Media systems (especially broadcasting) can be classified in two different types:
Public Media Systems: Government control over broadcasting through ownership, regulation, and partial funding of public broadcasting services.
Private Media System: Ownership and control lies in the hands of private companies and shareholders.
Both systems can exist in various forms, according to the degree of control by governments and private companies, with mixed systems (public and private) as the third main kind.
Whereas public media systems are usually at least partially funded by governments, private broadcasting solely relies on advertising revenue. Still also public media systems cannot exclude advertising as a source of revenue. Therefore both types are to a certain degree dependent on money coming in by advertisers.
And this implies consequences on the content provided by the media. As the attraction of advertisers becomes critically important, interests of the advertising industry frequently play a dominant role concerning the structure of content and the creation of environments favorable for advertising goods and services within the media becomes more and more common.
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In palm recognition a 3-dimensional image of the hand is collected and compared to the stored sample. Palm recognition devices are cumbersome artefacts (unlike fingerprint and iris recognition devices) but can absorb perform a great amount of identification acts in a short time. They are therefore preferably installed in situations where a large number of people is identified, as in airports.
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Following the commercial success of
New technologies were being invented in Japan.
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However, artificial beings need not be invisible or look like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator". "My dream would be to create an artificial man that does not look like a robot but like a beautiful, graceful human being. The artificial man should be beautiful".
While in Hindu mythology,
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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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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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An important change in the development of computers occurred in 1948 with the invention of the
Stretch by
Throughout the early 1960s there were a number of commercially successful computers (for example the IBM 1401) used in business, universities, and government and by 1965 most large firms routinely processed financial information by using computers. Decisive for the success of computers in business was the stored program concept and the development of sophisticated high-level
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With the increased ease of the reproduction and transmission of unauthorized copies of digital works over electronic networks concerns among the copyright holder community have arisen. They fear a further growth of copyright piracy and demand adequate protection of their works. A development, which started in the mid 1990s and considers the copyright owner's apprehensions, is the creation of
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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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In biometric technology, the subject is reduced to its physical and therefore inseparable properties. The subject is a subject in so far as it is objectified; that is, in so far as is identified with its own res extensa, Descartes' "extended thing". The subject exists in so far as it can be objectified, if it resists the objectification that comes with measurement, it is rejected or punished. Biometrics therefore provides the ultimate tool for control; in it, the dream of hermetic identity control seems to become a reality, a modern technological reconstruction of traditional identification techniques such as the handshake or the look into somebody's eyes.
The use of identification by states and other institutions of authority is evidently not simply a modern phenomenon. The ancient Babylonians and Chinese already made use of finger printing on clay to identify authors of documents, while the Romans already systematically compared handwritings.
Body measurement has long been used by the military. One of the first measures after entering the military is the identification and appropriation of the body measurements of a soldier. These measurements are filed and combined with other data and make up what today we would call the soldier's data body. With his data body being in possession of the authority, a soldier is no longer able freely socialise and is instead dependent on the disciplinary structure of the military institution. The soldier's social being in the world is defined by the military institution.
However, the military and civilian spheres of modern societies are no longer distinct entities. The very ambivalence of advanced technology (dual use technologies) has meant that "good" and "bad" uses of technology can no longer be clearly distinguished. The measurement of physical properties and the creation of data bodies in therefore no longer a military prerogative, it has become diffused into all areas of modern societies.
If the emancipatory potential of weak identities is to be of use, it is therefore necessary to know how biometric technologies work and what uses they are put to.
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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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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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"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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The Internet/Matrix still depends heavily on public infrastructure and there is no dedicated owner of the whole Internet/Matrix, but the networks it consists of are run and owned by corporations and institutions. Access to the Internet is usually provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) for a monthly fee. Each network is owned by someone and has a network operation center from where it is centrally controlled, but the Internet/Matrix is not owned by any single authority and has no network operation center of its own. No legal authority determines how and where networks can be connected together, this is something the managers of networks have to agree about. So there is no way to ever gain ultimate control of the Matrix/Internet.
The in some respects decentralized Matrix/Internet architecture and administration do not imply that there are no authorities for oversight and common standards for sustaining basic operations, for administration: There are authorities for IP number and domain name registrations, e.g.
Ever since the organizational structures for Internet administration have changed according to the needs to be addressed. Up to now, administration of the Internet is a collaborative undertaking of several loose cooperative bodies with no strict hierarchy of authority. These bodies make decisions on common guidelines, as
Amazingly, there seems to be an unspoken and uncodified consent of what is allowed and what is forbidden on the Internet that is widely accepted. Codifications, as the so-called
Sometimes violations not already subject to law become part of governmental regulations, as it was the case with spamming, the unsolicited sending of advertising mail messages. But engineers proved to be quicker and developed software against spamming. So, in some respects, the Internet is self-regulating, indeed.
For a detailed report on Internet governance, click here.
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In the space of flows constituted by today's global data networks the space of places is transcended. Visualizations of these global data flows show arches bridging seas and continents, thereby linking the world's centres of research and development, economics and politics. In the global "Network Society" (Manuel Castells) the traditional centres of power and domination are not discarded, in the opposite, they are strengthened and reinforced by the use of information and communication technologies. Political, economical and symbolical power becomes increasingly linked to the use of modern information and communication technologies. The most sensitive and advanced centres of information and communication technologies are the stock markets. Excluded from the network constituted by modern information and communication technologies, large parts of Africa, Asia and South America, but also the poor of industrialized countries, are ranking increasingly marginal to the world economy.
Cities are centres of communications, trade and power. The higher the percentage of urban population, the more it is likely that the telecommunications infrastructure is generally good to excellent. This goes hand in hand with lower telecommunications costs. Those parts of the world with the poorest infrastructure are also the world's poorhouse. In Bangladesh for most parts of the population a personal computer is as expensive as a limousine in European one-month's salary in Europe, they have to pay eight annual salaries. Therefore telecommunications infrastructure is concentrated on the highly industrialized world: Most telephone mainlines, mobile telephones, computers, Internet accounts and Internet hosts (computers connected to the global data networks) can be found here. The same applies to media: the daily circulation of newspapers and the use of TV sets and radios. - Telecommunication and media services affordable to most parts of the population are mostly restricted to industrialized countries.
This situation will not change in the foreseeable future: Most expenditure for telecommunications infrastructure will be restricted to the richest countries in the world. In 1998, the world's richest countries consumed 75% of all cables and wires.
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Never before propaganda had been as important as in the 2nd World War. From now on education was one more field of propaganda: its purpose was to teach how to think, while pure propaganda was supposed to show what to think.
Every nation founded at least one ministry of propaganda - of course without calling it that way. For example the British called it the Ministry of Information (= MOI), the U.S. distinguished between the Office of Strategic Services (= OSS) and the Office of War Information (= OWI), the Germans created a Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment (= RMVP) and the Japanese called their disinformation and propaganda campaign the "Thought War".
British censorship was so strict that the text of an ordinary propaganda leaflet, that had been dropped from planes several million times, was not given to a journalist who asked for it.
Atrocity stories were no longer used the same way as in the 1st World War. Instead,
German war propaganda had started long before the war. In the middle of the 1930s
Some of the pictures of fear, hatred and intolerance still exist in people's heads. Considering this propaganda did a good job, unfortunately it was the anti-national-socialist propaganda that failed at that time.
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Identity has to do with "place". In less mobile societies, the place where a person finds him/herself tells us something about his/her identity. In pre-industrial times, gatekeepers had the function to control access of people to particular places, i.e. the gatekeepers function was to identify people and then decide whether somebody's identity would allow that person to physically occupy another place - a town, a building, a vehicle, etc.
In modern societies, the unambiguous nature of place has been weakened. There is a great amount of physical mobility, and ever since the emergence and spread of electronic communication technologies there has been a "virtualisation" of places in what today we call "virtual space" (unlike place, space has been a virtual reality from the beginning, a mathematical formula) The question as to who one is no longer coupled to the physical abode. Highly mobile and virtualised social contexts require a new generation of gatekeepers which biometric technology aims to provide.
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Until the 19th century "early computers", probably better described as calculating machines, were basically mechanical devices and operated by hand. Early
Therefore
After working on the Difference Engine for ten years Babbage was inspired to build another machine, which he called Analytical Engine. Its invention was a major step towards the design of modern computers, as it was conceived the first general-purpose computer. Instrumental to the machine's design was his assistant, Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, the first female computer programmer.
The second major breakthrough in the design of computing machines in the 19th century may be attributed to the American inventor Herman Hollerith. He was concerned with finding a faster way to compute the U.S. census, which in 1880 had taken nearly seven years. Therefore Hollerith invented a method, which used cards to store data information which he fed into a machine that compiled the results automatically. The punch cards not only served as a storage method and helped reduce computational errors, but furthermore significantly increased speed.
Of extraordinary importance for the evolution of digital computers and
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Copyright protection generally means that certain uses of a work are lawful only if they are done with the authorization of the owner of the copyright. The most typical are the following:
- copying or reproducing a work
- performing a work in public
- making a sound recording of a work
- making a motion picture of a work
- broadcasting a work
- translating a work
- adapting a work
Under certain national laws, some of these rights, which are referred to, as "economic rights'" are not exclusive rights of authorization but in specific cases, merely rights to remuneration. Some strictly determined uses (for example quotations or the use of works by way of illustration for teaching) are completely free, that is, they require neither authorization of, nor remuneration for, the owner of the copyright. This practice is described as
In addition to economic rights, authors enjoy "moral rights" on the basis of which they have the right to claim their authorship and require that their names be indicated on the copies of the work and in connection with other uses thereof. They also have the right to oppose the mutilation or deformation of their creations.
The owner of a copyright may usually transfer his right or may license certain uses of his work. Moral rights are generally inalienable and remain with the creator even after he has transferred his economic rights, although the author may waive their exercise.
Furthermore there exist rights related to copyright that are referred to as "neighboring rights". In general there are three kinds of neighboring rights: 1) the rights of performing artists in their performances, 2) the rights of producers of phonograms in their phonograms, and 3) the rights of broadcasting organizations in their radio and television programs. Neighboring rights attempt to protect those who assist intellectual creators to communicate their message and to disseminate their works to the public at large.
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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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New opportunities for online advertisers arise with the possibility of one-to-one Web applications. Software agents for example promise to "register, recognize and manage end-user profiles; create personalized communities on-line; deliver personalized content to end-users and serve highly targeted advertisements". The probably ultimate tool for advertisers. Although not yet widely used, companies like
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Each definition of the Internet is a simplified statement and runs the risk of being outdated within a short time. What is usually referred to as the Internet is a network of thousands of computer networks (so called autonomous systems) run by governmental authorities, companies, and universities, etc. Generally speaking, every time a user connects to a computer networks, a new Internet is created. Technically speaking, the Internet is a
What constitutes the Internet is constantly changing. Certainly the state of the future Net will be different to the present one. Some years ago the Internet could still be described as a network of computer networks using a common communication protocol, the so-called
Also, the Internet is not solely constituted by computers connected to other computers, because there are also point-of-sale terminals, cameras, robots, telescopes, cellular phones, TV sets and and an assortment of other hardware components that are connected to the Internet.
At the core of the Internet are so-called
Since these networks are often privately owned, any description of the Internet as a public network is not an accurate. It is easier to say what the Internet is not than to say what it is. On 24 October, 1995 the U.S.
What is generally and in a simplyfiying manner called the Internet, may be better referred to as the Matrix, a term introduced by science fiction writer
Strictly speaking, the Matrix is not a medium; it is a platform for resources: for media and services. The Matrix is mainly a very powerful means for making information easily accessible worldwide, for sending and receiving messages, videos, texts and audio files, for transferring funds and trading securities, for sharing resources, for collecting weather condition data, for
For a comprehensive view of uses of the Matrix, especially the World Wide Web, see "
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Copyright law is a branch of
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Other biometric technologies not specified here include ear recognition, signature dynamics, key stroke dynamics, vein pattern recognition, retinal scan, body odour recognition, and DNA recognition. These are technologies which are either in early stages of development or used in highly specialised and limited contexts.
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Traditional copyright and the practice of paying
Yet again new technologies have altered the way of how (copyrighted) works are produced, copied, made obtainable and distributed. The emergence of global electronic networks and the increased availability of digitalized intellectual property confront existing copyright with a variety of questions and challenges. Although the combination of several types of works within one larger work or on one data carrier, and the digital format (although this may be a recent development it has been the object of detailed legal scrutiny), as well as networking (telephone and cable networks have been in use for a long time, although they do not permit interactivity) are nothing really new, the circumstance that recent technologies allow the presentation and storage of text, sound and visual information in digital form indeed is a novel fact. Like that the entire information can be generated, altered and used by and on one and the same device, irrespective of whether it is provided online or offline.
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On the other hand are the data bunkers of the private sector, whose position is different. Although these are fast-growing engines of data collection with a much greater degree of dynamism, they may not have the same privileged position - although one has to differentiate among the general historical and social conditions into which a data bunker is embedded. For example, it can safely be assumed that the databases of a large credit card company or bank are more protected than the bureaucracies of small developing countries.
Private data bunkers include
- Banks
- Building societies
Credit bureaus
Credit card companies
Direct marketing companies
Insurance companies
Telecom service providers
Mail order stores
Online stores
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Intellectual property, very generally, relates to the output, which result from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary and artistic fields. Traditionally intellectual property is divided into two branches:
1) Industrial Property
a)
b)
c)
d) Unfair competition (trade secrets)
e) Geographical indications (indications of source and appellations of origin)
2) Copyright
The protection of intellectual property is guaranteed through a variety of laws, which grant the creators of intellectual goods, and services certain time-limited rights to control the use made of their products. Those rights apply to the intellectual creation as such, and not to the physical object in which the work may be embodied.
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This process works even better on the Internet because of the latter's interactive nature. "The Internet is a dream to direct marketers", said Wil Lansing, CEO of the American retailer
Many web sites also are equipped with
One frequent way of obtaining such personal information of a user is by offering free web mail accounts offered by a great many companies, internet providers and web portals (e.g.
However, the intention of collecting users personal data and create consumer profiles based on online behaviour can also take on more creative and playful forms. One such example is
The particular way in which sites such as sixdegrees.com and others are structured mean that not only to users provide initial information about them, but also that this information is constantly updated and therefore becomes even more valuable. Consequently, many free online services or web mail providers cancel a user's account if it has not been uses for some time.
There are also other online services which offer free services in return for personal information which is then used for marketing purposes, e.g. Yahoo's
A further way of collecting consumer data that has recently become popular is by offering free PCs. Users are provided with a PC for free or for very little money, and in return commit themselves to using certain services rather than others (e.g. a particular internet provider), providing information about themselves, and agree to have their online behaviour monitored by the company providing the PC, so that accurate user profiles can be compiled. For example, the
A good inside view of the world of direct marketing can be gained at the website of the
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All biometric technologies capture biometric data from individuals. Once these date have been captured by a system, they can, in principle, be forwarded to other locations and put to many different uses which are capable of compromising on an individuals privacy.
Technically it is easy to match biometric data with other personal data stored in government or corporate files, and to come a step closer to the counter-utopia of the transparent citizen and customer whose data body is under outside control.
While biometric technologies are often portrayed as protectors of personal data and safeguards against identity theft, they can thus contribute to an advance in "Big Brother" technology.
The combination of personalised data files with biometric data would amount to an enormous control potential. While nobody in government and industry would admit to such intentions, leading data systems companies such as EDS (Electronic Data Systems;
Biometric technologies have the function of identification. Historically, identification has been a prerequisite for the exercise of power and serves as a protection only to those who are in no conflict with this power. If the digitalisation of the body by biometric technologies becomes as widespread as its proponents hope, a new electronic feudal system could be emerging, in which people are reduced to subjects dispossessed of their to their bodies, even if these, unlike in the previous one, are data bodies. Unlike the gatekeepers of medieval towns, wear no uniforms by they might be identified; biometric technologies are pure masks.
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~ 1900 BC: Egyptian writers use non-standard
1500 an enciphered formula for the production of pottery is done in Mesopotamia
parts of the Hebrew writing of Jeremiah's words are written down in "
4th century
487 the Spartans introduce the so called "
170
50-60
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This is the largest area of application of biometric technologies, and the most direct lineage to the feudal gate keeping system. Initially mainly used in military and other "high security" territories, physical access control by biometric technology is spreading into a much wider field of application. Biometric access control technologies are already being used in schools, supermarkets, hospitals and commercial centres, where the are used to manage the flow of personnel.
Biometric technologies are also used to control access to political territory, as in immigration (airports, Mexico-USA border crossing). In this case, they can be coupled with camera surveillance systems and artificial intelligence in order to identify potential suspects at unmanned border crossings. Examples of such uses in remote video inspection systems can be found at
A gate keeping system for airports relying on digital fingerprint and hand geometry is described at
An electronic reconstruction of feudal gate keeping capable of singling out high-risk travellers from the rest is already applied at various border crossing points in the USA. "All enrolees are compared against national lookout databases on a daily basis to ensure that individuals remain low risk". As a side benefit, the economy of time generated by the inspection system has meant that "drug seizures ... have increased since Inspectors are able to spend more time evaluating higher risk vehicles".
However, biometric access control can not only prevent people from gaining access on to a territory or building, they can also prevent them from getting out of buildings, as in the
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150
A
The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within a visible range of each other and had a total length of about 4500 kilometers. It was used for military signaling.
For a similar telegraph network in ancient Greece see
About 750
In Japan block printing is used for the first time.
868
In China the world's first dated book, the Diamond Sutra, is printed.
1041-1048
In China moveable types made from clay are invented.
1088
The first of the great medieval universities was established in Bologna. At the beginning universities predominantly offered a kind of do-it-yourself publishing service.
Books still had to be copied by hand and were so rare that a copy of a widely desired book qualified for being invited to a university. Holding a lecture equaled to reading a book aloud, like a priest read from the Bible during services. Attending a lecture equaled to copy a lecture word by word, so that you had your own copy of a book, thus enabling you to hold a lecture, too.
For further details see History of the Idea of a University,
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With the rise of networks and the corresponding decline of mainframe services computers have become communication devices instead of being solely computational or typewriter-like devices. Corporate networks become increasingly important and often use the Internet as a public service network to interconnect. Sometimes they are
Software companies, consulting agencies, and journalists serving their interests make some further differences by splitting up the easily understandable term
Cable TV networks and online services as
Especially for financial transactions, secure proprietary networks become increasingly important. When you transfer funds from your banking account to an account in another country, it is done through the SWIFT network, the network of the
Electronic Communications Networks as
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Another important multilateral treaty concerned with
The complete TRIPS agreement can be found on:
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Nadia Thalman is director of
The story of Frank-N-furter, Brad and Janet ... Don't dream it, be it!
http://www.rockyhorrorpictureshow.com/
The U.S.-Army School of Americas (= SOA) is based in Fort Benning (Georgia); it trains Latin American and U.S. soldiers in the working-field of counter-insurgency. Some of the nearly 60.000 SOA-Graduates have been responsible for many of the worst human rights abuses and crimes in Latin America. The list of famous dictators and murderers who went through the education of that institution is tremendous. In 1996 the U.S.-Government that always tried to deny the tasks of SOA, had to admit its work - but never closed it.
For more information see the website of
Headquartered in San Jose, USA, AboveNet Communications is a
http://www.above.net
IRC is a text-based chat system used for live discussions of groups.
For a history of IRC see Charles A. Gimon, IRC: The Net in Realtime,
Every computer using
IP numbers are divided into three classes. Class A is restricted for big-sized organizations, Class B to medium-sized ones as universities, and Class C is dedicated to small networks.
Because of the increasing number of networks worldwide, networks belonging together, as
This is the story of the virtual Marylyn Monroe created by MRALab in Switzerland. The biography features her personal and professional stories. This being the biography of a virtual being, it does not end with the present and includes, instead, a chapter on her destiny.
Universally accepted system of writing used by and for blind persons and consisting of a code of 63 characters, each made up of one to six raised dots arranged in a six-position matrix or cell. These Braille characters are embossed in lines on paper and read by passing the fingers lightly over the manuscript. Louis Braille, who was blinded at the age of three, invented the system in 1824 while a student at the Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children), Paris.
An international organization designed to supervise and liberalize world trade. The WTO (World Trade Organization) is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which was created in 1947 and liberalized the world's trade over the next five decades. The WTO came into being on Jan. 1, 1995, with 104 countries as its founding members. The WTO is charged with policing member countries' adherence to all prior GATT agreements, including those of the last major GATT trade conference, the Uruguay Round (1986-94), at whose conclusion GATT had formally gone out of existence. The WTO is also responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements. The WTO is governed by a Ministerial Conference, which meets every two years; a General Council, which implements the conference's policy decisions and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a director-general, who is appointed by the Ministerial Conference. The WTO's headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland.
Claude Chappe built a fixed optical network between Paris and Lille. Covering a distance of about 240kms, it consisted of fifteen towers with semaphores.
Because this communication system was destined to practical military use, the transmitted messages were encoded. The messages were kept such secretly, even those who transmit them from tower to tower did not capture their meaning, they just transmitted codes they did not understand. Depending on weather conditions, messages could be sent at a speed of 2880 kms/hr at best.
Forerunners of Chappe's optical network are the
For more information on early communication networks see
A superset of Boolean logic (
b. Jan. 4, 1809, Coupvray, near Paris, France
d. Jan. 6, 1852, Paris, France
Educator who developed a system of printing and writing that is extensively used by the blind and that was named for him. Himself blind Braille became interested in a system of writing, exhibited at the school by Charles Barbier, in which a message coded in dots was embossed on cardboard. When he was 15, he worked out an adaptation, written with a simple instrument, that met the needs of the sightless. He later took this system, which consists of a six-dot code in various combinations, and adapted it to musical notation. He published treatises on his type system in 1829 and 1837.
The Center for Democracy and Technology works to promote democratic values and constitutional liberties in the digital age. With expertise in law, technology, and policy, the Center seeks practical solutions to enhance free expression and privacy in global communications technologies. The Center is dedicated to building consensus among all parties interested in the future of the Internet and other new communications media.
http://www.cdt.org
b., March 3, 1847, Edinburgh
d. Aug. 2, 1922, Beinn Bhreagh, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
American audiologist and inventor wrongly remembered for having invented the telephone in 1876. Although Bell introduced the first commercial application of the telephone, in fact a German teacher called Reiss invented it.
For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/1/0,5716,15411+1+15220,00.html
Writing and calculating came into being at about the same time. The first pictographs carved into clay tablets are used for administrative purposes. As an instrument for the administrative bodies of early empires, who began to rely on the collection, storage, processing and transmission of data, the skill of writing was restricted to a few. Being more or less separated tasks, writing and calculating converge in today's computers.
Letters are invented so that we might be able to converse even with the absent, says Saint Augustine. The invention of writing made it possible to transmit and store information. No longer the ear predominates; face-to-face communication becomes more and more obsolete for administration and bureaucracy. Standardization and centralization become the constituents of high culture and vast empires as Sumer and China.
MIRALab is a research laboratory attached to the University of Geneva. Its motto is "where research meets creativity". MIRAlab's objective is to model human functionalities, such as movement or facial expression, in a realistic way.
KMI is the leading source for information on fiber-optics markets. It offers market research, strategic analysis and product planning services to the opto-electronics and communications industries. KMI tracks the worldwide fiber-optic cable system and sells the findings to the industry. KMI says that every fiber-optics corporation with a need for strategic market planning is a subscriber to their services.
Traditionally, an avatar is a mythical figure half man half god. In Hindu mythology, avatars are the form that deities assume when they descend on earth. Greek and Roman mythologies also contain avatars in animal form or half animal, half man. In virtual space, the word avatar refers to a "virtual identity" that a user can construct for him / herself, e.g. in a chat-room. Avatars have also been a preferred object of media art.
Amazon.Com was one of the first online bookstores. With thousands of books, CDs and videos ordered via the Internet every year, Amazon.Com probably is the most successful Internet bookstore.
Born in Grand Chute, Wisconsin, Joe McCarthy graduated from Marquette in 1935. In 1939, he won election as a circuit court judge. During World War II, he enlisted in the Marines and served in the Pacific. In 1944, he campaigned for senator but lost in the Republican primary. In 1946, he ran for Wisconsin's other senate seat.
In a 1950 speech, McCarthy entered the public spotlight by claiming that communists had "infested" the State Department, dramatically waving a sheet of paper which purportedly contained the traitors' names. A special Senate committee investigated the charges and found them groundless. Unfazed, McCarthy used his position to wage a relentless anti-communist crusade, denouncing numerous public figures and holding a series of highly confrontational hearings, ruining the careers of many people.
He died at the age of 49 of complications related to alcoholism.
Slobodan Milosevic (* 1941) is a Serbian political leader.
As a young man S. Milosevic joined the Communist Party, in 1984 the banker became head of the local Communist Party of Belgrade, in 1987 head of the Serb CP. Since 1989 he has been president of Serbia (since 1997 president of the new Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). During his reign the Yugoslav Republic broke up, bringing about the independence of Slovenia and Croatia and the war in Bosnia. In 1998 the Kosovo Crisis started.
The Enigma Encryption Machine was famous for its insecurities as for the security that it gave to German ciphers. It was broken, first by the Poles in the 1930s, then by the British in World War II.
GE is a major American corporation and one of the largest and most diversified corporations in the world. Its products include electrical and electronic equipment, plastics, aircraft engines, medical imaging equipment, and financial services. The company was incorporated in 1892, and in 1986 GE purchased the RCA Corporation including the RCA-owned television network, the National Broadcasting Company, Inc. In 1987, however, GE sold RCA's consumer electronics division to Thomson SA, a state-owned French firm, and purchased Thomson's medical technology division. In 1989 GE agreed to combine its European business interests in appliances, medical systems, electrical distribution, and power systems with the unrelated British corporation General Electric Company. Headquarters are in Fairfield, Conn., U.S.
On behalf of the
Invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard, an engineer and architect in Lyon, France, the 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 for processing statistical data retrieved from the US census in 1890, thus speeding up data analysis from eight to three years. His application of Jacquard's invention was also 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 applied them as a medium for the preparation, storage, and transmission of data for the first time. By their means, telegraph messages could be prepared off-line, sent ten times quicker (up to 400 words per minute), and stored. Later similar paper tapes were used for programming computers.
The Internet Engineering Task Force contributes to the evolution of the architecture, the protocols and technologies of the Net by developing new Internet standard specifications. The directors of its functional areas form the
Internet Society:
b. June 19, 1623, Clermont-Ferrand, France
d. August 19, 1662, Paris, France
French mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher, and master of prose. He laid the foundation for the modern theory of probabilities, formulated what came to be known as Pascal's law of pressure, and propagated a religious doctrine that taught the experience of God through the heart rather than through reason. The establishment of his principle of intuitionism had an impact on such later philosophers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Henri Bergson and also on the Existentialists.
b. December 26, 1791, London, England
d. October 18, 1871, London, England
English mathematician and inventor who is credited with having conceived the first automatic digital computer. The idea of mechanically calculating mathematical tables first came to Babbage in 1812 or 1813. Later he made a small
EDI is an international standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services. It enables trading partners to conduct routine business transactions, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping notices independent of the computer platform used by the trading partners. Standardization by EDI translation software assures the correct interpretation of data.
EDI might become increasingly important to electronic commerce.
The water-clocks are an early long-distance-communication-system. Every communicating party had exactly the same jar, with a same-size-hole that was closed and the same amount of water in it. In the jar was a stick with different messages written on. When one party wanted to tell something to the other it made a fire-sign. When the other answered, both of them opened the hole at the same time. And with the help of another fire-sign closed it again at the same time, too. In the end the water covered the stick until the point of the wanted message.
Being itself under the umbrella of the