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About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (April 12, 1995)
OPINION The Clackamas Print Page 3 Wednesday, April 12,1995 SSlJPEfl INFLAMMATION HIGHWAY: f^Xype by Patrick Lundstrom Staff Writer I have received several com ments about the title of my last article for The Print, “Information Superhighway paves its way to Clackamas.” This gives the im pression that the article’s content ■ ■’ f f'*;' V * f* jr*.r Ar-*./* r* r * r*.r*. Ar *A.r Ar*. **.0’i*I :’y5WWBPWW concerns Internet resources avail able at Clackamas Community College. Some people expressed sur prise at finding the article was in stead a history of the Internet’s be ginning. I am sorry for the inconsis tency. I do not write the titles, only the articles. In retrospect, I should have made an opportunity for my self to look at the title before the paper went to print. I will attempt to do this in the future, to avoid any further confusion or contro versy. The use of the term, Informa tion Superhighway, is regrettable. I find it to be something of a mis nomer. The term was invented by members of government, and of industry, to describe integration of cable and telephone services through reregulation. The concept was to create a superstructure for a national video-phone system, and remove cut-throat industry competition. The term attempted to capture the spirit of the national phone system, and the national highway building projects. The idea was to provide bet ter interconnection, and increased funds for ‘New Deal’-type con struction projects, to boost eco nomic and technological growth. The concept was seriously flawed from the beginning. Differ ent standards and the technologi cal limitations make the integra tion of cable (broadcast vision) and telephone (two-way sound) difficult, nigh impossible. Fiber optics was envisioned as the solution; providing a wider band width (so more services could be included), and a medium for developing a new communica tion standard. The fiber optic superhighway would require replacing the aging copper communication trunk lines, between major population centers. For the full implementation, fiber optics would have to run from the trunk lines to each building.-This proved to be prohibitively expen sive for the debt- ridden, post Cold War, government. - The média began a specula tive extrapolation of what the In formation Superhighway entails. (It’s the future media that will change the way the we receive in formation and seek entertain ment.) A dream of global commu nications making the world a bet ter place to live. (Working, shop ping and banking at home would make regular transit unnecessary. People could tap a broader spectrum of humanity from their own home, a ever could be achieved in a lifetime of world travel, etc. etc. etc....) The terms Information Superhighway and Internet quickly became inter changeable, as the lines between fact and fantasy blurred. Recently, computer industry development of smaller products, has brought portable personal computing into mainstream cul ture. Corporations of the commu nication and entertainment indus tries have been gobbling up their smaller competitors, and have been merging with each other. These events, along with me dia hype, is leading to the general opinion that the Internet is an in fantile form of the future Informa tion Superhighway. The government decided that it is unable to afford the develop ment of the Information Super highway. Now, it is left to the pri vate enterprises to develop tech nologies, to make the information dream come true. Most of the original codes and sights of the early Internet projects have been bought. These systems are primitive in compari son to the grandiose plans for the Information Superhighway. There are still many services that have to be developed, and interfaces to be made user friendly. The corporate media versipn of the Information Superhighway requires security on a scale that is missing from the current Internet. Many companies working indi vidually, and cooperatively, are attempting to produce security sys tems. These (propriety) systems will use encryption, masking, and evasion techniques to prevent in terpretation, interception or cor ruption of data. The data could be bank funds, as well as private documents or proprietary pro grams. Using electronic funds one could conduct transactions for goods, services, or information anywhere in the world, without having to exchange currency. The global interaction would boost, and unify, the international economy. While culturing dreams of a utopie communications future, we must keep sight of the flaws that implementation could entail. The plans for commercializ ing the Internet do not appear to include the poor. Even if electron- ics become cheap, and our coun try affluent, there will always be poor people. A minority of people in our country, and the majority of people in the Third World, who can not afford the cost of riding on the superhighway. These people are excluded from not only an economic system but also the creative benefits of mankind. The founding spirit of the Internet was of free interaction for mutual benefit. The idea of infor mational freedom still permeates the Internet today, but corporate greed is tampering with it. Com mercialization threatens not only to exclude the poor but to create class distinctions within the Internet itself. The security systems being developed today could open the door to some horrific possibilities. History has proven that power belongs to those people with the control of money production and key resources. The development of secure monetary systems in the hands of private corporations. Who will look out for the under dog, the poor, or the long term benefit of humanity? Eras of history are named af ter the resource most important to make tools (of both creation and destruction). Thus we have the Stone Age,... Bronze Age,... Steel Age (typically termed as the In dustrial Revolution),... Atomic Age, Space Age. We are now in, or are enter ing, the Information Age, or the Computer Age. A government that gives away its control of money production, must secure control of the age’s key commodity (to pre vent corporate takeover): informa tion. Information has always been important, but secondary to the resources and brute force wielded. Global communications make the benefits of location and posses sion, secondary to having the proper information, before it is obsolete. We have conquered our envi ronment (but by no means control it) and can make drastic changes to it. At this stage of technologi cal development^ it is important to possess knowledge in a timely manner so resources can be use wisely. (Our power to manipulate exceeds our knowledge of proper control.) To retain power, governments must control information. How would one go about controlling information? In the past, govern ments (like Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, and the United States dur ing the red scare) suppressed the truth and reason, and replaced it with stereotypes and hate ideals. For the first time in history, there is a medium of mass com munication that is too large, un controlled and international, that it cannot be controlled. The U.S. is attempting to re gain that control (or trying to feel like it is regaining that control) by requiring all computers produced in the US to have a Clipper Chip built in. The Clipper Chip creates a ‘back door’ in any encryption scheme. The ‘back door’ would give access to the government (or the inventive hacker) so encrypted. On computers equipped with Clip per Chips, data can be read. The required Clipper Chip (although, some have voluntarily installed chips) has not passed into law (or so they tell us) because it would set a dangerous precedent. Full implementation of the chip would give a governmental body (associated to the CIA and FBI) the power to access any informa tion it wanted. A benign govern ment would pose little treat to free dom and privacy, but there is al ways the risk of abuse. With abuse a government can quickly become like Big Brother, from George Orwell’s novel, 1984. A Note From The Author Issues concerning the Internet and more importantly, discussion of access privileges for Clackamas students on the Internet are of pri mary interest to me. If you, fac ulty or student would like to give me your input, feel free to e-mail me. From campus I can be reached at lund5757. If you are will ing to have you views published, please specifically state so in your message. I cannot guarantee pub- lication of some, any, or all, of your submissions. I am always looking for new material and for new e-friends.
