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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Timeline BC ~ 1900 BC: Egyptian writers use non-standard Hieroglyphs in inscriptions of a royal tomb; supposedly this is not the first but the first documented example of written cryptography 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 "atbash", which is nothing else than a reverse alphabet and one of the first famous methods of enciphering 4th century Aeneas Tacticus invents a form of beacons, by introducing a sort of water-clock 487 the Spartans introduce the so called "skytale" for sending short secret messages to and from the battle field 170 Polybius develops a system to convert letters into numerical characters, an invention called the Polybius Chequerboard. 50-60 Julius Caesar develops an enciphering method, later called the Caesar Cipher, shifting each letter of the alphabet an amount which is fixed before. Like atbash this is a monoalphabetic substitution.

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Legal Protection: TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Another important multilateral treaty concerned with intellectual property rights is the TRIPS agreement, which was devised at the inauguration of the Uruguay Round negotiations of the WTO in January 1995. It sets minimum standards for the national protection of intellectual property rights and procedures as well as remedies for their enforcement (enforcement measures include the potential for trade sanctions against non-complying WTO members). The TRIPS agreement has been widely criticized for its stipulation that biological organisms be subject to intellectual property protection. In 1999, 44 nations considered it appropriate to treat plant varieties as intellectual property. The complete TRIPS agreement can be found on: http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/t_agm1_e.htm

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Timeline Cryptography - Introduction Besides oral conversations and written language many other ways of information-transport are known: like the bush telegraph, drums, smoke signals etc. Those methods are not cryptography, still they need en- and decoding, which means that the history of language, the history of communication and the history of cryptography are closely connected to each other The timeline gives an insight into the endless fight between enciphering and deciphering. The reasons for them can be found in public and private issues at the same time, though mostly connected to military maneuvers and/or political tasks. One of the most important researchers on Cryptography through the centuries is David Kahn; many parts of the following timeline are originating from his work.

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Global data bodies - intro - Education files, insurance files, tax files, communication files, consumption files, medical files, travel files, criminal files, investment files, files into infinity ... Critical Art Ensemble Global data bodies 1. Introduction Informatisation has meant that things that once were "real", i.e. whose existence could be experienced sensually, are becoming virtual. Instead of the real existence of a thing, the virtual refers to its possibility of existence. As this process advances, an increasing identification of the possible with the real occurs. Reality migrates into a dim and dematerialised grey area. In the end, the possible counts for the real, virtualisation creates an "as-if" experience. The experience of the body is also affected by this process. For example, in bio-technology, the human body and its functions are digitised, which prepares and understanding of the body exlusively in terms of its potential manipulation, the body becomes whatever it could be. But digitisation has not only affected the understanding and the social significance of the body, it has also altered the meaning of presence, traditionally identified with the body. The advance of information and communication technologies (ICTs) has meant that for an increasing number of activities we no longer need be physically present, our "virtual" presence, achieved by logging onto a electronic information network, is sufficient. This development, trumpeted as the pinnacle of convenience by the ICT industries and governments interested in attracting investment, has deeply problematic aspects as well. For example, when it is no longer "necessary" to be physically present, it may soon no longer be possible or allowed. Online-banking, offered to customers as a convenience, is also serves as a justification for charging higher fees from those unwilling or unable to add banking to their household chores. Online public administration may be expected to lead to similar effects. The reason for this is that the digitalisation of the economy relies on the production of surplus data. Data has become the most important raw material of modern economies. In modern economies, informatisation and virtualisation mean that people are structurally forced to carry out their business and life their lives in such a way as to generate data. Data are the most important resource for the New Economy. By contrast, activities which do not leave behind a trace of data, as for example growing your own carrots or paying cash rather than by plastic card, are discouraged and structurally suppressed.

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Individualized Audience Targeting 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 Amazon.Com have already started to exploit individualized audience targeting for their purposes.

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History: "Indigenous Tradition" In preliterate societies the association of rhythmic or repetitively patterned utterances with supernatural knowledge endures well into historic times. Knowledge is passed from one generation to another. Similar as in the Southern tradition intellectual property rights are rooted in a concept of 'collective' or 'communal' intellectual property existing in perpetuity and not limited to the life of an individual creator plus some number of years after his or her death. Often rights are exercised by only one individual in each generation, often through matrilineal descent.

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Black Propaganda Black propaganda does not tell its source. The recipient cannot find out the correct source. Rather would it be possible to get a wrong idea about the sender. It is very helpful for separating two allies.

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Internet Society Founded in 1992, the Internet Society is an umbrella organization of several mostly self-organized organizations dedicated to address the social, political, and technical issues, which arise as a result of the evolution and the growth of the Net. Its most important subsidiary organizations are the Internet Architecture Board, the Internet Engineering Steering Group, the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Research Task Force, and the Internet Societal Task Force. Its members comprise companies, government agencies, foundations, corporations and individuals. The Internet Society is governed by elected trustees. http://www.isoc.org http://www.isoc.org/

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Cutting The cutting of pictures in movies or photographs is highly manipulative: it is easy to produce a new video out of an already existing one. The result is a form of manipulation that is difficult to contradict. A reputation destroyed by this, is nearly impossible to heal.

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Whitfield Diffie Whitfield Diffie is an Engineer at Sun Microsystems and co-author of Privacy on the Line (MIT Press) in 1998 with Susan Landau. In 1976 Diffie and Martin Hellman developed public key cryptography, a system to send information without leaving it open to be read by everyone.

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John Dee 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.

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Enochian alphabet Also "Angelic" language. Archaic language alphabet composed of 21 letters, discovered by John Dee and his partner Edward Kelley. It has its own grammar and syntax, but only a small sample of it has ever been translated to English.

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Braille 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.

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