Timeline 1900-1970 AD 1913 the wheel cipher gets re-invented as a strip 1917 - an AT&T-employee, Gilbert S. Vernam, invents a polyalphabetic cipher machine that works with random-keys 1918 the Germans start using the ADFGVX-system, that later gets later by the French Georges Painvin - Arthur Scherbius patents a ciphering machine and tries to sell it to the German Military, but is rejected 1919 Hugo Alexander Koch invents a rotor cipher machine 1921 the Hebern Electric Code, a company producing electro-mechanical cipher machines, is founded 1923 Arthur Scherbius founds an enterprise to construct and finally sell his late 1920's/30's more and more it is criminals who use cryptology for their purposes (e.g. for smuggling). Elizabeth Smith Friedman deciphers the codes of rum-smugglers during prohibition regularly 1929 Lester S. Hill publishes his book Cryptography in an Algebraic Alphabet, which contains enciphered parts 1933-1945 the Germans make the Enigma machine its cryptographic main-tool, which is broken by the Poles Marian Rejewski, Gordon Welchman and Alan Turing's team at Bletchley Park in England in 1939 1937 the Japanese invent their so called Purple machine with the help of Herbert O. Yardley. The machine works with telephone stepping relays. It is broken by a team of 1930's the Sigaba machine is invented in the USA, either by W.F. Friedman or his colleague Frank Rowlett - at the same time the British develop the Typex machine, similar to the German Enigma machine 1943 Colossus, a code breaking computer is put into action at Bletchley Park 1943-1980 the cryptographic Venona Project, done by the NSA, is taking place for a longer period than any other program of that type 1948 Shannon, one of the first modern cryptographers bringing mathematics into cryptography, publishes his book A Communications Theory of Secrecy Systems 1960's the Communications-Electronics Security Group (= CESG) is founded as a section of Government Communications Headquarters (= GCHQ) late 1960's the IBM Watson Research Lab develops the Lucifer cipher 1969 James Ellis develops a system of separate public-keys and private-keys | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Advertising Industry The advertising industry is dominated by three huge advertising networks, which offer their services throughout the world. Gross income of the three leading agencies is twice as much, as the one of places four to ten. Table: World's Top 10 Advertising Organizations 1999 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars)
Table: Top 10 Global Marketers 1998 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars)
On the other hand the three biggest advertisers only spend about US$ 2 millions less than places four to ten together. Whereas money spent on advertising in traditional media comes from very diverse categories, companies offering computer hard- and software, peripherals or Internet services mainly pay for on-line advertisements. Table: Top 10 Internet Advertisers 1998 (figures in millions of U.S. dollars)
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On-line Advertising and the Internet Content Industry Applied to on-line content the advertising model leads to similar problems like in the traditional media. Dependence on advertising revenue puts pressure on content providers to consider advertising interests. Nevertheless new difficulties caused by the technical structure of online media, missing legal regulation and not yet established ethical rules, appear. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Anonymity "Freedom of anonymous speech is an essential component of free speech." Ian Goldberg/David Wagner, Someone wants to hide one's identity, to remain anonymous, if s/he fears to be holding accountable for something, say, a publication, that is considered to be prohibited. Anonymous publishing has a long tradition in European history. Writers of erotic literature or pamphlets, e. g., preferred to use pseudonyms or publish anonymously. During the Enlightenment books as d'Alembert's and Diderot's famous Encyclopaedia were printed and distributed secretly. Today The original design of the Net, as far as it is preserved, offers a relatively high degree of privacy, because due to the client-server model all what is known about you is a report of the machine from which information was, respectively is requested. But this design of the Net interferes with the wish of corporations to know you, even to know more about you than you want them to know. What is euphemistically called customer relationship management systems means the collection, compilation and analysis of personal information about you by others. In 1997 America Online member Timothy McVeigh, a Navy employee, made his homosexuality publicly known in a short autobiographical sketch. Another Navy employee reading this sketch informed the Navy. America Online revealed McVeigh's identity to the Navy, who discharged McVeigh. As the consequence of a court ruling on that case, Timothy McVeigh was allowed to return to the Navy. Sometimes anonymity really matters. On the Net you still have several possibilities to remain anonymous. You may visit web sites via an In Germany, in 1515, printers had to swear not to print or distribute any publication bypassing the councilmen. Today repressive regimes, such as Anonymity might be used for abuses, that is true, but "the burden of proof rests with those who would seek to limit it. (Rob Kling, Ya-ching Lee, Al Teich, Mark S. Frankel, Assessing Anonymous Communication on the Internet: Policy Deliberations, in: The Information Society, 1999). | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Sponsorship Models With new sponsorship models being developed, even further influence over content from the corporate side can be expected. Co-operating with | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Concept of the Public Sphere According to social critic and philosopher The system of the public sphere is extremely complex, consisting of spatial and communicational publics of different sizes, which can overlap, exclude and cover, but also mutually influence each other. Public sphere is not something that just happens, but also produced through social norms and rules, and channeled via the construction of spaces and the media. In the ideal situation the public sphere is transparent and accessible for all citizens, issues and opinions. For democratic societies the public sphere constitutes an extremely important element within the process of public opinion formation. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Steganography Ciphers as well as codes are transmitted openly. Everyone can see that they exist. Not so with steganograms. Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the secret part in that communication. During the Italian Renaissance and the time of the Elizabethan Age in England cryptography was very popular, for political reasons as well as for amusements (see John Dee). In literature steganography played an important role. Many steganographs of that period have only been deciphered recently like some of the Shakespearean sonnets, which now seem to proof that the actor William Shakespeare was not the author of the famous poems and dramas, but that the latter' name was, and Francis Bacon, or even Francis Tudor, as some ciphers and other sources talk of him as Queen Elisabeth I.'s secret son. for further details see: One kind of steganogram is digital watermarking: Watermarks protect digital images, videos, but also audio and multimedia products. They are made out of digital signals, put into other digital signals. They try to be invisible on first sight and should be nearly impossible to remove. The process of producing watermarks is to overlay some sort of identifying image over the original image (non-digital watermarks, like on money can be seen by holding the paper against light). Copying the image destroys the watermark, which cannot be copied. Any alteration of the original destroys the watermark, too. Watermarking is one of the typical inventions of cryptography to assist the biggest content owners, but advertised as something necessary and helpful for everybody. Who in fact gets any advantage out of watermarking? The private user most of the time will not really need it except for small entities of pictures maybe. But the big enterprises do. There is a tendency to watermark more and more information in the Internet, which until now was considered as free and as a cheap method to receive information. Watermarking could stop this democratic development. for further information see: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The third industiral revolution. Life as a product. Many years ago, the German philosopher The "third industrial revolution" is characterized by men becoming the "raw material" of their own industries. Product and producer, production and consumption, technology and nature are no longer meaningful pairs of opposites. The third is also the last revolution, as it is difficult to think of further revolutions when the distinction between subject and object becomes blurred. The world is becoming a Bestand and the human body and mind are no protected zones. They are something like the last safety zone of human being which is now itself becoming a basis for technological innovation. When the subject is weakened by its technical environment, the use of technical crooks for body and mind becomes an obvious "solution", even if the technically strengthened subject is strengthened at the cost of no longer being a "subject" in the traditional, metaphysical sense. Biological processes are dissected and subjected to technical control. This technical control is technical in two senses: it is not only control through technology but by ttechnology itsself, since it is not carried out by unaided human minds, but increasingly by intelligent machines. The point where this Andersian third industrial revolution reaches an unprecedented logic seems to lie within the realm of genetic engeneering. This example shows that the dissection of humanness - the decoding of genetic information - is tantamount to commodification. The purpose of the commercial genetic research projects is the use of genetic information as a resource for the development of new products, e.g. in pharmaceutics. Genetic products carry the promise of offering a solution to so-far uncurable diseases such as cancer, Alzeheimer, heart disorders, schizophrenia, and others, but they also open up the possibility of "breaking the chains of evolution", of actively manipulating the genetic structure of human beings and of "designing" healthy, long-living, beautiful, hard-working etc. beings. Here, the homo creator and the homo materia finally become indistinguishable and we are being to merge with our products in such a way that it "we" loses the remains of its meaning. Since 1990 research on human genetics is organised in the But exactly this patentising is of paramount importance in the emerging "post-industrial" society where knowledge becomes the most important resource. A patent is nothing else than a property title to a piece of "know-how", and an necessary consequence commodification. When life no longer simply a natural creation but a product, it, too, will be patented and becomes a commodity. Against the idea of the human genome as a public good, or an "open source", there is a growing competion on the part of private industry. Companies such as But the commodification of life is not limited ot the human species. Genetically altered animals and plants are also suffering the same fate, and in most industrialised nations it is now possible to patent genetically engeneered species and crops. The promises of the "Green Revolution" of the 1960s are now repeated in the genetic revolution. Genetic engeneering, so it is argued, will be able to breed animals and plants which resist disease and yield more "food" and will therfore help to tackle problems of undernutrition and starvation. Companies such as | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Virtual cartels; mergers In parallel to the deregulation of markets, there has been a trend towards large-scale mergers which ridicules dreams of increased competition. Recent mega-mergers and acquisitions include SBC Communications - Ameritech, $ 72,3 bn Bell Atlantic - GTE, $ 71,3 AT&T - Media One, $ 63,1 AOL - Time Warner, $ 165 bn MCI Worldcom - Spring, $ 129 bn The total value of all major mergers since the beginnings of the 1990s has been 20 trillion Dollars, 2,5 times the size of the USA's GIP. The AOL- Time Warner reflects a trend which can be observed everywhere: the convergence of the ICT and the content industries. This represents the ultimate advance in complete market domination, and a alarming threat to independent content. "Is TIME going to write something negative about AOL? Will AOL be able to offer anything other than CNN sources? Is the Net becoming as silly and unbearable as television?" (Detlev Borchers, journalist) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1500 - 1700 A.D. 1588 Agostino Ramelli designed a "reading wheel", which allowed browsing through a large number of documents without moving from one spot to another. The device presented a large number of books - a small library - laid open on lecterns on a kind of ferry-wheel. It allowed skipping chapters and browsing through pages by turning the wheel to bring lectern after lectern before the eyes. Ramelli's reading wheel thus linked ideas and texts and reminds of today's browsing software used to navigate the 1597 The first newspaper is printed in Europe. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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biotechnology introduction One of the most critical trends in the western culture what might be called the "fusion of flesh and machine". Increasingly, technological artifacts such as computers, rather than being used as tools by people, are functioning as parts of the human organism. On the other hand, human functionalities such as intelligence, emotion, adaptability or reproductivity are integrated into technological artifacts: the days when computers where only able to count apples and pears and their intelligence was not even matching an insect's are rapidly becoming history. Today, the boundaries between organisms and technology are losing their significance. As new technologies are no longer mere instruments, or "extensions" of the organism, they acquire the capability of modifying the human organism - body and mind - from within according to certain pre-established principles. The history of the evolution of the human species is hastily being re-written as artificial beings begin to mock the categories of evolution and seem to work their way towards historical subjectivity. The German philosopher Günther Anders has extensively reflected on the changes of the human condition provoked by the development of modern technology speaks of an "antiquatedness of history" at a time when technology itself becomes a historical subject and men are becoming co-historical. However, the softening of the biological definition of the human race is a theme which has accompanied western thinking ever since its origins. Beings half man-half animal crowd the tales of classical mythology and transcend the boundary between the human from below, while divine creatures, temporarily occupying humanoid bodies, relativise humanness form "above". What exactly "being human" meant and who "human beings" could be "defined" is a question with a long history. "Der Mensch ist das nicht festgestellte Thier" as Nietzsche commented. Just as the boundaries between human and non-human are being crossed by technological development, so also the boundaries between the classical episteme are becoming permeable. Psychology is occupying itself with the emotions of machines, while physics and cybernetics is applied to the human mind and body. The "nicht festgestellte "character of humanness has meant that imagination has become just as relevant a factor in understanding humanness as science. Science fiction as a literary genre is no longer merely a depository of phantasies about a technisised world our of control. As the human monopoly on history seems to dissolve, the baroque narratives of science fiction have also become a resource for understanding history. However, it is evident that the potentials of the new technologies gives rise not only to wild hopes and dreams and to bizarre stories; they also harbour some real ambiguities of a political and ethical nature. Not only does the merging of previously distinct realities - the human and the non-human worlds - unhinge theories and institutions based upon a clear distinction and separation of the two, it also is placing political practice on a different footing. Will artificial life have rights? Will artificial entities have political power? How will social relationships change? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Timeline 1600 - 1900 AD 17th century Cardinal Richelieu invents an encryption-tool called grille, a card with holes for writing messages on paper into the holes of those cards. Afterwards he removes the cards and fills in the blanks, so the message looks like an ordinary letter. The recipient needs to own the same card - Bishop John Wilkins invents a cryptologic system looking like music notes. In a book he describes several forms of steganographic systems like secrets inks, but also the string cipher. He mentions the so-called Pig Latin, a spoken way of encryption that was already used by the ancient Indians - the English scientist, magician and astrologer 1605/1623 Sir Francis Bacon (= Francis Tudor = William Shakespeare?) writes several works containing ideas about cryptography. One of his most important advises is to use ciphers in such a way that no-one gets suspicious that the text could be enciphered. For this the steganogram was the best method, very often used in poems. The attempt to decipher Shakespeare's sonnets (in the 20th century) lead to the idea that his works had been written by Francis Bacon originally. 1671 Leibniz invents a calculating machine that uses the binary scale which we still use today, more advanced of course, called the ASCII code 18th century this is the time of the Black Chambers of espionage in Europe, Vienna having one of the most effective ones, called the "Geheime Kabinettskanzlei", headed by Baron Ignaz von Koch. Its task is to read through international diplomatic mail, copy letters and return them to the post-office the same morning. Supposedly about 100 letters are dealt with each day. 1790's Thomas Jefferson and Robert Patterson invent a wheel cipher 1799 the Rosetta Stone is found and makes it possible to decipher the Egyptian Hieroglyphs 1832 or 1838 Sam Morse develops the Morse Code, which actually is no code but an enciphered alphabet of short and long sounds. The first Morse code-message is sent by telegraph in 1844. 1834 the 1844 the invention of the telegraph changes cryptography very much, as codes are absolutely necessary by then 1854 the Playfair cipher is invented by Sir Charles Wheatstone 1859 for the first time a tomographic cipher gets described 1861 Friedrich W. Kasiski does a cryptoanalysis of the Vigenère ciphers, which had been supposed to be uncrackable for ages 1891 Major Etienne Bazeries creates a new version of the wheel cipher, which is rejected by the French Army 1895 the invention of the radio changes cryptography-tasks again and makes them even more important | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Another Question of Security Even with the best techniques it is impossible to invent a cryptographic system that is absolutely safe/unbreakable. To decipher a text means to go through many, sometimes nearly - but never really - endless attempts. For the computers of today it might take hundreds of years or even more to go through all possibilities of codes, but still, finally the code stays breakable. The much faster quantum computers will proof that one day. Therefore the decision to elect a certain method of enciphering finally is a matter of trust. For the average user of computers it is rather difficult to understand or even realize the dangers and/or the technological background of electronic transmission of data. For the majority thinking about one's own necessities for encryption first of all means to trust others, the specialists, to rely on the information they provide. The websites explaining the problems behind (and also the articles and books concerning the topic) are written by experts of course as well, very often in their typical scientific language, merely understandable for laymen. The introductions and other superficial elements of those articles can be understood, whereas the real background appears as untouchable spheres of knowledge. The fact that dangers are hard to see through and the need for security measures appears as something most people know from media reports, leads directly to the problem of an underdeveloped democracy in the field of cryptography. Obviously the connection between cryptography and democracy is rather invisible for many people. Those mentioned media reports often specialize in talking about the work computer hackers do (sometimes being presented as criminals, sometimes as heroes) and the danger to lose control over the money drawn away from one's bank account, if someone steals the credit card number or other important financial data. The term "security", surely connected to those issues, is a completely different one from the one that is connected to privacy. It is especially the latter that touches the main elements of democracy. for the question of security see: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Internet Content Providers Perspective As within the traditional media landscape, Internet content providers have two primary means of generating revenue: Direct sales or subscriptions, and advertising. Especially as charging Internet users for access to content - with all the free material available - has proven problematic, advertising is seen as the best solution for creating revenues in the short term. Therefore intense competition has started among Internet content providers and access services to attract advertising money. Table: Web-Sites Seeking Advertising
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Product Placement With television still being very popular, commercial entertainment has transferred the concept of soap operas onto the Web. The first of this new species of "Cybersoaps" was | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1800 - 1900 A.D. 1801 Invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard, an engineer and architect in Lyon, France, punch cards laid the ground for automatic information processing. For the first time information was stored in binary format on perforated cardboard cards. In 1890 Hermann Hollerith used Joseph-Marie Jacquard's punch card technology to process statistical data collected during the US census in 1890, thus speeding up US census data analysis from eight to three years. Hollerith's application of Jacquard's invention was used for programming computers and data processing until electronic data processing was introduced in the 1960's. - As with Paper tapes are a medium similar to Jacquard's punch cards. In 1857 Sir Charles Wheatstone used them for the preparation, storage, and transmission of data for the first time. Through paper tapes telegraph messages could be stored, prepared off-line and sent ten times quicker (up to 400 words per minute). Later similar paper tapes were used for programming computers. 1809 With Samuel Thomas Soemmering's invention of the electrical telegraph the telegraphic transmission of messages was no longer tied to visibility, as it was the case with smoke and light signals networks. Economical and reliable, the electric telegraph became the state-of-the-art communication system for fast data transmissions, even over long distances. Click 1861 The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, he was not given any financial support for further development. And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company. 1866 First functional underwater telegraph cable is laid across the Atlantic 1895 Invention of the wireless telegraph | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1900 - 2000 A.D. 1904 First broadcast talk 1918 Invention of the short-wave radio 1929 Invention of television in Germany and Russia 1941 Invention of microwave transmission 1946 Long-distance coaxial cable systems and mobile telephone services are introduced in the USA. 1957 First data transmissions over regular phone circuits. At the beginning of the story of today's global data networks is the story of the development of In 1955 President Eisenhower announced the USA's intention to launch a satellite. But it in the end it was the Soviet Union, which launched the first satellite in 1957: Sputnik I. After Sputnik's launch it became evident that the Cold War was also a race for leadership in the application of state-of-the-art technology to defense. As the US Department of Defense encouraged the formation of high-tech companies, it laid the ground to Silicon Valley, the hot spot of the world's computer industry. The same year as the USA launched their first satellite - Explorer I - data was transmitted over regular phone circuits for the first time, thus laying the ground for today's global data networks. Today's satellites may record weather data, scan the planet with powerful cameras, offer global positioning and monitoring services, and relay high-speed data transmissions. Yet up to now, most satellites are designed for military purposes such as reconnaissance. 1969 ARPAnet was the small network of individual computers connected by leased lines that marked the beginning of today's global data networks. An experimental network it mainly served the purpose of testing the feasibility of In 1969 ARPANET went online and linked the first two computers, one located at the University of California, Los Angeles, the other at the Stanford Research Institute. Yet ARPAnet did not become widely accepted before it was demonstrated in action to a public of computer experts at the First International Conference on Computers and Communication in Washington, D. C. in 1972. Before it was decommissioned in 1990, In the USA it was already in 1994 that commercial users outnumbered military and academic users. Despite the rapid growth of the Net, most computers linked to it are still located in the United States. 1971 Invention of 1979 Introduction of 1992 Launch of the | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Commercial vs. Independent Content Commercial media aim towards economies of scale and scope, with the goal to maximize profits. As advertising money usually is their primary source of revenue their content very often is attuned to meet the needs of advertisers and marketers. Information necessary for a citizen's participation in the public sphere usually only plays a minor role in their programming, as it does not comply with the demands of an economic system whose principal aim is the generation of profit. They also virtually always are structured in accord with and to help reinforce society's defining hierarchical social relationships, and are generally controlled by and controlling of other major social institutions, particularly corporations. Independent content provider on the other hand mostly act on a non-profit basis and try to avoid dependence on corporate powers and the state. One of their main concerns is the critical observation of public interest issues. The central aim of independent content provider's activities usually is to bring aspects and standpoints neglected by the (commercial) mainstream media to the public and subvert society's defining hierarchical social relationships. Promoting public debate and an active civil society they engage in the organization of alert actions and information campaigns or create subversive art | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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An Economic and therefore Governmental Issue While the digital divide might bring up the idea that enterprises will be able to sell more and more computers during the next years another truth looks as if there was no hope for a certain percentage of the population to get out of their marginalization, their position of being "have nots". Studies show that the issue of different colors of skin play a role in this, but more than "racial" issues it is income, age and education that decides about the have and have nots. There exist ~ 103 million households in the USA. ~6 million do not even have telephone access. Why should they care about computers? The digital divide cuts the world into centers and peripheries, not into nations, as it runs through the boarder between the North and the South as well as through nations. The most different institutions with various interests in their background work in that field; not rarely paid by governments, which are interested in inhabitants, connected to the net and economy. see also: Searching information about the digital divide one will find informations saying that it is growing all the time whereas other studies suggest the contrary, like this one | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Satyrs, Frankenstein, Machine Men, Cyborgs The idea of hybrid beings between man and non-human entities can be traced back to mythology: mythologies, European and non-European are populated with beings which are both human and non-human, and which, because of this non-humanness, have served as reference points in the human endeavour of understanding what it means to be human. Perhaps "being human" is not even a meaningful phrase without the possibility to identify ourselves also with the negation of humanness, that is, to be human through the very possibility of identification with the non-human. While in classical mythology, such being were usually between the man and animal kingdoms, or between the human and the divine, the advent of modern technology in the past two centuries has countered any such irrational representations of humanness. The very same supremacy of rationality which deposited the hybrid beings of mythology (and of religion) on the garbage heap of the modern period and which attempted a "pure" understanding of humanness, has also been responsible for the rapid advance of technology and which in turn prepared a "technical" understanding of the human. The only non-human world which remains beyond the animal and divine worlds is the world of technology. The very attempt of a purist definition of the human ran encountered difficulty; the theories of Darwin and Freud undermined the believe that there was something essentially human in human beings, something that could be defined without references to the non-human. Early representations of half man - half machine creatures echo the fear of the violent use of machinery, as in wars. Mary Shelley published What human minds have later dreamed up about - usually hostile - artificial beings has segmented in the literary genre of science fiction. Science fiction seems to have provided the "last" protected zone for the strong emotions and hard values which in standard fiction literature would relegate a story into the realm of kitsch. Violent battles, strong heroes, daring explorations, infinity and solitude, clashes of right and wrong and whatever else makes up the aesthetic repertoire of metaphysics has survived unscathed in science fiction. However, science fiction also seems to mark the final sequence of pure fiction: the In the Flesh Machine the | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Economic structure; introduction "Globalization is to no small extent based upon the rise of rapid global communication networks. Some even go so far as to argue that "information has replaced manufacturing as the foundation of the economy". Indeed, global media and communication are in some respects the advancing armies of global capitalism." (Robert McChesney, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy") "Information flow is your lifeblood." (Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft) The usefulness of information and communication technologies increases with the number of people who use them. The more people form part of communication networks, the greater the amount of information that is produced. Microsoft founder Bill Gates dreams of "friction free capitalism", a new stage of capitalism in which perfect information becomes the basis for the perfection of the markets. But exploitative practices have not disappeared. Instead, they have colonised the digital arena where effective protective regulation is still largely absent. Following the dynamics of informatised economies, the consumption habits and lifestyles if customers are of great interest. New technologies make it possible to store and combine collected data of an enormous amount of people. User profiling helps companies understand what potential customers might want. Often enough, such data collecting takes place without the customer's knowledge and amounts to spying. "Much of the information collection that occurs on the Internet is invisible to the consumer, which raises serious questions of fairness and informed consent." (David Sobel, Electronic Privacy Information Center) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Definition During the last 20 years the old "Digital divide" describes the fact that the world can be divided into people who do and people who do not have access to (or the education to handle with) modern information technologies, e.g. cellular telephone, television, Internet. This digital divide is concerning people all over the world, but as usually most of all people in the formerly so called third world countries and in rural areas suffer; the poor and less-educated suffer from that divide. More than 80% of all computers with access to the Internet are situated in larger cities. "The cost of the information today consists not so much of the creation of content, which should be the real value, but of the storage and efficient delivery of information, that is in essence the cost of paper, printing, transporting, warehousing and other physical distribution means, plus the cost of the personnel manpower needed to run these `extra' services ....Realizing an autonomous distributed networked society, which is the real essence of the Internet, will be the most critical issue for the success of the information and communication revolution of the coming century of millennium." (Izumi Aizi) for more information see: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Missing Labeling of Online Ads One of the most crucial issues in on-line advertising is the blurring of the line between editorial content and ads. Unlike on TV and in the print media, where guidelines on the labeling of advertisements, which shall enable the customer to distinguish between editorial and ads, exist, similar conventions have not yet evolved for Internet content. Labeling of online advertisement up to now has remained the rare exception, with only few sites (e.g. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) is the independent research branch of the U.S. Department of Defense that, among its other accomplishments, funded a project that in time was to lead to the creation of the Internet. Originally called ARPA (the "D" was added to its name later), DARPA came into being in 1958 as a reaction to the success of Sputnik, Russia's first manned satellite. DARPA's explicit mission was (and still is) to think independently of the rest of the military and to respond quickly and innovatively to national defense challenges. In the late 1960s, DARPA provided funds and oversight for a project aimed at interconnecting computers at four university research sites. By 1972, this initial network, now called the http://www.darpa.mil | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Cisco, Inc. Being the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, Cisco Systems is one of the most prominent companies of the Internet industry. http://www.cisco.com | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Above.net Headquartered in San Jose, USA, AboveNet Communications is a http://www.above.net | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz b. July 1, 1646, Leipzig d. November 14, 1716, Hannover, Hanover German philosopher, mathematician, and political adviser, important both as a metaphysician and as a logician and distinguished also for his independent invention of the differential and integral calculus. 1661, he entered the University of Leipzig as a law student; there he came into contact with the thought of men who had revolutionized science and philosophy--men such as | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Memex Animation by Ian Adelman and Paul Kahn | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Enigma Device used by the German military command to encode strategic messages before and during World War II. The Enigma code was broken by a British intelligence system known as Ultra. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Next Generation Internet Program A research and development program funded by the US government. Goal is the development of advanced networking technologies and applications requiring advanced networking with capabilities that are 100 to 1,000 times faster end-to-end than today's Internet. http://www.ngi.gov | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The European Convention on Human Rights and its Five Protocols As can be read in the Convention's preamble, the member states of the Council of Europe, the European Convention on Human Rights is intended as a follow-up of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 10 December 1948 and as an official act of "securing the universal and effective recognition and observance of the Rights therein declared." Because it is stated "that the aim of the Council of Europe is the achievement of greater unity between its Members and that one of the methods by which the aim is to be pursued is the maintenance and further realization of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms", the European Convention on Human Rights can be read as the political sibling to the biblical Ten Commandments on which effective and legitimate European democratic government are based. The European Convention on Human Rights is intended to represent the essence of the common heritage of European political traditions and ideals. Signed in Rome on November 4, 1950, the Convention is supplemented by five protocols dated from March 20, 1952 (Paris), May 6, 1963, September 16, 1963, and January 20, 1966 (Strasbourg). http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Virtual Private Networks Virtual Private Networks provide secured connections to a corporate site over a public network as the Internet. Data transmitted through secure connections are encrypted and therefore have to be encrypted before they can be read. These networks are called virtual because connections are provided only when you connect to a corporate site; they do not rely on dedicated lines and support mobile use. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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cryptology also called "the study of code". It includes both, cryptography and cryptoanalysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Dieter Dörner Professor of theoretical psychology at the University of Bamberg, Germany. He defends the idea that the soul can be simulated by an information system. Artificial life will be able to reproduce itself and will therefore need a right to life just as biological life. Artificial life will also be able to feel pain, and there will have to be a new form of interaction between humans and artificial life forms. Dörner is conducting a research project on human action in situations of insecurity and complexity and has published "The logic of failure. Why things go wrong and what we can do to make them right" as well as "The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and avoiding error in complex situations." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Frankenstein Written by Mary Shelley, Frankenstein tells the story of a doctor who builds a creature half man and half machine. While at first the creature is celebrated a s big success, it soon realizes that it is awakens fear among humans. As a result of the growing distance between Frankenstein's creature and the people, its longing for love and affection remains unfulfilled. Frankenstein's creature eventually turns hostile to its human environment and kills its own maker. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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to decipher/decode to put the ciphers/codes back into the plaintext | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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