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The Internet

Ask Slashdot: The Hazards of Developing the Internet 143

Posted by Cliff from the stuff-to-talk-about dept.
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."
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Ask Slashdot: The Hazards of Developing the Internet More

Ask Slashdot: The Hazards of Developing the Internet

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  • Internet Standards Paper (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hi mog. Here is link to a paper I just wrote on Open vs Proprietary
    internet standards and how proprietary can lead toward anti-trust and
    sap interoperability.
    http://www.eg.bucknell.edu/~jgoldsch/standards.h tml

    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)

  • Thinking too much (Score:3)

    by Skyshadow ( 508 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @05:02PM (#1867855) Homepage
    I can see your teacher hitting the "Independant Thought Alarm" button under her desk right now.

    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.

    ----

  • That is an assumption.
  • Posted by linuxrulz:

    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/ [slashdot.org]

  • Posted by Vik Olliver (at home):

    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 :v)
  • Posted by roop:

    Looks like it was 1932. In his book Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology, Howard Zinn recounts the story as follows:

    In the 1960s, a student at Harvard Law School addressed parents and alumni with these words:

    "The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country. Russia is threatening us with her might. And the republic is in danger. Yes! danger from within and without. We need law and order! Without law and order our nation cannot survive."

    When the applause died down, the student quietly told his listeners: "These words were spoken in 1932 by Adoff Hitler."

  • Focus on one thing (Score:3)

    by gavinhall ( 33 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @05:09PM (#1867863)
    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.

  • What did you say your name was? Ted Kazinski?
  • grappler and mog, you are resourceful fellows. THIS is how to REALLY get an education IMNSHO.


    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!?

    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 /. articles? I can certainly tell you quickly enough which has more variety and at least makes you question what you read.
  • 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...
  • "Other side? On Slashdot? Surely you jest!"

    Of course /. has another side, in much the same way as a moebius strip has :)

  • A handy resource for quotes and background would be Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet [amazon.com].
    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.

  • a quick note: Monopolies cannot exist in the long term in a free market. Those that do are nearly always government enforced.
  • A very Internet-aware and readable economic book about standards and standard wars is "Information Rules - A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy" by Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian.

    You can find more information on the associated website: http://www.inforules.com [inforules.com].

  • Fine plan. No, go back to reality and Chaos Theory... Boom! :)

  • classical example: Java (Score:3)

    by RelliK ( 4466 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @05:02PM (#1867875)
    That's an easy one.
    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 /. 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.
    You could also write about spam...

    hope that helps ;-)
  • 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
  • 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.
  • Without trying to actually have much of an opinion, I'd suggest you read a copy of Clifford Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil".

    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.

  • 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 referring to this [enteract.com] speech, your claim makes no sense. Hitler's speeches were full of references to the events, places and people of the time; in order to claim one as present day you'd have to do a fair bit of rewriting or at least selective editing.

    If you're thinking of a different speech, which one?

  • 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.

  • The HTTP world has been going through the agony of this recently, as there are currently seven distinct documents out there calling themselves "HTTP/1.1" (RFC2068 and the six internet drafts that followed it, the last of which is pending internet standard approval), and many/most servers do not uniformly imnplement any of them. (Slashdot is an example; while the Apache server running /. claims to be HTTP/1.1, it regularly commits all sorts of SHOULD NOTs, and I seem to recall uncovering a few MUST NOTS as well.) Implementing a protocol which is a moving target is nightmarish; what's worse, you end up with a large number of pseudo-conformant (i.e. past-conformant) implementations that all need to talk with each other. Throw into the mix an application like the Web which is richly application-heterogeneous and business-intensive, and a population of web content and web engine developers who are oblivious to most points of the HTTP/1.1 specification, and you have what amounts to a simmering interoperability nightmare on your hands. And what happens next? Browsers incorporate all sorts of hacks to deal with the incongruities. Caches and proxies get twice as many, since they're expecting to talk with both broken servers and munged clients. And in the end, noone knows where problems actually are because noone is talking the straight protocol, noone is rejecting things the spec says you MUST reject, all because breaking these broken compatibility hacks could interrupt business and inconvenience a customer.

    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. [mit.edu] 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!
  • 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

  • Hazards (Score:1)

    by looie ( 9995 )
    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

  • Those assertions aren't all that far-fetched.

    Thermal imaging devices have been been powerful enough "to see through" walls for two decades now.

    There is talk of putting black boxes in automobiles similar to what one finds in airplanes, so that vehicle state can be reconstructed after accidents. Some law enforcement agencies have been asking that these boxes serve as tracking devices and also have the ability to shut the vehicle down remotely.

    Have you not heard of the proposed "smart card?" It would be a credit card-like device that essentially allows you to carry your financial and medical (an any other) histories around with you at all times. It has been proposed that these things replace cash.

    There is a lot of other scary stuff going on if you pay attention to the right channels, and most of these are nonsensational, open sources. ("Open source" is spook speak for non-governmental, non-classified sources: media, industry rumor, etc.)

    There is a lot of other stuff that goes on that the media doesn't talk about because the concerned parties don't advertise their actions. Yet, if you listen on the proper channels, and know where to get the info. (again, from open sources, but more obscure titles), you can piece together some of what is going on.

    There is so much good intel on this stuff out in the open, that I shudder to think of what is actually being kept under some classification or another.

    If you think I'm paranoid, think again. I don't believe in the "New World Order" and "black helicopter" conspiracies, even though it does say "Novus Ordo Seclorum" on the U.S. one dollar bill.
    Seclorum, an interesting choice of wording, that.

    No, my name isn't Ted Kazinsky, either. I don't think that anyone is really trying to subvert democracy in the U.S. with all these gadgets and the application of technology. Law and Order types are basically lazy, and they want to do their jobs with a minimum of risk and effort, kind of like hackers, but with a slightly different social ethic. Yes, there is a potential for these tools to be abused, just as any tool can be abused, but I believe that it is up to the individual, and the individuals collected in a society, to safeguard their own freedom. I don't bitch and moan about the apparent erosion of freedom in the western world in private, because I agree with Voltaire in that the people usually get the kind of government they deserve.
  • Yeah - I'd second the recommendation of "Silicon Snake Oil". I don't necessarily agree with everything Cliff writes, but there are certainly a lot of good points made.

    The social aspects of online communication are, I'm sure, well known to most slashdot folks, but certain things do need to be looked at, or at least thought about. Is it good for people to do all their communicating from behind a terminal rather than in person? Is it really healthy to prefer spending a day on your own browsing the web or MUDding to going out with friends
    or walking in the hills?

    Myself, I'm fascinated by the difference between people's writing styles on Usenet, IRC, whatever, and the way they are when you meet them in real life. Can the constant switching between online persona and real-life personality affect your
    image of who you really are, or does it improve
    your self-image by letting you explore aspects that you wouldn't usually explore in reality?

    Don't get me wrong here - I love the Internet, I've been around it for the best part of a decade, I wouldn't want to be without it, but sometimes I wonder whether the "digital utopia" that so many are touting is really going to bring that many benefits to society, or whether it is, as Cliff said, snake oil, or smoke and mirrors.

    And yup, I know this is supposed to be a technical discussion, but there's more to the Net than just routers and hosts.
  • Sure. Read & post. It's easy to snowball a
    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 ... not because you are being graded, but because you want to be taken seriously.

    - 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
  • If the thing communicates by radio waves at all, why couldn't you wear a second ring that sends out massive rf interference?

    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.

    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 /. community sees these things in black and white, but it just isn't so. Especially if you read at -1.

    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.

  • So, uh... how did the paper go? :-)

  • 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 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
  • 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.
  • grappler and mog, you are resourceful fellows. THIS is how to REALLY get an education IMNSHO. The people on /., though they tend to have a well-defined bias, are very intelligent and insightful. For the most part we talk just to stimulate the mind. Opinions are strong but are often backed up with well-written, and mispelled, arguments.

    With exceptions for certain people, I never implicitly trust anyone's judgment on any issue. That is a strength and a weakness. It means I like to do in-depth research on issues that matter to me, but I simply cannot listen to a lecture spewed forth by the common educator. And I especially can't read a history book without questioning the validity of most of the analyses made by the authors.

    So Slashdot is a real research tool. The issues surrounding software licenses, which appears to be the topic of mog's paper, are increasingly difficult to grasp and resolve. The last thing you want to do is read something from an encyclopedia. Through research, you want to form an opinion that can be backed up solidly with facts.

    That kind of research is what people need to learn to do. Educators are supposed to prepare students for the workforce, right? And do we really need people that are no better than robots?

    If I were writing this paper, I would try to give the reader a vision of the process of creating the Internet. If I remember correctly, first they just wanted to be able to get military communications from point A to point C even if point B had been destroyed. Once that was working, they started tinkering with doing university-level research. Then they realized they could send personal messages. Each stage led in a natural way to the next stage. It was difficult to see where the project would be in ten years, but all issues somehow worked themselves out. The future of the Internet will be the same.

    Now here's the best part--you don't have to agree with me in order to get something meaningful out of what I have to say! Other comments will be posted that say education should be wrapped up in a neat little package or that the Internet, and especially /., is too wild to be considered a research tool. For all we know they may be right!

    I for one stick to the opinions that you should never accept forcefed info, that every view can be validly disputed, and that teachers should encourage students to *DOUBT* what they are taught.
  • 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?

    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 /. discussion. And moderators, moderate up anything posted by mog so we can see it.
  • 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?!
  • HiThere,

    Hmm? I just looked at your user info, which lists 20 of your recent 39 postings. You might try clicking your user name at the top of the page once you've logged in; that should give you your user info.

    In fact I look at my own user info page regularly to find out when people have replied to my comments. Good feature, Rob!

    It would be nice if we could edit our own stuff, but Rob seems to have an interesting theory of how /. should work and part of it is that you can add to what's been said but never delete anything. I've seen things that Rob might have wanted to rescind, but didn't. I've also said some things that sounded really stupid later. In fact, my user name is wrong. I just found out it's misspelled. It should be "yamato", not "umoto". How do I change it without having to create a new account?

    ... ByeNow.
  • 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.
    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 /. can be lost just as easily as a Post-It with that all-too-important phone # (or email addy)..
    Congo Rats on the graduation, and enjoy your summer.. now where's my coffee?
  • >Actually, all but the most reactionary people and organizations seem to think that the Internet is more trouble than it's worth.

    >To be sure, the Internet is a hazardous environment, but all but the most reactionary recognize that the rewards outweigh the risks.

    Make up your mind man!
  • That depends. Once the basic math, reading, and science are out of the way, education is really about in-depth learning on specific topics. Basic skills are re-taught in college because they were never learned in high school, due to whatever process blocks the actual material from entering the students' heads.

    Past what is *required* of formal education, I do happen to think that you can learn from many informal sources, including Web-based BBS systems. And what about home-schooling, anyway? How formal does that have to be? (entirely different topic, so I'll leave it be for now)
  • The social aspects of online communication are, I'm sure, well known to most slashdot folks, but certain things do need to be looked at, or at least thought about. Is it good for people to do all their communicating from behind a terminal rather than in person? Is it really healthy to prefer spending a day on your own browsing the web or MUDding to going out with friends or walking in the hills?

    No. It's not healthy. But often, these people have no "outside" friends to turn to, and either no idea or no willingness to get some. Personally, I spend a lot of time online because I've lost touch with all the folks I used to hang out and play games with.. our gathering place closed, and we had nowhere to meet.. and then the active members all moved. I still have friends, though, and still keep in verbal, visual, and tactile "touch" with people every day. But every night, when I've got nothing better to do, I get online to read and play.

    Myself, I'm fascinated by the difference between people's writing styles on Usenet, IRC, whatever, and the way they are when you meet them in real life. Can the constant switching between online persona and real-life personality affect your image of who you really are, or does it improve your self-image by letting you explore aspects that you wouldn't usually explore in reality?

    First, you misuse "affect". Of course this stuff affects you; it's almost always a learning experience to log on and look around.

    On to the next thing. I've made a personal project of analyzing self-descriptions of MU* players' characters, and the aspects of themselves that pop up in conversation. There's an interesting correlation between the feeling evoked by a description and the feelings evoked by the person's speech and actions; and an even more interesting thing happens when those feelings are dissonant. Attitude plays a big part in this. While I don't have solid numbers or relational charts, I have learned to stay away from most "twinks". The next step would be to meet with more of these people, and especially more of them I've met online already. But before that, I need a car.. this town is only now relearning public transportation.

    And yup, I know this is supposed to be a technical discussion, but there's more to the Net than just routers and hosts.

    Something I recognized within two months of first getting a connection from a university. Life is out there, if you can see it.. another draw to the folks who feel a need to disconnect from reality. All the serious decades-long studies on the Internet's true effects on mental health are probably just taking off, now that all the hype is getting old.

    But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
  • 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.
  • "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.

  • Re:Starting? Now? (Score:3)

    by mog ( 22706 ) <alexmchale@@@gmail...com> on Friday June 04, 1999 @03:29AM (#1867913)
    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.
  • The Open/Closed Source debate was as apparent in the early days of the Internet. The History of GNU [gnu.org] says a lot of software was free in early 1970's, but most was proprietary by the early 1980's. That inspired GNU.

    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 [utexas.edu] [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
  • ex. White power nuts go only to white power web pages, now for ALL their news, so they have no challenge to their perspective.

    Ex: when I only visited slashdot

  • I can just *hear* what 99% of the teachers and administrators at my catholic high school would have had to say about the internet...

    Actually, all but the most reactionary people and organizations seem to think that the Internet is more trouble than it's worth. I've seen an Internet-connected computer lab at a Catholic grammar school. They certainly had posters telling the kids how to avoid getting "mugged" (never reveal your snailmail address tends to be the biggie).

    To be sure, the Internet is a hazardous environment, but all but the most reactionary recognize that the rewards outweigh the risks. While I hesitate to use the analogy again, it's much like a road system. Roads are hazardous; people who don't understand how to use them have a good possibility of being run over. We accept the hazards because most of us feel that the benefits of roads outweighs the hazards, even with the huge body count roads are possibly responsible.

    There are a number of data points to back this up; take the most conservative people and/or agendas you can find, and run a search engine over them. One data point stands above the crowd, especially after discussing Catholic schools; even the Pope [vatican.va] has a Web site.

  • As one who works in E-Commerce, I disagree. First, E-commerce isn't a new way for people to make money (my paychecks are little different from anybody else's, for accounting purposes). E-commerce is a new way for people to spend money. And E-commerce tends to have better accounting than non-E-commerce. If I wanted to hide my "money trail" from the government, I would exclusively deal with cash (the lowest tech commerce there is). The last thing I would do would be to buy stuff from a Web site; that requires my name, my credit card data, and a shipping address.

    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)

  • >Actually, all but the most reactionary people and organizations seem to think that the Internet is more trouble than it's worth. >To be sure, the Internet is a hazardous environment, but all but the most reactionary recognize that the rewards outweigh the risks. Make up your mind man!

    D'oh!

    The second statement is correct. I got my inequalities reversed earlier. Sorry.

  • 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 .

  • This is very true. In the UK the Vice Squad (police department in charge of gambling and commercial sex) tried to tell the UK Internet industry to ban alt.sex.* and alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* or face prosecution under our obscenity laws. An Inspector French sent out a letter to all ISPs listing the group names. This became ironically known as the "French Letter". A search on DejaNews should pick it up, or you can ask Demon [demon.net], a UK ISP, directly.

    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.

  • 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.
  • Really? What you find on Slashdot is new and opinions. Which is fine by me. But if I remember right, the reason why they ask us to do research is not to present opinions but to form them. I don't believe that message boards are any way to do your homework. On /. you are going to get a huge dose of pro open source, pro Linux voices. What about the other side?
  • I get my news from a lot of places. News.com, Zdnet and mnay other site. /. happens to be just one of them. I would never base a report of just the opinions of /. audience. It is too biased.

  • Find Hitler's 1939 speech... they'll buy it... (Score:3)

    by cynicthe ( 33709 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @07:45PM (#1867929)
    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.
  • > A) You screwed around during the school year and were told "do this huge project and you'll pass".

    Heh, that how I graduated last Friday. I was behind, so the last day I dumped 70 pages of rough drafts and half-finished papers on the teachers desk. AFAIK they haven't read far enough to see that 20 pages of it is source I wrote while supposedly doing English. But I *did* graduate.

    If this is in fact a late paper--though some schools have a few weeks to go yet--my only suggestion would to pad it, a lot. It's nice to have be inventive about the contents, and it great to reinterpret the assignment like that. But you can gain a *lot* from using long sentences and explaining everything twice. And analagies, metaphore and my favorite, discussion of *related* issues; the last is esp. good if you're writing for a non-tech audience, so you can justify the padding as important explanations.
  • 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...
  • 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).

    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 ... 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

    Just thought this might help you.

  • If you want to really impress your teacher... (Score:3)

    by DoktorMel ( 35110 ) on Thursday June 03, 1999 @06:00PM (#1867938)
    Go to your primary sources. I was looking through my Penguin Portable Thomas Jefferson the other day and found this [tpinter.net] which you might find useful. If you do use it and want the correct citation, email me. DoktorMel Rogue English-teacher geek
  • 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'
  • 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.
  • The course is actually 6.095 and the correct link is here [mit.edu]. If you have time, there are many resources located at MIT. You could search their collection of webservers [slashdot.org] or go straight to the source at the lab of computer science [mit.edu]. Good luck, but keep in mind that it's hard to find a substitute for real books.
  • 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.
  • In fact, the class was 6.805. Here's the current homepage [mit.edu], while last year's material is online here [harvard.edu]. (A division of labor between MIT and the Law School's Berkman Center.)

  • From what i got from it he had to choose from a topic list, and he chose that topic, only he plans to think outside the box and interpret it differently, and so he wants the input of some of the people in this slashdot community, which is probably the one with the most input to give. Glyciren

    Glyciren

  • I think the subject of domain names is a good topic too. It would go to show the frivolity involved in corporate America. For example, ajax.org, who was sued by Proctor and Gamble, because they saw it as an infringement on their product. Never mind that Ajax and Ajax the Lesser were figures from The Illiad! (btw, PG also owns diarrhea.com, talk about gross!)


    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.

  • Re:Read Cliff Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil" (Score:3)

    by fable2112 ( 46114 ) on Friday June 04, 1999 @05:12AM (#1867947) Homepage

    First off, I'll "third" the recommendation.

    Beyond that, something else good to look at might be the old /. discussion on programmer burnout. Pretty important social-issue-wise, I think.

    And as for my own thoughts/personal experiences on Net-as-social-circle (warning, this could get LONG):

    I made many LOCAL friends on the 'net my first two semesters at SUNY Geneseo. One of my floormates and his old friends had put together a MUD, and soon I was "living on" it, and so were a lot of other people at my school. It also gave me a way to keep in touch with a friend from my previous school who was in Michigan.

    I later branched out, started hanging out on BBSes, and I have literally talked to someone on every continent including Antarctica (OK, so that was my uncle, who was doing Navy research there). I have at least six net-friends in Australia who swear that the first thing they'll do if they win the lottery is send me a plane ticket. I've been sent TimTams, and I have sent Reeses' Peanut Butter Cups. I was one of two American sysops on an Australian BBS (and the other also went to my school).

    I've found Web pages that have made me smile and say, "So I'm not the only one who thinks this! Maybe I'm not crazy after all ...." I've dated people I met online (am still friends with most of 'em). I now run an Amber game that is about 1/4 old RL friends of mine, 1/4 old net-friends of mine, and 1/2 people from a mailing list or their friends who said it sounded fun and wanted to play. I've gotten to meet a couple of the new friends at Pennsic, and have become especially close to one of them.

    Now all this is lovely, but the Net has had a down-side. I was online when I should have been in class or doing work. My grades suffered, etc. However, in my particular case, all the Net was doing was giving me extra delivered-to-the-door opportunities to "hang out" with my friends and read interesting information, two things I did too much of WITHOUT the Net. (I also had problems doing library research because I would invariably get distracted by something else.)

    In my experience, there seem to be three kinds of (for lack of a better term) "net addicts":

    1. The ones who (for instance) had a tight circle of friends in high school or through something like CTY that then scatters everywhere, and who use the Net to try to hold on to those friends, sometimes at the expense of making friends or finding things to do in their real, physical location.

    2. Info-junkies. (I admit, I fall into this category.) Generally, people who have a fairly obscure or specialized interest or set of interests. They'll search the net for every scrap of info on their chosen categories, spend tons of time on Usenet debating the finer points of their interets, etc. They generally get "hooked" because there aren't enough local people who share their obsession, or else all the "locals" are online as well. (This has been me with various topics: Amber, the band Rush, and Norse pagan/Viking history, to name three recent ones.) The net.goths might be a good example of this as well.

    3. (IMHO, the most dangerous.) The folks who are genuinely using the Net as a way to avoid dealing with people face-to-face. Can be an outgrowth of either of the above. I've also seen this with some of the les/bi/gay teenagers I've talked to online, especially if they come from conservative households and are scared to come out. The Net becomes the only place that knows their "secret," and basically becomes a security blanket. Alternatively, I've seen this with people who just don't like themselves and are putting forth a new "persona" online.

    Now with all three types, there can be problems as far as avoidance of reality. But the first two are easy to at least cut down on -- find compatible local people (over the net if you must!) and make an effort to spend time with them.

    The last one is the one that scares me. A.J. Chodan (my real name) isn't THAT different of a person from fable2112. Or at the very least, there is nothing within fable2112 that *isn't* also part of A.J. I'm long-winded and opinionated IRL, too. (And that said, I'll shut up now!) :)

  • 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! [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!
  • Oh yes, how this reminds me so of my current situation...

    Basically, my paper was on the Computer Revolution and the Y2k Bug. I paid (and still am) dearly for picking such a broad topic. What Doug said, and gave a few examples of (prob. should go on this too) is perfect.

    Remember: DO NOT DO BROAD TOPICS!!!

    Thnak you. --"LEVIATHAN"
  • 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.
  • It's amazing how things are changing. In the early days of the net, friends thought I was a madman sitting in front of my machine for hours absorbing information.

    Now, my little brother (age 16) has grown up with it and most of his schoolmates communicate via ICQ. It's AMAZING to see his "buddy list" with two hundred ppl on it. "Hey, wanna go to the football game this Friday? ICQ me."

    Peace, and good luck with your paper.
  • 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 [phillynews.com]
  • 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!

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