SHORT HISTORY OF THE INTERNET- week 4 March 30th Lecture


Great lecture this week! BECAUSE I actually thought that cyberspace, the web and the Internet...so now i know MORE! ! ! !


Benedikt-

‘Cyberspace is…a territory swarming with data and lies, with mind stuff and memories of nature, with a million voices and two million eyes in silent, visible concert of inquiry deal-making, dream sharing and simple beholding.’



THE INTERNET-

Is the sum of interconnected computer hardware and the software that runs it- practical material construction. The internet is a network of networks. These networks include servers and personal computers and other devices that use CMC (computer mediated communications) technology. They are loosely connected by telephone system, broadband cable and satellite services, linking people around world into an information-sharing system.

The internet, created in 1960’s. Researchers in Us were working on ‘Packet Switching’ which is system that breaks down messages into small chunks and transmits them from one computer to another. So then RAND struck a deal and set out to apply these concepts to utilise connections between computers and phone lines.

Us Dept of Defence originally funded project to connect computers working on defence matters through phone lines. ARPANET was developed. This was about downloading academic data, but then functions such as email were added as hobbyists, hackers and counter-culture turned ARPANET to own purposes.


WWW-

WWW is particular application of the net. In 1990’s researchers from ‘Cern’, a physics lab in Switzerland, were looking for better way to share info. They developed html and the first web pages.

The web merges techniques of internetworking and hypertext to make easy, global and powerful system that shares info.



CYBERSPACE-

Is the sum of users’ imaginations as they use the Internet. Cyberspace is a contrast with the tangible products of the web and internet. It is way people interact with pictures/ words, making them think they are in a different space/ place. William Gibson’s quote suggests the idea of hallucination, that people agreed to imagine they were in a new place- another form of reality.

It is a conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth and power are manifested by people using CMC technologies.


EARLY INTERNET APPLICATIONS-

· Electronic Mail (email)
· File Transfer Protocol (FTP)- move larger files more directly than just to emails
· Internet Relay Chat (IRC)- early version of msn.
· MUDs (multiple user domains), MOOs, MUSHs- simple approaches to net.


RECENT INTERNET APPLICATIONS-

· Instant messaging
· Peer-to-Peer file sharing- ppl share programs that are on their comp eg. Windows
· Blogging
· Portable Audio (ipods, MP3s)
· VOIP (Voice over internet protocol)- use net as phone system
· Virtual Worlds- ‘Second Life’
· ‘Web 2.0’- YouTube


NETIQUETTE and BAD BEHAVIOUR-


The internet rapidly changes therefore so does netiquette, but always based on ‘do to others as you would have them do to you.’ The social construction of reality requires civility between participants.

Need for netiquette arises mostly when sending or distributing e-mail and or chatting. The practice of netiquette depends on understanding how e-mail and chatting actually work or are practiced.

Practices as spam (unsolicited email) and flaming(abusive communications) are bad behaviour that disrupts other people's use of the internet.
Cracking, is not hacking - hackers are computer experts and programmers, crackers are computer criminals. Cracking is computer crime.
Kevin Mitnick, notorious cracker, who got into US Air Defence System was jailed for reading a company’s email. Never hurt anyone, he just showed how shoddy security systems were.
Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people always reply to personal email quickly etc. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice.

Many of the rules of this virtual society mimic those of non-virtual life; call back, don't insult people,always reply to personal email quickly etc. But they are often more quickly and effectively administered in the virtual world. In a chat environment, for example, if someone is operating outside the understood rules of Netiquette they are removed from the site until further notice. It's almost medieval! Rudeness is grounds for banishment.
It appears people are much more polite and caring compared to how they are in their non-virtual community. People who have never passed a word with the guy next door will maintain a network of relationships within a virtual community, ranging from close friends and lovers to acquaintances.


ECONOMICS OF CYBERSPACE

John Perry Barlow’s ‘Economy of Ideas’ gives utopian account of economic possibilities inherent in cyberspace and info economy:

· Information is an activity, experienced not possessed, propagated not distributed.

· Information is a life form, it wants to be free, replicating in the cracks of possibility, perishable and always changing.

· Information is a relationship between sender and receiver, the meaning generated has a unique value to both.

· Information may be commodified, but most importantly it is its own reward. -

As early utopian goals of the Internet (that net will provide revolutionary break with past economy) meet the financial forces of convergence we can expect to see further rapid change and a lot of instability.

The most important commodities on the Net are credibility, a distinctive point of view, familiarity and exclusivity.

There are vested interests that oppose cyberspace becoming the scene of economic activity, referring to it as a 'black economy'. What they are really mourning is the lack of bureaucratic/government control over the Net. As always with new technologies, the issue of who controls the buttons is of particular interest to governments and big business.

Cyberspace’s interactivity suggests new ways to think about capital that reflects new ways to do things with each other:
o Social network capital - the value in person to person interaction though we might never meet

o Knowledge capital - the value in ideas means that sharing information equals sharing power

o Cultural capital - the value in the values we share and that allow us to live creative lives in a civil society.


CONVERGENCE

The last ten years have seen a growing tendency to Convergence as the possibilities of communication technology develop.

Information technologies are converging as computer technology provides the means to draw together telephone, radio, television and print so that they can be accessed from the one point.