Today the talk about the so-called "information society" is ubiquitous. By many it is considered as the successor of the industrial society and said to represent a new form of societal and economical organization. This claim is based on the argument, that the information society uses a new kind of resource, which fundamentally differentiates from that of its industrial counterpart. Whereas industrial societies focus on physical objects, the information society's raw material is said to be knowledge and information. Yet the conception of the capitalist system, which underlies industrial societies, also continues to exist in an information-based environment. Although there have been changes in the forms of manufacture, the relations of production remain organized on the same basis. The principle of property.
In the context of a capitalist system based on industrial production the term property predominantly relates to material goods. Still even as in an information society the raw materials, resources and products change, the concept of property persists. It merely is extended and does no longer solely consider physical objects as property, but also attempts to put information into a set of property relations. This new kind of knowledge-based property is widely referred to as "
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Another important multilateral treaty concerned with
The complete TRIPS agreement can be found on:
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Profiling and Data Mining
At their most basic
Fair Use
Through the widespread use of copyright management and control systems the balance of control could excessively be shifted in favor of the owners of
Provisions concerning technological protection measures and fair use are stated in the
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The
Yet copyright laws also provide that the rights of copyright owners are subject to the doctrine of "
- the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes (usually certain types of educational copying are allowed)
- the nature of the copyrighted work (mostly originals made for commercial reasons are less protected than their purely artistic counterparts)
- the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
- the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (as a general rule copying may be permitted if it is unlikely to cause economic harm to the original author)
Examples of activities that may be excused as fair use include: providing a quotation in a book review; distributing copies of a section of an article in class for educational purposes; and imitating a work for the purpose of parody or social commentary.
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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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Generally copyright vests in the author of the work. Certain national laws provide for exceptions and, for example, regard the employer as the original owner of a copyright if the author was, when the work was created, an employee and employed for the purpose of creating that work. In the case of some types of creations, particularly audiovisual works, several national laws provide for different solutions to the question that should be the first holder of copyright in such works.
Many countries allow copyright to be assigned, which means that the owner of the copyright transfers it to another person or entity, which then becomes its holder. When the national law does not permit assignment it usually provides the possibility to license the work to someone else. Then the owner of the copyright remains the holder, but authorizes another person or entity to exercise all or some of his rights subject to possible limitations. Yet in any case the "
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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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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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ISPs (Internet Service Providers) (and to a certain extent also telecom operators) are involved in the copyright debate primarily because of their role in the transmission and storage of digital information. Problems arise particularly concerning
Caching
Caching it is argued could cause damage because the copies in the cache are not necessarily the most current ones and the delivery of outdated information to users could deprive website operators of accurate "hit" information (information about the number of requests for a particular material on a website) from which advertising revenue is frequently calculated. Similarly harms such as defamation or infringement that existed on the original page may propagate for years until flushed from each cache where they have been replicated.
Although different concepts, similar issues to caching arise with mirroring (establishing an identical copy of a website on a different server), archiving (providing a historical repository for information, such as with newsgroups and mailing lists), and full-text indexing (the copying of a document for loading into a full-text or nearly full-text database which is searchable for keywords or concepts).
Under a literal reading of some copyright laws caching constitutes an infringement of copyright. Yet recent legislation like the
Information Residing on Systems or Networks at the Direction of Users
ISPs may be confronted with problems if infringing material on websites (of users) is hosted on their systems. Although some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for limitations on the liability of ISPs if certain conditions are met, it is yet unclear if ISPs should generally be accountable for the storage of infringing material (even if they do not have actual knowledge) or exceptions be established under specific circumstances.
Transitory Communication
In the course of transmitting digital information from one point on a network to another ISPs act as a data conduit. If a user requests information ISPs engage in the transmission, providing of a connection, or routing thereof. In the case of a person sending infringing material over a network, and the ISP merely providing facilities for the transmission it is widely held that they should not be liable for infringement. Yet some copyright laws like the DMCA provide for a limitation (which also covers the intermediate and transient copies that are made automatically in the operation of a network) of liability only if the ISPs activities meet certain conditions.
For more information on copyright (
Harrington, Mark E.: On-line Copyright Infringement Liability for Internet Service Providers: Context, Cases & Recently Enacted Legislation. In:
Teran, G.:
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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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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 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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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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During the last 20 years the old
"Digital divide" describes the fact that the world can be divided into people who
do and people who do not have access to (or the education to handle with) modern information technologies, e.g. cellular telephone, television, Internet. This digital divide is concerning people all over the world, but as usually most of all people in the formerly so called third world countries and in rural areas suffer; the poor and less-educated suffer from that divide.
More than 80% of all computers with access to the Internet are situated in larger cities.
"The cost of the information today consists not so much of the creation of content, which should be the real value, but of the storage and efficient delivery of information, that is in essence the cost of paper, printing, transporting, warehousing and other physical distribution means, plus the cost of the personnel manpower needed to run these `extra' services ....Realizing an autonomous distributed networked society, which is the real essence of the Internet, will be the most critical issue for the success of the information and communication revolution of the coming century of millennium."
(Izumi Aizi)
for more information see:
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900 B.C.
A postal service is used for governmental purposes in China.
500 B.C.
In ancient Greece trumpets, drums, shouting, beacon, fires, smoke signals, and mirrors are used for message transmission.
4th century B.C.
Aeneas Tacitus, a Greek military scientist and cryptographer, invented an optical communication system that combines water and beacon telegraphy. Torches indicated the beginnings and the ends of a message transmission while water jars were used to transmit the messages. These jars had a plugged standard-size hole drilled on the bottom side and were filled with water. As those who sent and those who received the message unplugged the jars simultaneously, the water drained out. Because the transmitted messages corresponded to water levels, the sender indicated by a torch signal that the appropriate water level had been reached. The methods disadvantage was that the possible messages were restricted to a given code, but as the system was mainly used for military purposes, this was offset by the advantage that it was almost impossible for outsiders to understand the messages unless they possessed the codebook.
With communication separated from transportation, the distant became near. Tacitus' telegraph system was very fast and not excelled until
For further information see Joanne Chang & Anna Soellner, Decoding Device,
3rd century B.C.
Wax tablets are used as writing material in Mesopotamia, ancient Greece, and Etruria.
2nd century B.C.
In China paper is invented.
1st century B.C.
The use of codices instead of scrolls - basically the hardcover book as we know it today - is an essential event in European history. To quote accurately by page number, to browse through pages and to skip chapters - things that were impossible when reading scrolls - becomes possible.
In the computer age we are witnesses to a kind of revival of the scrolls as we scroll up and down a document. The introduction of hypertext possibly marks the beginning of a similar change as has taken place with the substitution of scrolls with codices.
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Until recent years, the problem of piracy (the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of copyrighted works (for commercial purposes)) was largely confined to the copying and physical distribution of tapes, disks and CDs. Yet the emergence and increased use of global data networks and the WWW has added a new dimension to the piracy of
This new development, often referred to as Internet piracy, broadly relates to the use of global data networks to 1) transmit and download digitized copies of pirated works, 2) advertise and market pirated intellectual property that is delivered on physical media through the mails or other traditional means, and 3) offer and transmit codes or other technologies which can be used to circumvent
Lately the
Table: IIPA 1998 - 1999 Estimated Trade Loss due to Copyright Piracy (in millions of US$)
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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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The glamour of the data body economy clouds economic practices which are much less than glamorous. Through the seizure of the data body, practices that in the real political arena were common in the feudal age and in the early industrial age are being reconstructed. The data body economy digitally reconstructs exploitative practices such as slavery and wage labour. However, culturally the data body is still a very new phenomenon: mostly, people think if it does not hurt, it cannot be my body. Exploitation of data bodies is painless and fast. Nevertheless, this can be expected to change once the awareness of the political nature of the data body becomes more widespread. As more and more people routinely move in digitised environments, it is to be expected that more critical questions will be asked and claims to autonomy, at present restricted to some artistic and civil society groups trying to get heard amidst the deafening noise of the commercial ICT propaganda, will be articulated on a more general level.
The more problematic aspect of this development may be something else: the practices of the data body economy, themselves a reconstruction of old techniques of seizure, have begun to re-colonise real political space. Simon Davis, Director of the London-based privacy campaigners
The constant adaptation process required from the modern individual has anonymised and structuralized punishment, which now appears in the guise of error messages and the privatisation of risk.
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The Net connections can be based on wire-line and wireless access technolgies.
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Usually several kinds of network connections are employed at once. Generally speaking, when an E-mail message is sent it travels from the user's computer via copper wires or coaxial cables
Satellite communication
Although facing competition from fiber-optic cables as cost-effective solutions for broadband data transmission services, the space industry is gaining increasing importance in global communications. As computing, telephony, and audiovisual technologies converge, new wireless technologies are rapidly deployed occupying an increasing market share and accelerating the construction of high-speed networks.
Privatization of satellite communication
Until recently transnational satellite communication was provided exclusively by intergovernmental organizations as
Scheduled privatization of intergovernmental satellite consortia:
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When Intelsat began to accumulate losses because of management failures and the increasing market share of fiber-optic cables, this organizational scheme came under attack. Lead by the USA, the Western industrialized countries successfully pressed for the privatization of all satellite consortia they are members of and for competition by private carriers.
As of February 2000, there are 2680 satellites in service. Within the next four years a few hundred will be added by the new private satellite systems. Most of these systems will be so-called Low Earth Orbit satellite systems, which are capable of providing global mobile data services on a high-speed level at low cost.
Because of such technological improvements and increasing competition, experts expect satellite-based broadband communication to be as common, cheap, and ubiquitous as satellite TV today within the next five or ten years.
Major satellite communication projects
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Source: Analysys Satellite Communications Database
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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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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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In the phrase "the rise of the citizen as a consumer", to be found on the
When the citizen becomes a consumer, the state must become a business. In the data body business, the key word behind this new identity of government is "outsourcing". Functions, that are not considered core functions of government activity are put into the hands of private contractors.
There have long been instances where privately owned data companies, e.g. credit card companies, are allowed access to public records, e.g. public registries or electoral rolls. For example, in a normal credit card transaction, credit card companies have had access to public records in order to verify identity of a customer. For example, in the UK citizen's personal data stored on the Electoral Roll have been used for commercial purposes for a long time. The new British Data Protection Act now allows people to "opt out" of this kind of commercialisation - a legislation that has prompted protests on the part of the data industry:
While this may serve as an example of an increased public awareness of privacy issues, the trend towards outsourcing seems to lead to a complete breakdown of the barriers between commercial and public use of personal data. This trend can be summarised by the term "outsourcing" of government functions.
Governments increasingly outsource work that is not considered core function of government, e.g. cooking meals in hospitals or mowing lawns in public parks. Such peripheral activities marked a first step of outsourcing. In a further step, governmental functions were divided between executive and judgemental functions, and executive functions increasingly entrusted to private agencies. For these agencies to be able to carry out the work assigned to them, the need data. Data that one was stored in public places, and whose handling was therefore subject to democratic accountability. Outsourcing has produced gains in efficiency, and a decrease of accountability. Outsourced data are less secure, what use they are put to is difficult to control.
The world's largest data corporation,
Technically the linking of different systems is already possible. It would also create more efficiency, which means generate more income. The question, then, whether democracy concerns will prevent it from happening is one that is capable of creating
But what the EDS example shows is something that applies everywhere, and that is that the data industry is whether by intention or whether by default, a project with profound political implications. The current that drives the global economy deeper and deeper into becoming a global data body economy may be too strong to be stopped by conventional means.
However, the convergence of political and economic data bodies also has technological roots. The problem is that politically motivated surveillance and economically motivated data collection are located in the same area of information and communication technologies. For example, monitoring internet use requires more or less the same technical equipment whether done for political or economic purposes. Data mining and data warehousing techniques are almost the same. Creating transparency of citizens and customers is therefore a common objective of intelligence services and the data body industry. Given that data are exchanged in electronic networks, a compatibility among the various systems is essential. This is another factor that encourages "leaks" between state-run intelligence networks and the private data body business. And finally, given the secretive nature of state intelligence and commercial data capturing , there is little transparency. Both structures occupy an opaque zone.
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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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Industrial
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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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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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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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On the Internet, when you want to retrieve a document from another computer, you request a service from this computer. Your computer is the client, the computer on which the information you want to access is stored, is called the
A common set of standards allows the exchange of data and commands independent from locations, time, and operating systems through the Internet. These standards are called communication protocols, or the Internet Protocol Suite, and are implemented in Internet software. Sometimes the Internet Protocol Suite is erroneously identified with
Any information to be transferred is broken down into pieces, so-called packets, and the Internet Protocol figures out how the data is supposed to get from A to B by passing through routers.
Each packet is "pushed" from router to router via
The technique of breaking down all messages and requests into packets has the advantage that a large data bundle (e.g. videos) sent by a single user cannot block a whole network, because the
One of the Internet's (and of the Matrix's) beginnings was the
Routing around depends on the location of the interruption and on the availability of intersecting points between networks. If, for example, an E-mail message is sent from Brussels to Athens and in Germany a channel is down, it will not affect access very much, the message will be routed around this damage, as long as a major Internet exchange is not affected. However, if access depends on a single backbone connection to the Internet and this connection is cut off, there is no way to route around.
In most parts of the world the Internet is therefore vulnerable to disruption. "The idea of the Internet as a highly distributed, redundant global communications system is a myth. Virtually all communications between countries take place through a very small number of bottlenecks, and the available bandwidth isn't that great," says Douglas Barnes. These bottlenecks are the network connections to neighboring countries. Many countries rely on a one single connection to the Net, and in some places, such as the Suez Canal, there is a concentration of fiber-optic cables of critical importance.
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Mormon Church v. Sandra and Jerald Tanner
In a ruling of December 1999, a federal judge in Utah temporarily barred two critics of the Mormon Church from posting on their website the Internet addresses of other sites featuring pirated copies of a Mormon text. The Judge said that it was likely that Sandra and Jerald Tanner had engaged in contributory copyright infringement when they posted the addresses of three Web sites that they knew, or should have known, contained the copies.
Kaplan, Carl S.:
Universal Studios v. Movie-List
The website Movie-List, which features links to online, externally hosted movie trailers has been asked to completely refrain from linking to any of Universal Studio's servers containing the trailers as this would infringe copyright.
Cisneros, Oscar S.: Universal: Don't Link to Us. In:
More cases concerned with the issue of linking,
Ross, Alexandra: Copyright Law and the Internet:
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Among the foremost of the data bunkers government bureaucracies. Bureaucracies are the oldest forms of bunkers and are today deeply engrained in modern societies. Bureaucracies have always had the function of collecting and administering the data of subjects. What make this process more problematic in the age of ICT is that a lot more data can be collected, they can be collected in clandestine ways (e.g. in surveillance situations), and the can be combined and merged using advanced data mining technologies. In addition, there is a greater rationale for official data collecting, as a lot more data is required for the functioning of public administration as in previous periods, as societies rush to adopt increasingly complex technologies, above all ICTs. The increasing complexity of modern societies means that an increasing number of bureaucratic decision is taken, all of which require a calculation process. Complexity, viewed through government spectacles, generates insecurity - a great deal of the bureaucratic activity therefore revolves around the topic of security.
In spite of the anti-bureaucratic rhetoric of most governments, these factors provides the bureaucracies with an increased hold on society. Foremost bureaucratic data bunkers include the following:
- Law enforcement agencies
Fiscal agencies
Intelligence agencies
Social welfare agencies
Social insurance institutions
Public health agencies
Educational institutions
These are agencies that enjoy the privileged protection of the state. Those among them that operate in the field of security are further protected against public scrutiny, as they operate in an area to which democratic reason has no access.
What makes the data repositories of these institutions different from private data bunkers is their "official", i.e. their politically binding and definitive character.
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Biometric technologies are not surveillance technologies in themselves, but as identification technologies they provide an input into surveillance which can make such as face recognition are combined with camera systems and criminal data banks in order to supervise public places and single out individuals.
Another example is the use of biometrics technologies is in the supervision of probationers, who in this way can carry their special hybrid status between imprisonment and freedom with them, so that they can be tracked down easily.
Unlike biometric applications in access control, where one is aware of the biometric data extraction process, what makes biometrics used in surveillance a particularly critical issue is the fact that biometric samples are extracted routinely, unnoticed by the individuals concerned.
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AT&T Corporation provides voice, data and video communications services to large and small businesses, consumers and government entities. AT&T and its subsidiaries furnish domestic and international long distance, regional, local and wireless communications services, cable television and Internet communications services. AT&T also provides billing, directory and calling card services to support its communications business. AT&T's primary lines of business are business services, consumer services, broadband services and wireless services. In addition, AT&T's other lines of business include network management and professional services through AT&T Solutions and international operations and ventures. In June 2000, AT&T completed the acquisition of MediaOne Group. With the addition of MediaOne's 5 million cable subscribers, AT&T becomes the country's largest cable operator, with about 16 million customers on the systems it owns and operates, which pass nearly 28 million American homes. (source: Yahoo)
Slogan: "It's all within your reach"
Business indicators:
Sales 1999: $ 62.391 bn (+ 17,2 % from 1998)
Market capitalization: $ 104 bn
Employees: 107,800
Corporate website:
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.
also called "the study of code". It includes both, cryptography and cryptoanalysis
b. April 14, 1907, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
d. April 21, 1971, Port-au-Prince
By name PAPA DOC, president of Haiti whose 14-year regime was of unprecedented duration in that country. A supporter of President Dumarsais Estimé, Duvalier was appointed director general of the National Public Health Service in 1946. He was appointed underminister of labour in 1948 and the following year became minister of public health and labour, a post that he retained until May 10, 1950, when President Estimé was overthrown by a military junta under Paul E. Magloire, who was subsequently elected president. By 1954 he had become the central opposition figure and went underground. Duvalier was elected president in September 1957. Setting about to consolidate his power, he reduced the size of the army and organized the Tontons Macoutes ("Bogeymen"), a private force responsible for terrorizing and assassinating alleged foes of the regime. Late in 1963 Duvalier moved further toward an absolutist regime, promoting a cult of his person as the semi divine embodiment of the Haitian nation. In April 1964 he was declared president for life. Although diplomatically almost completely isolated, excommunicated by the Vatican until 1966 for harassing the clergy, and threatened by conspiracies against him, Duvalier was able to stay in power longer than any of his predecessors.
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:
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
Proprietary networks are computer networks with standards different to the ones proposed by the
Gaius Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) was a Roman Statesman who came to power through a military career and by buying of votes. His army won the civil war, run over Spain, Sicily and Egypt, where he made Cleopatra a Queen. For reaching even more power he increased the number of senators. But he also organized social measures to improve the people's food-situation. In February 44 BC he did not accept the kingship offered by Marc Anthony, which made him even more popular. One month later he was murdered during a senate sitting.
The News Corporation Ltd., a global media holding company, which governed News Limited (Australia), News International (U.K.), and News America Holdings Inc. (U.S.) was founded by the Australian-born newspaper publisher and media entrepreneur, Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch's corporate interests center on newspaper, magazine, book, and electronic publishing; television broadcasting; and film and video production, principally in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Oscar Flingal O'Flahertie Wills (1854-1900) is one of the best and most famous poets and novelists of England of his time. His satirical and amusing texts exposed the false moral of the Bourgeoisie publicly. Besides, his life as a dandy made him the leader of aesthetics in England, until he was sent to prison because of homosexuality. Afterwards he lived in Paris where he died lonely and nearly forgotten in a hotel in 1900. His poems, fairy tales, novels and dramas survived.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (~4 BC - 65 AD), originally coming from Spain, was a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator and playwright with a lot of influence on the Roman cultural life of his days. Involved into politics, his pupil
Being the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, Cisco Systems is one of the most prominent companies of the Internet industry.
http://www.cisco.com
Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD) was adopted by
The Clipper Chip is a cryptographic device proposed by the U.S. government that purportedly intended to protect private communications while at the same time permitting government agents to obtain the "keys" upon presentation of what has been vaguely characterized as "legal authorization." The "keys" are held by two government "escrow agents" and would enable the government to access the encrypted private communication. While Clipper would be used to encrypt voice transmissions, a similar chip known as Capstone
would be used to encrypt data. The underlying cryptographic algorithm, known as Skipjack, was developed by the National Security Agency (NSA).
The RIPE Network Coordination Centre (RIPE NCC) is one of three Regional Internet
Registries (RIR), which exist in the world today, providing allocation and registration services which support the operation of the Internet globally, mainly the allocation of
http://www.ripe.net
Microwave transmission systems based on terrestrial antennas are similar to satellite transmission system. Providing reliable high-speed access, they are used for cellular phone networks.
The implementation of the
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.
Newsgroups are on-line discussion groups on the Usenet. Over 20,000 newsgroups exist, organized by subject into hierarchies. Each subject hierarchy is further broken down into subcategories. Covering an incredible wide area of interests and used intensively every day, they are an important part of the Internet.
For more information, click here (
Telnet allows you to login remotely on a computer connected to the Internet.
On behalf of the
Friedman is considered the father of U.S.-American cryptoanalysis - he also was the one to start using this term.
CIA's mission is to support the President, the National Security Council, and all officials who make and execute U.S. national security policy by: Providing accurate, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligence on national security topics; Conducting counterintelligence activities, special activities, and other functions related to foreign intelligence and national security, as directed by the President. To accomplish its mission, the CIA engages in research, development, and deployment of high-leverage technology for intelligence purposes. As a separate agency, CIA serves as an independent source of analysis on topics of concern and works closely with the other organizations in the Intelligence Community to ensure that the intelligence consumer--whether Washington policymaker or battlefield commander--receives the adaequate intelligence information.
http://www.cia.gov
NLANR, initially a collaboration among supercomputer sites supported by the
Today NLANR offers support and services to institutions that are qualified to use high performance network service providers - such as Internet 2 and
http://www.nlanr.net
The Ku Klux Klan has a long history of violence. It emerged out of the resentment and hatred many white Southerners. Black Americans are not considered human beings. While the menace of the KKK has peaked and waned over the years, it has never vanished.
Born 1891 in Vienna, Bernays was one of the founders of modern public relations. An enigmatic character, he was a master of mise en scène with far-reaching contacts in the world of business and politics. The nephew of Sigmund Freund and related with Heinrich Heine, he was also among the first to pursue PR for governments and to produce pseudo-events. Bernays considered the manipulation of public opinion as an important element of mass democracies and was of the opinion that only through PR a society's order can be kept.
The firm began in Germany in 1835, when Carl Bertelsmann founded a religious print shop and publishing establishment in the Westphalian town of Gütersloh. The house remained family-owned and grew steadily for the next century, gradually adding literature, popular fiction, and theology to its title list. Bertelsmann was shut down by the Nazis in 1943, and its physical plant was virtually destroyed by Allied bombing in 1945. The quick growth of the Bertelsmann empire after World War II was fueled by the establishment of global networks of book clubs (from 1950) and music circles (1958). By 1998 Bertelsmann AG comprised more than 300 companies concentrated on various aspects of media. During fiscal year 1997-98, Bertelsmann earned more than US$15 billion in revenue and employed 58.000 people, of whom 24.000 worked in Germany.
Napoleon I. (1769-1821) was French King from 1804-1815.
He is regarded as the master of propaganda and disinformation of his time. Not only did he play his game with his own people but also with all European nations. And it worked as long as he managed to keep up his propaganda and the image of the winner.
Part of his already nearly commercial ads was that his name's "N" was painted everywhere.
Napoleon understood the fact that people believe what they want to believe - and he gave them images and stories to believe. He was extraordinary good in black propaganda.
Censorship was an element of his politics, accompanied by a tremendous amount of positive images about himself.
But his enemies - like the British - used him as a negative image, the reincarnation of the evil (a strategy still very popular in the Gulf-War and the Kosovo-War) (see
The WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) is a specification for a set of communication protocols to standardize the way that wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radio transceivers, can be used for Internet access, including
While Internet access has been possible in the past, different manufacturers have used different technologies. In the future, devices and service systems that use WAP will be able to interoperate.
Source: Whatis.com
The ongoing World Wide Web History Project was established to record and publish the history of the World Wide Web and its roots in hypermedia and networking. As primary research methods are used archival research and the analysis of interviews and talks with pioneers of the
http://www.webhistory.org/home.html
The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell, as is widely held to be true, but by Philipp Reiss, a German teacher. When he demonstrated his invention to important German professors in 1861, it was not enthusiastically greeted. Because of this dismissal, no financial support for further development was provided to him.
And here Bell comes in: In 1876 he successfully filed a patent for the telephone. Soon afterwards he established the first telephone company.
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.
Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) is a standard reference model for communication between two end users in a network. It is used in developing products and understanding networks.
Source: Whatis.com
Leni Riefenstahl (* 1902) began her career as a dancer and actress. Parallel she learnt how to work with a camera, turning out to be one of the most talented directors and cutters of her time - and one of the only female ones.
A transistor is a solid-state device for amplifying, controlling, and generating electrical signals. Transistors are used in a wide array of electronic equipment, ranging from pocket
Vladimir Putin is Russian President,
Electronic messages are transmitted and received by computers through a network. By E-Mail texts, images, sounds and videos can be sent to single users or simultaneously to a group of users. Now texts can be sent and read without having them printed.
E-Mail is one of the most popular and important services on the Internet.
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/
American science fiction author. Most famous novel: Neuromancer.
For resources as writings and interviews available on the Internet see http://www.lib.loyno.edu/bibl/wgibson.htm