesn't matter one bit if you've learned everything else - you'll learn a lot more by knowing how to ask the right questions and synthesize information from the responses than any book can learn you.
One major "hazard" / "danger" I can think of is in fact the very soul of the internet - free speech and opinion.
People don't always agree with people, and don't always like what other people like. And quite obviously from flaming and spamming and nuking and shite like that it shows.
Internet's like life - except you can disconnect from it as many times as you want.
Maybe this post will make sense to someone...
Hell, I just blurted it out...
"and the people bowed and prayed - to the neon god they made"
My little sister just got out of elementary. From what she tells me everyone in her classes is wired, and a lot of that is due to the internet available at her school. It gives me a warm, fuzzy glow to know that the majority of the next generation seems to be becoming as geeky as me.
:-)
The internet, video games and japanese toys leaking across the pacific all seem to be contributing.
Its come to the point where I keep getting asked back to talk about what I do in front of her classes. Makes me laugh to remember what it used to be like.
uhhh, whats this topic about again?
"Why don't you just go home and play with your joystick" ---Idiot in Junior High.
--S
Jeez. I thought you were making that up, but then I read the article. What is the world coming to? How ignorant do people have to be before they actually start thinking about what they say? Oh well, I'm off to the "Dark Net" now...
Just another AC
But they'll usually be...
a) Unverifiable, unless you do your own work.
b) Questionable, i.e. not necessarily from
reputable sources.
c) Icky to cite (cite a URL, say?)
Besides, research in a library is ACTIVE -- you have to look for it yourself, and can often guess the relative quality of a reference; plus, more of what you get can be 'raw' data, letting the writer form his own opinions rather than amassing predrawn conclusions. The 'Net equivalent would be searching Google, rtfm.mit.edu, and so forth; not asking a group of strangers for comments.
It's a fine title -- consider the "Perils of Pauline".
Now, that *could* be interpreted as meaning "the dangers you'll face if you have anything to do with Pauline", but it was used to mean "the dangers facing Pauline".
Same thing here.
On the net you have less personal accountability, so people are a little less reserved then normal. While this can be good for some people who are normally very shy, it also allows a greater amount of hostility then normal situations. The large amount of flames put out by ACs are a good example. Another problem of on line comminication is that we can't rely on body language or tone. This can tell alot about the person's temperment and will possibly change the meaning of something that could be taken as hostile to be relatively benign. This tends to promote a polarization of online society based on a certain fundamental beliefs, instead of around racial/class/gender basis. Having said this the ability to share large amounts of information allow a decrease in hostility or can form societies. It allows people who are marginalized in a small comunity to find that there are people like themselves. If you share information a bout your local society, it can also be the vector of change, Russia is an example of where the internet helped bring change.
The biggest hazard on the internet is that there are alot of opinnions here. Not all of them are correct, and most will be disregarded if this is a serious report. To help the most we should give links, (I can just see my old teachers eyes bulge if I cited an AC) they might be more cridible.
I would like to say that it is nice of the teacher top get students to write their propaganda. Although looking back at my Catholic schooling I suppose it isn't new. We did have internet access, though.
A. Hypocrite
This is all very silly. Monopolies exist because of barriers to entry. The most common barrier to entry takes the form of "if you compete with me, I will call the police" -- as in post office, etc. That is the most common source of monopoly -- government. All of this talk about monopolies being more likely to persist in free markets is a crock.
Monopoly also depends a lot on market definition, which is often quite arbitrary. The government's suit against Intel originally centered around "high-end PC processors." Why is that a distinct market? Why not "all PC processors"? Why not "all processors, PC and otherwise"? Because only by framing it in a certain sense could the government credibly argue monopoly power.
And, of course, since around here "monopoly/OSS issues" is code for "Microsoft sucks," even if you think MS is a monopoly, the only way they maintain it is through government intervention in the form of copyright enforcement. Copyrights are just government granted monopolies, accepted because their perceived benefits (incentive to innovate) outweigh the costs (higher prices and lower output). Some of us, myself among them, think that's a reasonable conclusion. Others think copyright isn't worth it for software (but may be for books and other media). But let's not pretend that monopoly comes from anything except the visible hand of government.
Yup, look how they're interfering with MS.
except when i was in high school, the Internet hadn't yet been demonized, nor was it the hot topic it is now. The school gave out free email accounts, and I was one of about 10 who took advantage of them. Anyway, in my pre-calculus class the teacher had us write a paper on a technological subject(a paper in a high school math class? yeah, she was pretty useless as a teacher). I chose the Internet, and when I turned in my paper, she accused me of plagarism, since she didn't understand how a senior in high school could be educated about a subject the school didn't teach, that she was ignorant of, and at this point was mainly the domain of universities and government organizations. I made a big stink about her accusations, and that, combined with her ineffectiveness as a teacher, led to her getting fired. I know it's off subject a little, but the moral is this: if your teacher isn't the type that respects students' intelligence, dumb down your report to a level that she||he can understand. Otherwise, she||he might feel stupid that a student knows more than them, and mark you down out of spite.
Fucking loser. Get a life. Get paid for writng drivers, you fucking moron.
not only does the pope have a web page, but he has the whole domain too!
fritz
"this message sent on 100% recycled electrons"
Hi mog. Here is link to a paper I just wrote on Open vs Proprietaryh tml
internet standards and how proprietary can lead toward anti-trust and
sap interoperability.
http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~jgoldsch/standards.
hope this and my references will help.
goodluck
-Jason
more dangers, from working as a sysadmin and being bored in high-school computer classes:
4. Don't try to hotswap processors, memory, and cards that aren't supposed to be hotswapped. Even if you're bored.
5. Don't touch circuit boards or connectors with metal objects when the system is turned on (altough abusing the video card will result in pretty displays).
6. Make sure the power switch is really attached to what you think it is before pressing it.
7. Mice and other objects with cables should not be hung from ceiling fans unless you like missiles flying at you. (Yes, this really happened in my computer class while the teacher wasn't looking)
This question is interesting for the fact that you're writing a "Hazards of the Internet" paper at all. What kind of in-class material was taught before you were given the assignment (if any)? I can just *hear* what 99% of the teachers and administrators at my catholic high school would have had to say about the internet...
Also interesting, I suppose, will be all the otehr student's answers to this -- it'd be neat to see how many of them buy into the mass media's "internet is evil" stereotype and talk exclusively about Columbine/Duke Nukem/Porn/Nazi Web Sites/etc. After all, this is the generation who should know better, having had the net around during their formative years.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
That is an assumption.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
Why don't you research things on your own instead of spamming slashdot? Are you going to ask us to write the paper for you as well? Don't be pathetic. The biggest hazard on the net is fools like you.
Unlike many other ask slashdot posts, this one has no relation or benefit to readers. Its just a lazy ass trying to sponge of us.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
If he'd asked for help with linux I would have been the first to answer. If he had complained about a driver I'd written I would have fixed it immediatly. kiss my ass why don't you.
Well, if your looking for info on freedom from censorship then you might be interested in the freenet project... the web site is at
http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/~iic/4yp/
Posted by Vik Olliver (at home):
:v)
The main hazard to the internet in my humble opinion is that governments want to censor and regulate it to death. Just ask an Australian user.
I hope that by now the internet has sufficient momentum behind it for people to develop protocols and communications networks that reduce the ability for governments or corporations to control our communications. But I ain't sure.
Vik
Looks like it was 1932. In his book Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology, Howard Zinn recounts the story as follows:
Posted by d106ene5:
I would focus on the pseudo-monopoly held by NSI and its ramifications for internet development. This story certainly has the juicy details to make for an interesting paper.
While open-source software has played a role in developing the net (TCP/IP, BIND, Sendmail, etc), I don't think the connection is particularly interesting in itself. In the early days of the internet, the open/closed source debate wasn't as apparent as it is now.
Actually, if you ask something on /. you will usually get quite a few links to raw data, as well as links to several different views on the matter. It's really a great place to start digging.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This must be sarcasm, right? Or do you really think the way to get an education is to read web bulletin boards!?
Asking on the net _is_ doing your own research.
About the idea that this somehow prevent people from forming their own opinion (while studying in a library somehow doesn't), remember the old description of Usenet: "Usenet is great! Ask a question on Usenet, and within five minutes yuu will have at least three answers. Unfortunately, all three will be different."
This must be sarcasm, right? Or do you really think the way to get an education is to read web bulletin boards!?
/. articles? I can certainly tell you quickly enough which has more variety and at least makes you question what you read.
I think he was referring to going out and doing your own scratching beneath the surface, instead of just taking in and believing what they feed you in school.
Really, which is worse? the biased opinion of the education system or the biased opinion of thousands of
see 'Fahrenheit 451' (foreign translation 'Centigrade 233')
:-)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAHHAHA Careful, I am certain you could ask the admins of Amazon.com and find out people searched for the foreign translation.
Made my day anyway...
Of course
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
A handy resource for quotes and background would be Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet.
Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon
Touchstone Books
reprint 1998
It should be in your public library and it even has a colon in the title which should look great in your bibliography.
Hope it helps.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
a quick note: Monopolies cannot exist in the long term in a free market. Those that do are nearly always government enforced.
You can find more information on the associated website: http://www.inforules.com.
-cjr
Fine plan. No, go back to reality and Chaos Theory... Boom! :)
That's an easy one. /. about theos.com. The OpenBSD developer was sued by Theos Software for having theos.com domain even though he registered it before the company even existed. Of course there are also people who register a domain with the only purpose to sell it to someone else.
;-)
A few month ago news.com had a nice story called "Microsoft's Holy War on Java" summarizing what happened. That alone should be enough for a sizable paper.
Then there's also DHTML and the much-hyped XML. Both of them allow a certain company to proprierarize standards.
As for intellectual property and stuff, you can write about the domain name rules. About a month ago there was a story on
You could also write about spam...
hope that helps
___
If you think big enough, you'll never have to do it.
Eheheh, Long time reader, very rare poster.
I would like to see the final results of the paper. I am not sure how you feel about throwing your writing to the sharks that occupy this arena.
But I am curious about which opinion you will take and your personal stand on this issue especially with regard to the reaction of your profs. I got sent to the resident HS psych when I turned in a paper on the death penalty. (For those who are curious, read HL Mencken's view on it, his view was my senior paper thesis.)
I think the slashdot.org readership deserve to view it.
Thanks,
Don
don@bigdon.com
Worst Sig Ever
Oh shut up. This is a damn fine way to do research for a paper. I can't think of a more technically literate community he could have tapped into. Obviously he has to form his own opinion to write a paper at all. There is more honesty and unbiased (read: un-bought) opinion in one day's worth of slashdot than six months of news.com
On a similar note, I would like to add the following. When I was in High School (many, many moons ago), I used to write relatively more technically oriented papers for some of my classes (English and Social Studies). Now that I think about it, I used to do the same when I was in college (e.g., history classes). This went over like a drunken sailor in a monastery. The teachers (and in many instances, the other students) would essentially say, that is great but is it really that important?
In hindsight, this illustrated to me the vast cultural and intellectual differences between the nerds and the rest of the world. Most ppl do not care about technical issues despite that fact that they are very important when it comes down to the pragmatic issues of implementation. Ignorance of the technical issues allows one to just wave their magic wand to make things better, to make problems disappear. Unfortunately, the problems (as perceive by the masses) will not disappear unless you understand aspects related to implementation.
Hence, to the High School student: Educate the masses! Write your paper! Ignorance is a terrible thing to waste.
I too will be interested in finding how the other students stereotype the internet.
For the the lazy/poor/librarily-challenged, his basic premise is that if we rely on computers too much, we forget about reasoning and other important things like that.
Cliff's earlier book "The Cuckoo's Egg" on his exploits to catch two West Germans trying to break into security systems is also entertaining.
... and today's pet project has
As I have been told the revolution will not be broadcasted, do you know if it will be posted? And if so, where? (SegFault?)
If you're thinking of a different speech, which one?
I play Nerd-Folk!
If you think it's so bad then what the hell are you doing here? Sheesh.
Good for you. I've got no problem with your post. I was talking to the other guy, the one who was whining on Slashdot about Slashdot being crap.
That kinda thing just gets on my nerves that's all. If s/he doesn't like it here why don't they go elsewhere instead of adding to the noise.
So developing sufficiently complex specifications in an open environment with live business-critical implementors ain't much fun.
-Adam (an HTTP/1.1 server/cache/proxy author)
Much of the reading materials for 6.085, a college course taught jointly between MIT and Harvard Law School, are available on line here. This was a great class and the reading materials are quite thorough. Topics included privacy issues, free speech issues, and computer crime.
Well, when I got involved with it, 20 years ago,
we were just a handful of people sharing scientific
data. We had absolutely no idea that
it would evolve into a worldwide popular
phenomenon. I still get a kick out of seeing
URLs on the sides of city buses.
Yeah, I've been quietly chuckling to myself about all the 'hazards' and 'dangers' of sitting in front of a monitor with a keyboard and a mouse :)
Warning!! Dangerous Web Site Ahead!!!
Other than driving someone bezerk, the only dangers are a little obesity and maybe eye strain.
Kinda reminds one of the 'good ol' days' of book burning, censorship, burning at the stake by the authorities - see 'Fahrenheit 451' (foreign translation 'Centigrade 233') - to save people from 'dangerous ideas'. The authorities hate that, not because it's bad for people, but because it threatens their authority.
Chuck
The Web is mightier than the Bomb!
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
It looks to me like there are some faculty members out there who want to bash the internet, but don't know enough about it to do so. They fear what they do not understand, and are looking for ammo. What ever happened to presenting both sides to the arguement? If I were you, I would be very wary about any negative comments I made about the net.
Paranoid? Yes, but it's the only reason I'm still alive.
cya
My suggestion would be to focus on intellectual property (so-called) and privacy issues. Runaway legislation restricting use of copyrighted material and granting large powers of surveillance to gov'ts are at the top of the list. The World Intellectual Property Organization has approved recommendations that would make it easy for large companies to claim domain names and take them away from current users. The US Congress is considering legislation that would make online databases of facts copyrighted material -- meaning you would no longer be able to abstract facts from those databases & use them in your report without written permission or payment of a fee. The "Echelon" project has been in the news -- the US, New Zealand, Australian & British gov'ts have been monitoring all satellite transmissions of email, telephone calls and faxes. The British gov't was considering but now has dropped legislation that would have required that all ISPs to maintain "key escrows" for all encrypted data transfers, and allow the British law enforcement agencies access to those keys whenever they asked for it. The Australian parliament has just passed a law requiring all Australian ISPs to block internet access to foreign sites that are on a censor list -- a censor list to be developed by the Australian Film Board!
&c &c &c
I would have emailed a copy of this post but there's something wrong with your email address. You should fix it.
mp
"The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets." -- Whitfield Diffie
Sure. Read & post. It's easy to snowball a ... not because you are being graded, but because you want to be taken seriously.
teacher, but you can't snowball a newsgroup or
bulletin board. Eventually, after a couple of rounds of posting articles with weak arguments, bad spelling/grammar, and logical errors, and being royally flamed and embarrassed, you learn how to write
- jms
Why call it "Hazards of the Internet" when that is not the topic? Call it "The Hazards of developing the Internet", or "Growing pains in the developing online world", etc...
You title certainly will catch some attention from the teacher in light of recent news events, but after they read the paper and find the title has nothing to do with the content I think they will be less impressed.
-josh
What happens if we start dropping little "rf bombs" around town? next to every little grocery? They don't have to be tricky devices.. just something with a battery and an antenna, sending out garbage as loud as it can.
(Would using a reception system like GPS units use defeat the bombardment of noise?)
I go to Arapahoe High School in Littleton, CO (about 6 or 7 miles from Columbine) so this internet thing is getting a lot of attention around here.
/. community sees these things in black and white, but it just isn't so. Especially if you read at -1.
Fall semester last year, I needed more social studies credit to graduate. I added an economics class. It was easy, stupid, and boring, so I quit. Instead, I arranged to do an independant study. The topic: "Law and the Internet" (it had to be social studies credit, remember.)
Over the course of the semester, my day to day thing that I did for the study was basically to read and participate in slashdot discussions and sometimes go roaming around the internet for more info on my specific topics (I didn't even have to give continuous updates. It was a sweet deal)
My topics were encryption, censorship issues (porn/hate sites) and intellectual property. I learned waaaaaaay more just doing the day-to-day slashdot thing than I ever would have in school. I also liked getting several angles on each issue. Yes, I know that people think the
For the study, I wrote 3 or 4 rambling katz style essays and finished off the semester with a powerpoint presentation in our school's brand new forum with a huge video screen and speaker system. The teachers (and principal) loved it - especially the powerpoint presentation. I snuck in some non social studies related stuff by including in the presentation a complete explanation of public key cryptosystems, complete with animated diagrams. And they actually understood it! (I wasn't too heavy on the math) That whole experience was definately cool.
I think you will be plesantly surprised by the whole experience when it is over and done. I was. In my presentation, I'm sure I said things the administration didn't agree with, but they were very impressed anyway, because I made the case pretty well (I presented each of the 3 issues from 2 or 3 sides, and then took a stand and argued it.)
It made a bigger impression than I could have imagined. By the next day, every teacher in the school had heard about it, and were actually congratulating me, even though they weren't there! They have looked at me differently ever since.
So anyway, to wrap up, I say put enough effort into this that it will be something that you can be proud of. It will be fun and your teachers will probably be genuinely surprised and impressed.
Vidi, Vici, Veni
So, uh... how did the paper go? :-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
One weakness of Slashdot as a research tool is that the contributors can't correct misstatements. I know that once I tried for an hour (off and on) to find a post that I had made so that I could post a correction after it. Never did find the posting, though I assume that it eventually showed up. Wrong. And uncorrected.
Folk need to be able to edit their own pieces, at least by posting add-on notes. Sometimes flagrant mistakes just can't be corrected.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
I guess one of the biggest issues concerning the Internet is the ease of copying digital media, and the concomittant problems of ownership, compensation, and distribution rights.
Take for example mp3s and their relatively easy access. What is intellectual property worth when production costs and such dilute the value? In terms of costs of bandwidth, file size, song quality, and the unquantifiable/unqualifiable pleasure or utility, how do you determine value? Economically, digital media is worthless because of oversupply; not that it isn't worth owning, but because there is so much(infinite, really) available that prices drop to download times and internet access issues.
How should/will the music industry respond to that? How should money, profit, distribution, etc be handled? Is it good or bad?
Same issues with movies, like the rogue Phantom Menace CDs floating around. Or video games. Or applications. Is anything truly worth $400 when it only costs some time, a couple of burned CDs, and ISP connection charges? Is Microsoft actually cheating us by charging us $400 for their Office Suite when it costs mere dollars to download? Or are we cheating Microsoft for not paying the price *they* choose to set?
How does market economics and dynamic change, when the Internet can literally make interaction personal and 1:1 as well as nameless, faceless, and substanceless?
Have fun. This is my $0.02
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Talking about ethernet, you could mention everyone can tap into your communications very easily. Backbones are less straightforward, but they too can be tapped.
You could mention both the security issues involved (passwords out in the open), as well as privacy issues.
You could conclude with a strong argument for the use of encryption, and the release of the export laws involved.
The angry man always thinks he can do more than he can. -- Albertano of Brescia
That is a good outline you wrote (which I bet will be used verbatim by someone in the class BTW). As a teacher, if I got a well-written paper that was based on that outline, I would be forced to give it an "A" then throw it in the trash along with the numerous newspaper articles that say almost precisely the same thing. I mean this in the most polite way possible, but is that education? If the purpose of education were to teach obedience, wouldn't it be more efficient to make people perfect their crayon skills?
/. discussion. And moderators, moderate up anything posted by mog so we can see it.
I'm hoping mog will have the courage to talk to the teacher before starting work on the paper and ask permission to deviate slightly from the intent. He can say he has found a way to potentially interview the very people who were (and are) involved in developing the Internet. He'll be able to do some interesting research that really stimulates thought.
Of course, one problem is that it may be difficult to put this kind of material at a level that non-geeks can understand.
Whatever happens, though, mog, be sure you keep us updated on this. In light of the recent series of articles posted by John Katz regarding persecution of Internet-literate kids in high schools, I think your experience is very pertinent to the current
Wow, that's really slow. Rob has been working on fine tuning the moderation, and it's looking good, but maybe it's time to look at the timeliness of posted articles, eh?!
3 years working for ISPs, and this is what I've learned are important dangers:
1. Never cut the long ends off zip ties used for cable bundles until AFTER you hang the cables. Otherwise your arms will not forgive you.
2. Never connect a pair from a T1 with your body. Depending on distance, there can be about 40-50 volts on there.
3. Type 66 punchdown tools. 'nuff said.
-Chris
Could one of the "Hazards of the Internet" be that we are getting so used to having information sent instantly from one location to another, processed, then returned with an applicable response, that we are starting to "speed" up our own concept of time prematurely? Hmmm sounds like a preamble to a philosophical discussion from Fred W. Hagen. /. can be lost just as easily as a Post-It with that all-too-important phone # (or email addy)..
I guess this is a perfect example of how the Internet is NOT just a global complex entity relying on technology solely, but rather a transport mechanism for human thought. It also shows that posts to Ask
Congo Rats on the graduation, and enjoy your summer.. now where's my coffee?
-- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
In essence, you don't really have a paper, because there is no "dark side of the Internet". It is people that can have dark sides, and focussing on the Internet only serves to bury heads deeper in the sand.
In which case, having their opinions freely and openly available to be seen for what they are is the focus of debate. If you see someone with a bald head and semi-combatant dress hanging around on a street corner, what will you think? Now go read a website filled with slick, professional graphics; clear, concise, accurate commentary; and highly usable links. Who made the website? What do they look like? What if the skinhead on the street made it?
And what opinions were expressed in that website, anyway?
Can you fear the shameless self-expression made possible by speaking to an audience of strangers who seem like they aren't likely to meet you? Depending on subject, I certainly can. Even with a slick presentation, even with the coolness of it being on the internet (not so cool anymore), there are some things I just don't want some random stranger telling me. I properly admit to that.
You might consult those reports-for-sale sites. They have certainly promoted plagiarism among students. Also, check out the colleges that sell diplomas online. Another issue that applies greatly now is the proliferation of such texts as the anarchist's cookbook online.
Each of these issues would certainly help a teacher understand the dangers involved with immoral and illegal actions resulting from the internet.
-- p1p3r
"My interpretation is that of the dangers encountered upon the development of the internet."
Sorry, but if I were your teacher, I'd claim that you focused on a narrow slice of the whole topic, and I probably wouldn't understand what you were talking about.
Here is a brief outline describing the kind of topics that I would expect your teacher to anticipate. Each topic tries to tie in with what your teacher has heard in relation to it. It may be a book, a movie, a historical event, or a potential threat.
1) Privacy
A) Individual from government
("Enemy of the State")
(Encryption export/control)
B) Individual from business
("Business @ the speed of thought")
C) Individual from other individuals
1. online stalking
("The Net")
(The Diagnosis Murder with an online killer)
2. ease of information retrieval
(Geneology info from the Mormons online)
D) Encrypted Communications
1. Government
(WW 2 and Enigma)
(NSA)
2. Business
(EU claims USAUK steals trade secrets)
3. Individuals
(terrorism and organized crime)
E) Anonymity
(Anonymous re-mailers)
2) Living your life online
A) Online dating
(some movie here)
("You've got mail")
B) Telecommuting
("The Net")
2) Objectionable Material
A) Racist speech
(Hate sites)
B) Dangerous information
1. Bomb making
(Littleton)
2. Chemical, biological, or nuclear weapon
plans
(Aum Shinrikyo and the Tokyo sarin gas
attack)
C) Protecting children
1. Parental monitoring
2. Filtering software in the home
(That teen who offers information on
cracking filtering software)
D) Schools
(Recent Supreme court decisions defending
the right's of High School students to
have web pages insulting teachers/staff)
3) National Issues
A) Filtering software in libaries
(Supreme court cases)
B) Legislating Content/Censorship
(Communications Decency Act)
(Old "Time" cover story with kid looking
at computer)
C) Hacking
(Government web sites hacked)
(Credit card numbers stolen)
(Kevin Mitnick)
(The Cuckoo's Egg)
D) Intellectual Property
(Warez)
(MP3, Diamond Rio, and RIAA)
5) International Issues
A) Use of filters
1. China (a lot)
2. Australia (some)
3. US (none)
B) Information Warfare
( CIA and Kosovo )
( Web site attacks in Kashmir )
4) Business
A) Use of internet at work
1. Monitoring
2. Filtering
3. Liability
4. When you work at home.
(Recent Harvard case)
B) E-commerce
( Disintermediation and the "death"
of retail)
( Getting perscription drugs online )
These are the types of main stream American topics in which your teacher is probably interested. Of course, I'm assuming that you're enrolled in an American High School.
The world will not get better through technology. We must seek to be better people.
Actually I already graduated. I mailed my Ask Slashdot about 2.5 or 3 months ago, and it just got posted.
Hmm, its June 3, your a senior in highschool, and you are starting your large research project now? Let me guess,
A) You screwed around during the school year and were told "do this huge project and you'll pass".
or
B) You aready failed, and are in summer school, so you can do the same.
Now, I'm not meaning to be negative, (in high school I ended up in categorey A a few times, in college, categorey B) but what you need to do is "impress" the person grading your paper.
So, make their head spin. Do some research on the "neo-tribal"* theorys, and write it up good and scary, guaranted "A+".
* "neo-tribal theory"
The idea that with the proliferation of massive information (and the joint proliferation of filtering software and "portal" sites) viewers see only what they wish to see, and social sub-groups become more and more insular.
ex. White power nuts go only to white power web pages, now for ALL their news, so they have no challenge to their perspective.
Just a Thougt.
-- Crutcher --
#include <disclaimer.h>
I tend to agree, although there were sources of sources then. One of those was NASA's COSMIC, but the main web site is shut down -- any mirrors around?
Well, let's hope he finds the real information, such as Spurgeon's Ethernet Web Site [and a historical Ethernet drawing] rather than amateur histories and wrong information such as "collision level of 10% is bad".
First, I am glad someone else shares an interest in the development of the Internet in terms of its architecture. Second, I would suggest you do a little soul searching and preliminary research to decide what you want to focus on. Your initial topic is very broad (so broad not even my dissertation will cover it). I would suggest you think about some of the following issues:
Decide do you want to look at the past development of the Internet or the future of the Internet?
How technical do you want to get?
Do you want to focus on the development/implementation/enforcement of technical standards?
Do you want to focus on the government, academia, or the private sectors role?
Do you want to look at social issues - privacy, pornography, security?
Do want to emphasize economic or legal issues?
But if you just want a good topic with lots of information out there, how about software patents
There is a good book on the 'origins' of the Internet called 'Where Wizards Stay up Late' covering the development of the initial hardware as well as the progression upto today. Very good book for anyone to read, but this book has a lot of good information pertaining to what I perceive as your research goal. It also contains a list of references at the back which might be of assistance. Good Luck! Todd
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
If you want to hide personal income from the government (disclaimer: this is illegal in the US, and I don't recommend that anybody do this), you want to keep income-generating activity out of databases at all costs, preferably out of paper books as well. E-Commerce makes it easier for the government to track your economic activity.
Besides, even if governments can't track the personal income of its citizens, the government will not collapse. One can certainly run a government without income taxes. My home state of New Hampshire gets along well without one (we tax entertainment and property, and the state owns a monopoly on liquor sales)
--The basis of all love is respect
Another danger is that Internet hype is sucking money and attention away from other problems we could be solving.
The San Jose Mercury News ran an article last month profiling the shift in venture capital away from medicine and health care and into Internet companies. An investment in a biotech company might take years to pay off, but the Internet is a get rich quick scheme. Drugs and devices to save lives and ease suffering are being put on hold so we can auction Beanie Babies at faster speeds.
Here in Silicon Valley, people are quitting other jobs to do Internet-related things. Talent as well as money is being drawn away from other real problems. People are chasing the chance at being another Yahoo! instead of solving real problems. It is widely regarded as a virtue for an Internet company to have no idea how it will ever provide a product or service that someone might find useful enough to pay money for.
And when the Internet stocks crash, it will mainly be young people who are hurt since they disproportionately own these stocks and they represent a greater portion of their portfolio.
Well , about the mass media . Is it really a surprise that the Mass Media is more interested in talking about the dangers of the interntet ( in general ) if you look at it from this perspective :
The internet is competing with Mass Media for it's role as an information source .
I would think that it would be more common for them to talk about the dangers of the internet than for them to discuss the dangers of the Mass Media for obvious reasons . Also , The internet , by it's nature , has no sole authority to defend it .
ISTR that in Germany a couple of Compuserve execs were actually convicted of distributing child porn because they were running a news server.
Also, on Demon's web site you can find out about the libel suit brought by one Dr. Lawrence Godfrey. Someone posted a newsgroup posting libelling LG. Demon refused to delete it when asked, and LG is now sueing Demon for propogating the libel. The law appears to be against Demon, but the problem is that it effectively requires ISPs to remove articles from their News spools on demand.
Good luck with the paper.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
There has been so much on this stuff in the news lately. Do a search on News.com and form your own opinion. After all, your paper should be what you think, not what slashdotters think. I remember all the hours I sweated in the library and on the web to write a paper on free speech and the internet.
A Harvard Law student presented it under his own name in 1968. Resounding applause from faculty after the speech. Then a big sucking sound when he told them who the original author was.
See how that goes.
The ship sank. Get over it. (This sig was cut out from another's shirt and painstakingly hand-posted)
Whoops, forgot the spell check...and that was supposed to be "'related'", not "*related*".
I've always been a fan of TJ and I think he's right here. But I also think that we've mislabeled software as "Intellectual Property."
:)
Software should simply be property whereas TJ sounds like he's talking about "ideas" or what we now have as patented ideas such at certain cyphers. (RSA, ect) With patented ideas, we're not *directly* diminishing the holder's value by using it - we're diminishing his ability to make money on it. If you view it solely in economic terms, then yes, you are taking away profits from him.
By this logic and TJ's logic, all patented ideas should be free for noncommercial use. I think the open source community and thus the world would benefit greatly if the laws were changed in favor of this.
Patents have a life span of 20 years, no? I wouldn't mind trading an unlimited life span for the ability to use the idea for noncommercial use.
(But in case ms and other companies try to release stuff for "free" with patents, I suggest we kill the loophole by making it nonprofit orgs and individuals only)
Write your senator guys!!
Everyday I goto Slashdot, freshmeat, arstechnica.
:)
hmm.... maybe that's why I'm so screwed up
Cant we help them get around their government filters through tunneling?
Just a thought
Have you ever coded for 19 hours straight (no drugs)? Have you felt the decay your body goes through after one of these?? :)
:)
this is a big hazard for many hard core code hackers
Please do my homework for me.
Signed,
Some lazy kid
[seriously, though...]
I can't think of anything serious. I mean, enough's been said, here and other places, about everyone who has to do a paper and just gets all their facts off the internet -- or, gets pre-written papers off a certain site. Hell, even I did it when I was in high school, and that was a few years back. (Well, not exclusively. But instead of having to BUY books to write reports on, I downloaded them from Project Gutenberg.)
There has been a LOT said about the topics he mentioned (intellectual property, standardization of protocols on the internet, etc) both on Slashdot already, and everywhere else. Asking for it to be all wrapped in a nice little package in one discussion seems to be getting a bit lazy. [As if the whole mode of research isn't lazy enough. Although secretly I'm jealous of the people I know who get paid to consult on 'virtual learning.']
Well, hey, this comment is a good example of a hazard of the internet (although not in the context you are referring to). Anonymity breeds impoliteness (read: flaming). Which is not to say this is a flame, it's merely somewhat critical. But criticisms flow ever so easier when one can hide behind a silly name...
--- Where's my X.400 protocol decoder?
At IBM we occasionaly get a magazine called 'Think Leadership'. In the issue Volume 3, Number 1 on page 22-26 there is a very interesting article about the integration of trillions of devices (aside from computers), all connected to a global network of astronomical size (and possibilities).
...
... security. Compare the above scenario to what the Internet is used for today. About the only thing resembling that is Electronic Commerce which is suffering some seriou problems due to security breaches. If something like the above DOES happen, it will open thousands of doors for crackers. Image the number of practical jokes you coupld play on the guy driving the car, in the above scenario :P
In the article, they give a scenario of what IBM envisions within the next decade:
---------------------[excerpt from IBM Think Mag.
11:30:05 The driver on his way to the airport, inserts a smart card into his car's dashboard. Funds are eletronically downloaded from his bank account [through the Internet] onto the smart card. At the same time, the smart card notifies the airline that the driver is en route.
11:30:10 The car has been engineered so that its electronic network detects early warning signs of malfunction. If a problem is detected, data is communicated via a wireless network to the manufacturer. In some cases, the problem can be "remotley" fixed. Subsequently, the manufacturer can forward data regarding the problem and its fix to tis development lab for analysis as well as for inclusion in its data warehouse.
meanwhile
11:30:10 At a nearby service station, sensores inside a soda machine detect a rise in outside air temprature. The machine performs a self-inventory and anticipating increased demand, notifes the distributor to request restocking.
11:30:15 A warehouse has caught fire! The networked building siglans the fire department. Floor plans and information regarding the materials in storage from the building's network center to the dispatched fire tricks. Simutaneously, the logistics operation center and insurance carriers that serve the building and companies that store goods there are apprised via the network.
11:30:35 A citrus grower is notified of the fire at the warehouse where its products are locally stored.
11:30:35 The grower's logistics operation headquarters arranged fro an alternative sotrage location and rerouted transporation of goods [which were going to the warehouse on a ship]. The chip-embedded packets used by the grower for tracking purposes are electoeronically updated from the logistics operation headquarters to include the new desitation and transport arangements.
Meanwhile [back to the guy driving in the car]...
11:30:35 The sensor device in a ticketed passenger's smart card automatically alerts an airline that the passanger is too far away to make the flight's scheduled departure time. Alternative travel plans are made and communicated to the passenger via the smartcard.
11:31:10 Held up in trafic due to the warehouse fire, the driver is advised via the car's dashboard scren that a new itinerary and plane ticket will be downloaded onto his smartcard.
---------------------[ END EXCERPT
Okay, very cool. That's like a utopian society. Except they forgot one thing
Just thought this might help you.
Go to your primary sources. I was looking through my Penguin Portable Thomas Jefferson the other day and found this which you might find useful. If you do use it and want the correct citation, email me. DoktorMel Rogue English-teacher geek
-- The Sage does nothing, and nothing is left undone. --Lao Tzu
One day, perhaps E commerce will become so prevelent that governments will be unable to track the personal income of its citizens, and then taxes will become obsolete and the existing order will starve to death. Or maybe I'm a paranoid delusional who doesn't really 'get it'
--------------------- Turn evil by smiling.
I was given the impression in school that the interview was an acceptable means by which to acquire information. If you are writing a paper on the development of the Internet, why would you not consult people who actually do some of the work? /. would seem to be an incredible resource in that regard.
I'm sure that the people that are complaining here are the same people that complain in some way about every topic. I know I shouldn't respond to trolls and flamers, but I just couldn't resist in this case.
I hope you do well with your paper.
Don't forget DA's. The problem is not quite as bad is it used to be, but for a long time there was a persistent fear that some local DA seeking cheap press coverage would discover computer pornography *gasp*. Worse, said pornography could be illegal locally (a surprising number of states still ban pictures showing explicit penetration), so the DA's "shock" had real teeth to it. The fact that the images, pre web-browser, looked like MKH!K#Hlkh`l1lKCHQE$@ unless you knew multiple magic incantations was irrelevant.
Today there isn't the same problem with rural American DA's, but now sites may have problems from other countries complaining about the content.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
In fact, the class was 6.805. Here's the current homepage, while last year's material is online here. (A division of labor between MIT and the Law School's Berkman Center.)
-- Openlaw: Fighting for fair use and the public domain
Yeah...you could probably touch on a number of topics, but basically you could write an entire book on any of them!
Memories of an old professor of mine who said that my writing was "like a string of Christmas lights" -- too many little bright spots, any ONE of which could have been a paper topic, and not developed enough. I finally "broke the code" on the last paper I wrote for him, and got an A- despite turning it in late.
"Hazards of the Net" is a very broad topic. At that point, I wouldn't even be sure what you meant -- physical hazards? net-addiction? FBI arrests of teenage hackers? security system breaches? something else entirely?
Focus on something particular.
"Somebody exploded a letter-bomb today
From that perspective, in any case. It is merely another tool of communication, which can be used in ways both dangerous and beneficial. It brings together people of shared interest, whether that interest be spiritual community or child pornography. It likewise brings together people of differing interests.
In essence, you don't really have a paper, because there is no "dark side of the Internet". It is people that can have dark sides, and focussing on the Internet only serves to bury heads deeper in the sand.
[Thanks Mr. Malda for the preview button. This comment went from a violent flame to something else. :)] I found no actual sources in this article. Was this published in the opinion column? Furthermore, the author seems quite unaware as to the location of this *Dark Net*. If he can't seem to find it, how does he know it exists? I am certainly glad tho, that he finally explained why i cannot seem to download my favorite MP3's...it's the man...keepin me down... ;) Darn those spinless ISP's!!! :) jk. btw, i found the dark net! [tex]
Would that be ANY negative consequence of the development of the 'Net?
If so, I can think of one right off the top of my head (and I'm surprised it hasn't come up): the IP number shortage. This has a history (with items such as Mercedes-Benz pigging up a whole Class A that it won't give back because "eventually every car will have its own IP address.") You could tie in the death of Jon Postel (bless his soul), and its aftermath. The explosion of new InterNIC registrations, the new assigned Registrars, how the new 2 and 3LDs affect it (won't they need addresses, too?)...
Damn, maybe I'll go write my own paper...
Good Luck!
_____
The antidote to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech.
I am certaintly not going to tell you how to write your paper, or even debate with you if you should be asking for help, but.... if you want to get some intresting first hand sources about "building the internet" try reading the RFCs. Just search for RFC on any major search enginer and it will point you in the correct direction. You could also try reading Where Wizards Stay up Late by Katie Hafner. It is a brief history of how and why the internet came to be. Just my thoughts.
I live in the Philadelphia area and there's a weekly Tech section in the Inquirer(Philly Newspaper)
Yesterday they had an article about the 'Dark Net'. That was the actual term used by the Author. He went on for a while about how software companies have chased all the evil warez people off the web and then they've all moved to the Dark Net where they can trade their illegal software with impunity. After reading the article a couple times trying to figure out what he was talking about I noticed a single reference to FTP which is apparently the Dark Net.
The author seems to believe that anything done on FTP couldn't possibly be legal because the web is so much easier.
There were also some references to 'other software' and non-standard (non-web) protocols that make it simpler for pirates to trade stolen software at higher speed. All I can think of is Hotlne, but there's no reference to any real information. The entire article seems to be based on some vague notion of pirates being everywhere and being the only people who use high speed connections.
for more info you can read the whole article on the Inquirer's website
"Understanding is a three-edged sword"--Kosh
Well all I really have to say is that Society wants someone to blame AGAIN! Really it is not the internet that is harming this world, it is the people who have grown up with the feelings of self mutilation because of lack of caring (or whatever) from their peirs and parents, people just want acceptance in general. And I also think that the internet will make this place A BETTER PLACE TO LIVE!!! So many people think that you need COLLEGE and MONEY to make it in this world, when YOU DO NOT. Just do what makes you happy (for example coding in LINUX and the such, whatever makes you happy) and you will make it in this world. Who cares if you work for Microsoft and make millions writing their code, write your own stuff and become a legend, people will see you soon enough and the money will come. Alright I am at work so my thoughts are very scattered!!! = P But that is what was on my mind when I read your passage. Alright C-YA later fellas don't bash my passage too harshly!
Yeah yeah yeah
And because you didn't spread FUD about the big evil Microsoft - I actually enjoyed reading it. It pretty much outlined the need for standards, and gave examples (using IBM and MS) or companies that don't often use standards.
Tho i believe that Microsoft should be allowed to extend technologies - rather than be tied up by any limitations in existing ones (IE for example has very advanced technologies - that go beyond Netscape) - I think that the changes should be opened up (MS have submitted their DOM (Document Object Model for IE) for standardisation tho).
Microsoft are getting better at adopting standards, realising it's all for the better....insisting on TCP/IP, DNS etc....rather than NetBeui and WINS.
It's nice to read something that doesn't blindly poke pins into Microsoft as a matter of principle.