So what does cryptography mean? cryptography: It is the study of encryption, the art/science to create and use codes and/or ciphers with the purpose of enciphering as well as deciphering. After a relatively vivid but slow development of cryptography for nearly 4.000 years the inventions of the telegraph, radio and computer had a high impact on the velocity of further inventions concerning encryption. Most of the time economic, political or military reasons lie behind the necessity of encryption. As visible from the timetable cryptography it is also done for private and individual interests. An extraordinary example for this is the Braille Code, developed as a possibility for blind people to read and write. A lot of very interesting and intelligent websites about cryptography can be found in the Internet.Some websites offering links to various cryptography-websites are: http://www.ciia.org/links.htm http://www.isse.gmu.edu/~njohnson/Security/stegres.htm http://www.hack.gr/users/dij/crypto/links.html http://www.achiever.com/freehmpg/cryptology/lessons.html http://www.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/security/links.html http://world.std.com/~franl/crypto/ http://home.tu-clausthal.de/~inas/Links.html http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~rivest/crypto-security.html http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/xref/0,5716,5453,00.html http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rak/web_sites.html Further there exists a wide range of web-magazines/newsletters/mailing lists on cryptography, e.g.: Crypto-Gram Newsletter: http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html Journal of Computer Security: http://www.gocsi.com/m_form.htm Cypherpunks: http://www.inet-one.com/cypherpunks/ Stegano-L: http://www.thur.de/ulf/stegano/sub.html ZD Internet Magazine: http://www.zdnet.com/

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Commercial vs. Independent Content: Human and Financial Resources - Concerning their human and financial resources commercial media and independent content provider are an extremely unequal pair. While the 1998 revenues of the world's leading media conglomerates (AOL Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom and the News Corporation) amounted to US$ 91,144,000,000 provider of independent content usually act on a non-profit basis and to a considerable extent depend on donations and contributions. Also the human resources they have at their disposal quite differ. Viacom for example employs 112,000 people. Alternative media conversely are mostly run by a small group of activists, most of them volunteers. Moreover the majority of the commercial media giants has a multitude of subsidiaries (Bertelsmann for instance has operations in 53 countries), while independent content provider in some cases do not even have proper office spaces. Asked about their offices number of square meters Frank Guerrero from RTMark comments "We have no square meters at all, because we are only on the web. I guess if you add up all of our servers and computers we would take up about one or two square meters."

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Convergence

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Invention According to the WIPO an invention is a "... novel idea which permits in practice the solution of a specific problem in the field of technology." Concerning its protection by law the idea "... must be new in the sense that is has not already been published or publicly used; it must be non-obvious in the sense that it would not have occurred to any specialist in the particular industrial field, had such a specialist been asked to find a solution to the particular problem; and it must be capable of industrial application in the sense that it can be industrially manufactured or used." Protection can be obtained through a patent (granted by a government office) and typically is limited to 20 years.

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Industrial design Industrial design refers to the ornamental aspect of a useful article which may constitute of two or three-dimensional elements. To be qualified for intellectual property protection the design must be novel or original. Protection can be obtained through registration in a government office and usually is given for 10 to 15 years.

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Mark A mark (trademark or service mark) is "... a sign, or a combination of signs, capable of distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings. The sign may particularly consist of one or more distinctive words, letters, numbers, drawings or pictures, emblems, colors or combinations of colors, or may be three-dimensional..." (WIPO) To be protected a mark must be registered in a government office whereby generally the duration is limited in time, but can be periodically (usually every 10 years) renewed.

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VISA Visa International's over 21,000 member financial institutions have made VISA one of the world's leading full-service payment network. Visa's products and services include Visa Classic card, Visa Gold card, Visa debit cards, Visa commercial cards and the Visa Global ATM Network. VISA operates in 300 countries and territories and also provides a large consumer payments processing system.

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