Lecture9Review

=Class 9: Enter the Internet= This is just a copy of of the Professor Jones powerpoint text to use as a reference/guideline, add any notes or links you may have that elaborates on his points for each heading.

toc

Internet Survey
• Daily, how much do you use the Internet? • What three Internet services do you use most? • According to you, what is the most valuable service the Internet provides? • What’s the biggest problem with the Internet as a medium?

What is the Internet?
• It’s not a truck: it’s a series of tubes!

What is the Internet used for?
• No, not just that, Trekkie Monster.

A more sane definition
• Decentralized network of computing services • Connected by…well…a series of tubes (but analogy doesn’t work well…why?) • Has grown to accommodate a series of potential uses

Early conceptualization
• Vannevar Bush (1945) - conceptualization of a vast information store (“memex”) to harness world’s knowledge • Also realized power of computing in storage and processing, leaving us available to do what we do best - association, linking, pattern creation • Web as Memex - and limitations there

ARPANet
• Theory put into practice initially by American military-industrial complex • ARPANet - private information network to coordinate research • Decentralized why?

Evolution…
• BITNET - educational institutions • X.25 - European networking - open also to individuals, commercial • BBS’s as parallel public networks • ARPA - not a service org, dumps ARPANet to NSF, who eventually privatized service

Critical Mass
• Public, commercial access - a very new thing (Ontario - 1992) • Mosaic as interface to WWW - 1994 • Mass popularity of AOL - hardly the first, but the first to market to neophyte users effectively, and in this new environment

Reaction
• Sudden transition to commercial medium - new opportunities, but also a lot of garbage • Previously active spaces (e.g., UseNet) effectively destroyed with spam and the great unwashed masses from AOL and similar - although they just moved elsewhere (private forums)

Public Medium and Voice
• Internet can increase public voice - e.g., consumer forums, political discussion • Discussion can also become more base, ridiculous (e.g., Wikispaces discussion forum…) • Signal/noise issues

Elitist Return? Net Neutrality
• Is some information more important? Should it get priority access to “the tubes?” • Tiered access - who controls it? To what good purpose? How?

Tiered access
• Internet 2, Can*net 4, private internal networks • Sheridan’s iChat server and other university bandwidth issues • Commercial censorship - Telus vs. union, Shaw vs. VoIP, AOL vs. consumer sites, US Military vs. liberal blogs (?), Google in China, RIAA/file trading - others?

A Critical Take
• Winner and mythinformation - technology adherents take to near mythical descriptions of how technology will change the world • See also Noble - Religion of Technology - designers themselves speak in terms of highly spiritual terms (creation, transcendence, inevitable utopia)

Four Myths
• People are lacking information • Information is knowledge • Knowledge is power • Information access = equitable and democratic social power

Do we really lack information?
• Many argue opposite - we’re drowning, and we are losing the ability to make associations and connections as a result • Ex: 500-channel universe, media sources - little common ground

Information = Knowledge?
• Sheer quantity of information may lead to information overload and destruction of knowledge • 9/11 example - information regarding terror cells existed but was scattered, uncoordinated - it didn’t make sense

Knowledge = Power?
• Knowledge available at the right time and context to people with the power and resources to act upon it might equal power • Information or knowledge itself might still leave you powerless - and frustratingly so.

Information = Democracy?
• Capacity for self-governance isn’t just information-based • Most people are simply not interested in all the relevant information • Direct democracy can be dangerous, even asinine - e.g., Stockwell “Doris” Day

Reality
• Internet is transformative but certainly not entirely as much as the mythology suggests - a bit more complex than that • Tiered access will exist in special cases, but ideally demand, not political or economic censors, drive traffic flow