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Credibility The magic word is credibility. Disinformation can mean leaving out important informations. Telling lies is not the only method of disinformation. The not telling also creates thoughts and delegates them into certain directions, whereas other models of thinking are left out. Like this, the deaths on the own side are adjusted downwards whereas the victims of the enemy are counted proudly - as long as they are not civilians. The post-Gulf War period demonstrated how the population reacts if the number of innocent victims is much higher than expected. It was the fact of those numbers that provoked the biggest part of the post-war critique. The media in democratic states tend to criticize this, which does not mean that they always want to be free of governmental influence. They can choose to help the government in a single case by not writing anything against it or by writing pro-government stories. At the same time every democracy has undemocratic parts in it - which is already part of democracy itself. There are situations when a democratic government may find it essential to put pressure on the media to inform the population in a certain way; and also censorship is nothing that can only be connected to dictatorship; just think of the Falkland War, the Gulf-War or the Kosovo-War. |
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Iris recognition Iris recognition relies upon the fact that every individuals retina has a unique structure. The iris landscape is composed of a corona, crypts, filaments, freckles, pits radial furrows and striatations. Iris scanning is considered a particularly accurate identification technology because the characteristics of the iris do not change during a persons lifetime, and because there are several hundred variables in an iris which can be measured. In addition, iris scanning is fast: it does not take longer than one or two seconds. These are characteristics which have made iris scanning an attractive technology for high-security applications such as prison surveillance. Iris technology is also used for online identification where it can substitute identification by password. As in other biometric technologies, the use of iris scanning for the protection of privacy is a two-edged sword. The prevention of identity theft applies horizontally but not vertically, i.e. in so far as the data retrieval that accompanies identification and the data body which is created in the process has nothing to do with identity theft. |
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Internet Relay Chat (IRC) 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, |
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Martin Hellman Martin Hellman was |
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