“Internet Purification”

This post is inspired by the vow made by Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao to “purify” the Internet. For more details, you can view the original news story from Reuters here http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/01/24/china.internet.hu.reut/index.html. This outlandish claim by Jintao stumbles onto another very important issue regarding technology and this issue is the feasibility and legality of Internet “purification,” or in other words, censorship. Is it even technically possible for a government to censor material on the Internet? Won’t the information that was censored keep reappearing in different places? How could it be possible for anybody to successfully track information to all the vast corners and far reaches of the Web? Besides, even if it were possible, it would open up Pandora’s box. There is no regulatory committee that can oversee this process. The Internet would become entangled in a web of lawsuits and quarrels, which would eventually cause the demise of the Internet. Certain information is not always going to be favorable to everybody and if the entity that is offended can bring about its removal, then suffice it to say that there will not be very much information out there on the Internet.

To better put this into context, I am going to refer to a case study from the Georgetown Institute for the Study of Diplomacy entitled “Globalization: France, Nazis, and the Internet.” Unfortunately, copyright laws prevent me from posting the original article up online but another article from this website talks about basically the same ideas http://www.probe.org/current-issues/current-issues/globalization-and-the-internet.html. The Georgetown article basically describes the motives of the French government and its attempts to force Yahoo! to block the sale of Nazi propaganda to French users even from Yahoo!’s American website address. The main thing to note about this article is that it discusses the same thing that Jintao is proposing: censoring information on the Internet for whatever reason. Yahoo! did end up removing the listings, but its representatives said it was not because France demanded it, but because it was the right thing to do. If mass censorship was implemented on the Internet how could any information out there survive?

Johnny Mnemonic and The Air-Ship

Even though the Johnny Mnemonic “cyber-punk” short story was a little hard to get through, partly because of the dolphin addicted to smack and all the technical terms, it still brought up some interesting points. The same goes for the much less convoluted story, The Air-Ship. I know we covered a lot of the themes and implications in class, but I just wanted to quickly highlight or underscore a few important points. On page 59 of Johnny Mnemonic Johnny says, “I’d spent most of my life as a blind receptacle to be filled with other people’s knowledge and then drained, spouting synthetic languages I’d never understand.” This quote paints a very eerie picture of the future in which the definition of human thought as we know it now would no longer apply. If this special courier ability (hard drive in the brain) was a reality, then a person could have information in their heads without actually “knowing” it. As the story details, this poses very serious risks to humanity. In short, the second story (way ahead of its time) is really a commentary or cautionary tale about human dependency on technology and what could happen if we become too reliant on it. Can you imagine where we would be without all the technology we depend on today (alarm clocks, cell phones, and computers to name a few)?

Further Discussion on the Class Readings

In class we didn’t get to talk too much about the second article by Charles Platt, partly because we had so much to say on the first article, so I wanted to go back and revisit something I found to be interesting. The paradox occurs when Platt is being told the rules of the competition and learns of the rankings of most human human and least human human. After realizing that he does not want to be classified in the national press as the “least human human,” Platt resolves to seem 100 percent human. He then poses a couple of interesting questions: “I am human, so why should I need to fake it? Is it possible for me to seem more human than I really am?” It seems that as more technological developments are made regarding artificial intelligence, the more we as humans fear becoming inferior or submissive to the very things we have created. The questions I pose to you as you read this are these: what would it mean for society if artificial intelligence was developed until the point where a human user was indistinguishable from a computer program? What implications would this have or what would this say about the state of our society?

The Internet and E-Commerce

The Internet is becoming one of the most important tools in today’s society whether it is for escaping to a different reality (in the case of video games), or as a vehicle for delivering the voice of the individual to the masses. This taken into account, it is interesting to look at the development of electronic commerce (or e-commerce for short) and how this ability to buy and sell goods over the Internet affects the economy. The main point to take away from this is that the Internet is no longer reserved for the select few and is continuing to evolve. Speaking specifically about the U.S. economy, it is not completely certain what effect e-commerce will have, but it most likely will help in boosting and strengthening the economy. I can say this with ease because e-commerce provides consumers with the concept of convenience. People who don’t feel like going out to a local mall and pushing their way through the throngs of people to shop can now avoid that and shop from the comfort of their own homes. E-commerce has made shopping more convenient and available to more people, which is why I believe it will have an overall positive effect on our economy.

Upcoming PC Game: World in Conflict

For the most part, the real time strategy (RTS) game genre is dominated by games that focus on the past (with the exception of games like Act of War: Direct Action). Companies usually produce games that simulate events during World War II or during the age of conquest. Massive Entertainment is shattering that mold with the development of its new, amazing game World in Conflict. The premise of this RTS game is: what if the Cold War never ended and the Soviets launched a full-scale invasion of America? IGN.com describes it best when it says, "Players take on the role of field commander, leading the era's most powerful military machines in the campaign to retake America's cities and suburbs." There will be no base building and resource gathering in this strategy game, the focus is placed on fast-paced, hard fought battles. The graphics for this game look simply outstanding. This game differs from others in its genre because it is truly unique and drawn from real events in history. This game also provides a scary glimpse into what could have been. Another interesting fact about this game is the fact that if you build up enough tactical points, you can purchase a nuclear bomb to use against your enemies that can provide the possibility for a decisive victory on your side. It is refreshing to see unique ideas arising from the game design world and this game could prove to be one of the best, most realistic strategy games ever created. For more information on this game you can visit http://pc.ign.com/objects/821/821566.html.

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