Personal data are collected, appropriated, processed and used for commercial purposes on a global scale. In order for such a global system to operate smoothly, there a server nodes at which the data streams converge. Among the foremost of these are the data bases of credit card companies, whose operation has long depended on global networking.
On top of credit card companies such as Visa, American Express, Master Card, and others. It would be erroneous to believe that the primary purpose of business of these companies is the provision of credit, and the facilitation of credit information for sale transactions. In fact, Information means much more than just credit information. In an advertisement of 1982, American Express described itself in these terms: ""Our product is information ...Information that charges airline tickets, hotel rooms, dining out, the newest fashions ...information that grows money funds buys and sells equities ...information that pays life insurance annuities ...information that schedules entertainment on cable television and electronically guards houses ...information that changes kroners into guilders and figures tax rates in Bermuda ..."
Information has become something like the gospel of the New Economy, a doctrine of salvation - the life blood of society, as Bill Gates expresses it. But behind information there are always data that need to be generated and collected. Because of the critical importance of data to the economy, their possession amounts to power and their loss can cause tremendous damage. The data industry therefore locates its data warehouses behind fortifications that bar physical or electronic access. Such structures are somewhat like a digital reconstruction of the medieval fortress
Large amounts of data are concentrated in fortress-like structures, in data bunkers. As the
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The main concern of copyright owners as the (in terms of
Reproduction and Distribution
Unlike copies of works made using analog copiers (photocopy machines, video recorders etc.) digital information can be reproduced extremely fast, at low cost and without any loss in quality. Since each copy is a perfect copy, no quality-related limits inhibit pirates from making as many copies as they please, and recipients of these copies have no incentive to return to authorized sources to get another qualitatively equal product. Additionally the costs of making one extra copy of intellectual property online are insignificant, as are the distribution costs if the copy is moved to the end user over the Internet.
Control and Manipulation
In cross-border, global data networks it is almost impossible to control the exploitation of protected works. Particularly the use of anonymous remailers and other existing technologies complicates the persecution of pirates. Also digital files are especially vulnerable to manipulation, of the work itself, and of the (in some cases) therein-embedded
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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 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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Hardly a firm today can afford not to engage in electronic commerce if it does not want to be swept out of business by competitors. "Information is everything" has become something like the Lord's prayer of the New Economy. But how do you get information about your customer online? Who are the people who visit a website, where do they come from, what are they looking for? How much money do they have, what might they want to buy? These are key questions for a company doing electronic business. Obviously not all of this information can be obtained by monitoring the online behaviour of web users, but there are always little gimmicks that, when combined with common tracking technologies, can help to get more detailed information about a potential customer. These are usually online registration forms, either required for entry to a site, or competitions, sometimes a combination of the two. Obviously, if you want to win that weekend trip to New York, you want to provide your contact details.
The most common way of obtaining information about a user online is a
But cookies record enough information to fine-tune advertising strategies according to a user's preferences and interests, e.g. by displaying certain commercial banners rather than others. For example, if a user is found to respond to a banner of a particular kind, he / she may find two of them at the next visit. Customizing the offers on a website to the particular user is part of one-to-one marketing, a type of
One-to-one marketing can create very different realities that undermine traditional concepts of demand and supply. The ideal is a "frictionless market", where the differential between demand and supply is progressively eliminated. If a market is considered a structure within which demand / supply differentials are negotiated, this amounts to the abolition of the established notion of the nature of a market. Demand and supply converge, desire and it fulfilment coincide. In the end, there is profit without labour. However, such a structure is a hermetic structure of unfreedom.
It can only function when payment is substituted by credit, and the exploitation of work power by the exploitation of data. In fact, in modern economies there is great pressure to increase spending on credit. Using credit cards and taking up loans generates a lot of data around a person's economic behaviour, while at the same restricting the scope of social activity and increasing dependence. On the global level, the consequences of credit spirals can be observed in many of the developing countries that have had to abandon most of their political autonomy. As the data body economy advances, this is also the fate of people in western societies when they are structurally driven into credit spending. It shows that data bodies are not politically neutral.
The interrelation between data, profit and unfreedom is frequently overlooked by citizens and customers. Any company in a modern economy will apply data collecting strategies for profit, with dependence and unfreedom as a "secondary effect". The hunger for data has made IT companies eager to profit from e-business rather resourceful. "Getting to know the customer" - this is a catchphrase that is heard frequently, and which suggests that there are no limits to what a company may want to about a customer. In large online shops, such as
But there are more advanced and effective ways of identification. The German company
Bu there are much less friendly ways of extracting data from a user and feeding the data body. Less friendly means: these methods monitor users in situations where the latter are likely not to want to be monitored. Monitoring therefore takes place in a concealed manner. One of these monitoring methods are so-called
Bugs monitoring users have also been packaged in seemingly harmless toys made available on the Internet. For example,
The cursor image technology relies on what is called a GUID (global unique identifier). This is an identification number which is assigned to a customer at the time of registration, or when downloading a product. Many among the online community were alarmed when in 1999 it was discovered that
However, in the meantime, another possible infringement on user anonymity by Microsoft was discovered, when it as found out that MS Office documents, such as Word, Excel or Powerpoint, contain a bug that is capable of tracking the documents as they are sent through the net. The bug sends information about the user who opens the document back to the originating server. A document that contains the bug can be tracked across the globe, through thousands of stopovers. In detailed description of the bug and how it works can be found at the
Of course there are many other ways of collecting users' data and creating appropriating data bodies which can then be used for economic purposes. Indeed, as Bill Gates commented, "information is the lifeblood of business". The electronic information networks are becoming the new frontier of capitalism.
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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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Atrocity stories are nothing else than lies; the two words "atrocity stories" simply pretend to be more diplomatic.
The purpose is to destroy an image of the enemy, to create a new one, mostly a bad one. The story creating the image is not necessarily made up completely. It can also be a changed into a certain variable direction.
The most important thing about atrocity stories is to follow the line of possibility. Even if the whole story is made up it must be probable or at least possible, following rumors. Most successful might it be if a rumor is spread on purpose, some time before the atrocity story is launched, because as soon as something seems to be familiar, it is easier to believe it.
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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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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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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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Newspapers and magazines frequently report growth rates of Internet usage, number of users, hosts, and domains that seem to be beyond all expectations. Growth rates are expected to accelerate exponentially. However, Internet measurement data are anything thant reliable and often quite fantastic constructs, that are nevertheless jumped upon by many media and decision makers because the technical difficulties in measuring Internet growth or usage are make reliable measurement techniques impossible.
Equally, predictions that the Internet is about to collapse lack any foundation whatsoever. The researchers at the
Size and Growth
In fact, "today's Internet industry lacks any ability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP (Internet service provider, M. S.), or prepare systematically for the growing expectations of its users. Historic or current data about traffic on the Internet infrastructure, maps depicting ... there is plenty of measurement occurring, albeit of questionable quality", says K. C. Claffy in his paper Internet measurement and data analysis: topology, workload, performance and routing statistics (http://www.caida.org/Papers/Nae/, Dec 6, 1999). Claffy is not an average researcher; he founded the well-known
So his statement is a slap in the face of all market researchers stating otherwise.
In a certain sense this is ridiculous, because since the inception of the
So what are the reasons for this inability to evaluate trends, identity performance problems beyond the boundary of a single ISP? First, in early 1995, almost simultaneously with the worldwide introduction of the
"There are many estimates of the size and growth rate of the Internet that are either implausible, or inconsistent, or even clearly wrong", K. G. Coffman and Andrew, both members of different departments of
What is measured and what methods are used? Many studies are devoted to the number of users; others look at the number of computers connected to the Internet or count
You get the clue of their focus when you bear in mind that the Internet is just one of many networks of networks; it is only a part of the universe of computer networks. Additionally, the Internet has public (unrestricted) and private (restricted) areas. Most studies consider only the public Internet, Coffman and Odlyzko consider the long-distance private line networks too: the corporate networks, the
Hosts
The
Despite the small sample, this method has at least one flaw:
Internet Weather
Like daily weather, traffic on the Internet, the conditions for data flows, are monitored too, hence called Internet weather. One of the most famous Internet
Hits, Page Views, Visits, and Users
Let us take a look at how these hot lists of most visited Web sites may be compiled. I say, may be, because the methods used for data retrieval are mostly not fully disclosed.
For some years it was seemingly common sense to report requested files from a Web site, so called "hits". A method not very useful, because a document can consist of several files: graphics, text, etc. Just compile a document from some text and some twenty flashy graphical files, put it on the Web and you get twenty-one hits per visit; the more graphics you add, the more hits and traffic (not automatically to your Web site) you generate.
In the meantime page views, also called page impressions are preferred, which are said to avoid these flaws. But even page views are not reliable. Users might share computers and corresponding
Especially the editors of some electronic journals (e-journals) rely on page views as a kind of ratings or circulation measure, Rick Marin reports in the
More advanced, but just slightly better at best, is counting visits, the access of several pages of a Web site during one session. The problems already mentioned apply here too. To avoid them, newspapers, e.g., establish registration services, which require password authentication and therefore prove to be a kind of access obstacle.
But there is a different reason for these services. For content providers users are virtual users, not unique persons, because, as already mentioned, computers and
For
If you like to play around with Internet statistics instead, you can use Robert Orenstein's
Measuring the Density of
Measuring the Density of
Dodge and Shiode used data on the ownership of IP addresses from
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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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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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Xerxes (~519-465 BC) was Persian King from 485-465 BC. He led his Army against the Greek but finally was defeated. He was the father of Alexander the Great.
Network information centers are organizations responsible for registering and maintaining the domain names on the
The Roman smoke signals network consisted of towers within 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
The U.S. Data Encryption Standard (= DES) is the most widely used encryption algorithm, especially used for protection of financial transactions. It was developed by IBM in 1971. It is a symmetric-key cryptosystem. The DES algorithm uses a 56-bit encryption key, meaning that there are 72,057,594,037,927,936 possible keys.
for more information see:
One of the largest and foremost communications and media conglomerates in the
world. Founded in 1971, the present form of the corporation dates from 1994 when Viacom Inc., which owned radio and television stations and cable television programming services and systems, acquired the entertainment and publishing giant Paramount Communications Inc. and then merged with the video and music retailer Blockbuster Entertainment Corp. Headquarters are in New York City.
Boris Yeltsin was Russian President until the end of 1999. After many years of work for the Communist Party, he joined the Politburo in 1986. His sharp critique on Mikhail Gorbachev forced that one to resign. Yeltsin won the 1990 election into Russian presidency and quit the Communist Party. Quarrels with the Parliament could not destroy his popularity until the secession war with Chechnya. When the Russian economy collapsed in 1998, he dismissed his entire government. In the end the sick old man of Russian politics had lost all his popularity as a president and resigned for the benefit of his political son Vladimir Putin.
A CPU is the principal part of any digital computer system, generally composed of the main memory, control unit, and arithmetic-logic unit. It constitutes the physical heart of the entire computer system; to it is linked various peripheral equipment, including input/output devices and auxiliary storage units...
On behalf of the
This book gives a fascinating glimpse of the many documented attempts throughout history to develop effective means for long distance communications. Large-scale communication networks are not a twentieth-century phenomenon. The oldest attempts date back to millennia before Christ and include ingenious uses of homing pigeons, mirrors, flags, torches, and beacons. The first true nationwide data networks, however, were being built almost two hundred years ago. At the turn of the 18th century, well before the electromagnetic telegraph was invented, many countries in Europe already had fully operational data communications systems with altogether close to one thousand network stations. The book shows how the so-called information revolution started in 1794, with the design and construction of the first true telegraph network in France, Chappe's fixed optical network.
http://www.it.kth.se/docs/early_net/
John W. Hill opened the doors of his first public relations office in 1927 in Cleveland, Ohio. His early clients were banks, steel manufacturers, and other industrial companies in the Midwest. Hill managed the firm until 1962, and remained active in it until shortly before his death in New York City in 1977. In 1952, Hill and Knowlton became the first American public relations consultancy to recognize the business communication implications engendered by formation of the European Economic Community. Hill and Knowlton established a network of affiliates across Europe and by the middle of the decade had become the first American public relations firm to have wholly-owned offices in Europe. Hill and Knowlton, a member of the WPP Group integrated communications services family, has extensive resources and geographic coverage with its 59 offices in 34 countries. Hill and Knowlton is known for its hard-hitting tactics and said to have connections with intelligence services.
b. July 13, 1527, London, England
d. December 1608, Mortlake, Surrey
English alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician who contributed greatly to the revival of interest in mathematics in England. After lecturing and studying on the European continent between 1547 and 1550, Dee returned to England in 1551 and was granted a pension by the government. He became astrologer to the queen, Mary Tudor, and shortly thereafter was imprisoned for being a magician but was released in 1555. Dee later toured Poland and Bohemia (1583-89), giving exhibitions of magic at the courts of various princes. He became warden of Manchester College in 1595.
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
Saddam Hussein joined the revolutionary Baath party when he was a university student. In 1958 he had the head of Iraq, Abdul-Karim Qassim, killed. Since 1979 he has been President of Iraq. Under his reign Iraq fought a decade-long war with Iran. Because of his steady enmity with extreme Islamic leaders the West supported him first of all, until his army invaded Kuwait in August 1990, an incident that the USA led to the Gulf War. Since then many rumors about a coup d'état have been launched, but Saddam Hussein is still in unrestricted power.
An operating system is software that controls the many different operations of a computer and directs and coordinates its processing of programs. It is a remarkably complex set of instructions that schedules the series of jobs (user applications) to be performed by the computer and allocates them to the computer's various hardware systems, such as the