Global hubs of the data body industry While most data bunkers are restricted to particular areas or contexts, there are others which act as global data nodes. Companies such as
The size of these data repositories is constantly growing, so it is only a matter of time when everybody living in the technologically saturated part of the world will be registered in one of these data bunkers. Among these companies, For many years, EDS has been surrounded by rumours concerning sinister involvement with intelligence agencies. Beyond the rumours, though, there are also facts. EDS has a special division for | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
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 | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Virtual body and data body The result of this informatisation is the creation of a virtual body which is the exterior of a man or woman's social existence. It plays the same role that the physical body, except located in virtual space (it has no real location). The virtual body holds a certain emancipatory potential. It allows us to go to places and to do things which in the physical world would be impossible. It does not have the weight of the physical body, and is less conditioned by physical laws. It therefore allows one to create an identity of one's own, with much less restrictions than would apply in the physical world. But this new freedom has a price. In the shadow of virtualisation, the data body has emerged. The data body is a virtual body which is composed of the files connected to an individual. As the The virtual character of the data body means that social regulation that applies to the real body is absent. While there are limits to the manipulation and exploitation of the real body (even if these limits are not respected everywhere), there is little regulation concerning the manipulation and exploitation of the data body, although the manipulation of the data body is much easier to perform than that of the real body. The seizure of the data body from outside the concerned individual is often undetected as it has become part of the basic structure of an informatised society. But data bodies serve as raw material for the "New Economy". Both business and governments claim access to data bodies. Power can be exercised, and democratic decision-taking procedures bypassed by seizing data bodies. This totalitarian potential of the data body makes the data body a deeply problematic phenomenon that calls for an understanding of data as social construction rather than as something representative of an objective reality. How data bodies are generated, what happens to them and who has control over them is therefore a highly relevant political question. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Legal Protection: National Legislation | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Another Question of Security Even with the best techniques it is impossible to invent a cryptographic system that is absolutely safe/unbreakable. To decipher a text means to go through many, sometimes nearly - but never really - endless attempts. For the computers of today it might take hundreds of years or even more to go through all possibilities of codes, but still, finally the code stays breakable. The much faster quantum computers will proof that one day. Therefore the decision to elect a certain method of enciphering finally is a matter of trust. For the average user of computers it is rather difficult to understand or even realize the dangers and/or the technological background of electronic transmission of data. For the majority thinking about one's own necessities for encryption first of all means to trust others, the specialists, to rely on the information they provide. The websites explaining the problems behind (and also the articles and books concerning the topic) are written by experts of course as well, very often in their typical scientific language, merely understandable for laymen. The introductions and other superficial elements of those articles can be understood, whereas the real background appears as untouchable spheres of knowledge. The fact that dangers are hard to see through and the need for security measures appears as something most people know from media reports, leads directly to the problem of an underdeveloped democracy in the field of cryptography. Obviously the connection between cryptography and democracy is rather invisible for many people. Those mentioned media reports often specialize in talking about the work computer hackers do (sometimes being presented as criminals, sometimes as heroes) and the danger to lose control over the money drawn away from one's bank account, if someone steals the credit card number or other important financial data. The term "security", surely connected to those issues, is a completely different one from the one that is connected to privacy. It is especially the latter that touches the main elements of democracy. for the question of security see: | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Binary number system In mathematics, the term binary number system refers to a positional numeral system employing 2 as the base and requiring only two different symbols, 0 and 1. The importance of the binary system to information theory and computer technology derives mainly from the compact and reliable manner in which data can be represented in electromechanical devices with two states--such as "on-off," "open-closed," or "go-no go." | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Nero Nero's full name was Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (37-68 AD). Nero was Roman Emperor from 54-68 AD; during the first years in power he stood under the influence of his teacher | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Sergei Eisenstein Though Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) made only seven films in his entire career, he was the USSR's most important movie-conductor in the 1920s and 1930s. His typical style, putting mountains of metaphors and symbols into his films, is called the "intellectual montage" and was not always understood or even liked by the audience. Still, he succeeded in mixing ideological and abstract ideas with real stories. His most famous work was The Battleship Potemkin (1923). | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Augustus Gaius Julius Caesar Octavian Augustus (63 BC - 14 AD) was adopted by | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
1896 1896 The Daily Mail was published in Great Britain. It was the first newspaper for the masses. With the emerging of newspapers the manner how politics was perceived by the public changed completely. It became more difficult to keep secrets, while at the same time there was suddenly a new and nearly perfect tool for manipulation. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||