Final Assignment

INTERNET AS A POWERFUL TOOL IN THE MODERN ERA

Internet is the most outstanding innovation in the field of communication in the history of mankind. The Internet is a global meeting place where people from all parts of the world come together. The Internet is named after the Internet Protocol, the standard communication protocol is used by every computer on the Internet. The Internet can powerfully leverage the ability to find, manage, and share information. It has proved to be a valuable resource been available to people at a minimal cost. The Internet is a technology that has migrated across business boundaries into many areas of modern life and has become a necessary information technology for businesses and other organizations to contact and interact with potential and existing consumers.
(http://www.livinginternet.com/i/i.htm , accessed 8 December 2008), (Baker Thomas 1999)

Internet began as a network for the U.S. Defence Department in the early 1970s, and was called the DARPAnet. The purpose for developing the Internet network was to do research and to build networks that could withstand a variety of natural disasters such as earthquakes and lightning strikes, and wars. Thus evolved from research the Internet communication network is now used primarily by non-military individuals. In 1986, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the development of the NSFNET which today provides a major backbone communication service for the Internet. During the time of its evolution after 1989, the Internet system began to integrate support for other protocol suites into its networking system. The present focus of the system is on multiprotocol interworking, and in particular, with the integration of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) protocols into the architecture. A great deal of support for the Internet community has come from the U.S. Federal Government. Since the Internet was originally part of a federally-funded research program and has now consequently become a major part of the U.S. research infrastructure.

During the late 1980's, the population of Internet users and network constituents expanded internationally and began to include commercial facilities. The Internet system today is made up of private networking facilities in educational and research institutions, businesses and in government organizations across the globe. Over its fifteen year history, the Internet has functioned as collaboration among cooperating parties. The Internet Activities Board (IAB) created in 1983 was to guide the evolution of the TCP/IP Protocol Suite and to provide research advice to the Internet community which has two primary components: The Internet Engineering Task Force and The Internet Research Task Force. The Internet Research Task Force continues to organize and explore advanced concepts in networking under the guidance of the Internet. (Misic MM, Hill JA 1994)

Today internet is measured by the capacity of its cables to carry information bits to the users. The carrying capacity is called bandwidth. Each of the line support hundreds or thousands of simultaneous users (Baker Thomas 1999).The Internet working includes a technical design and a management structure. The management structure consists of a generally democratic collection of organizations and working groups. Whereas the technical design is founded on a complex, interlocking set of hierarchical tree like structures like Internet Protocol addresses and domain names. These entities are mixed with networked structures like packet switching and routing protocols which are all tied together with millions of lines of sophisticated software that are kept updated with the new version.
(http://www.livinginternet.com/i/i.htm , accessed 8 December 2008)

The Internet has got plenty of advantages. The major use of the internet is for communication. Communication from one part of a world to another could be done in seconds via internet. With the help of email, sending and receiving messages has become easy and the message is delivered instantly to people anywhere in the world, unlike traditional mail which takes a lot of time. Another major advantage of internet is information. Any sort of information can be got through the internet by using a variety of search engines, among which Google and yahoo are most commonly used by people. Students are among the leading individuals who use internet to access information for their studies. The Internet has spread so enormously that many people routinely engage in transaction-based e-commerce activities, such as registering for college courses; completing stock transactions, making Internet based online banking transactions instead of going to the bank physically, and engaging in information transactions such as submitting job applications online rather than filling out a paper form and sending it to the organization. The Internet also forms a platform of entertainment where people interested can share things such as music, news and much more through P2P (peer to peer). Internet also provides a lot of other services like online banking, buying movie tickets and also job seeking. Even business deals are done online by transfer of information. The amazing part about the internet is that people can download games, music, videos and heaps of software’s of which most of them are free. Shopping on internet has also become a common trend.There are online stores and sites that can be used to look for products as well as buy them using credit card.
(Pakhree, Jayashree 2007), (Ann D Rensel, June M Abbas, H Raghav Rao2006),
(http://www.pondered.org/the_internet.html accessed 9 December 2008)

While the World Wide Web received most of the publicity, another part of Internet also drew considerable attention. IRC, more formally referred to as Internet Relay Chat, provides a means by which one user can type a message in real time to one or more Internet users instantly. IRC is more immediate than e-mail exchanges because there is no need to wait a long time to receive a response. IRC also personalizes the Internet, which can sometimes seem cold and robotic. There are a lot of instant messenger applications. MSN and YAHOO are among the most popular ones available which help people to stay in contact with family, friends and loved ones globally. Messengers provide a medium to meet new people online, share experiences and also explore cultures of different ethnicity. The Internet offers yet another opportunity for developing a social network with people who share something in common .Social networking on the Internet took off in popularity several years ago. And now there are over 200 sites where people make new friends, find a date, exchange photos or make new business connections. Examples of other popular sites on the Internet include MySpace, Orkut, Friendster, Face Book and Linkedin. Many of these social networking sites allow people to add pictures and personal information. To attract new friends, it's very important that people remember to stay safe on the Internet Gaming and social networking sites. (Simpson, Carol 2000)

The Internet is also a powerful resource which is emerging as an important tool for business. A new inter-relationship among businesses has been created due to IT and the Internet that have expanded the scope of industrial competency to achieve competitive advantage .The Internet reduces the costs of obtaining, processing, and transmitting information, reduces the cost of marketing, advertising, and business operations, therefore improving the way firms do business . Firms with an aggressive and forward-looking technology strategy are turning innovative and creating new wealth because they are concentrating on improving existing practices through the adoption of computer-based information technologies. In medical field the physicians have adopted the strategy to integrate IT into the management processes of the medical practice. And thus improving the efficiency and effectiveness of information access, maintenance, and delivery. Some of the uses include automated patient scheduling, accounts receivable management, medical records management, and the use of electronic data interchange to electronically transmit medical information between doctors, hospitals and insurance companies. (Lauren B Eder, Marvin E Darter 1998), (Thompson SH Teo, Yujun Pian 2003)

Internet has a few disadvantages as well. Privacy of people is not secure on the Internet because personal information put up on the internet can be accessed by other people. For instance there are lot of cases where credit card details of people are stolen by fraudulent sites. Another problem prevailing online, which is most often employed by cyber thieves to steal a person’s personal details by the use of deceptive phishing attacks. Online phishing attacks for confidential personal information are launched in numerous ways among which most notably by means of deceptive e-mail messages. The phishing e-mail messages, which appear to come from legitimate sources, are carefully designed to trick the recipients into intentionally performing a series of actions that will provide access to their sensitive personal information. Spamming is another method where unwanted sites keep sending unsolicited emails in bulk, which serve no purpose and uses space of computer. Some of the online games on the internet involve violence and usage of abusive language which are played by teenagers and really have a bad effect on them. One of the major drawbacks of the Internet is the pornographic sites. There are lot of these sites online which may end up disturbing the lives of kids. There are also exists the danger of paedophiles who try to be friends with young kids online on social networking sites. (Butler R 2007)

Like any other public place, people need to be protective of their personal information when they are visiting sites on the Internet, and there are some bits of personal data that that should not share or have easily accessible on a social website. Younger generation should be educated about harmful things on internet, where parents can play a major role by blocking access to these websites and also increasing the firewall settings. Online games that have violence should be banned by the government or try to have an age restriction on them. The problems of spamming, virus threat and personal information theft can be solved by using spyware and antivirus softwares. Online consumers should familiarise themselves in a way in which legitimate organisations normally communicate with the clients.
Future of internet can be imagined saying that people would be working from home and no one would need to go to an office and that includes schooling for children as well. Teaching would be in form of virtual type. The broadband speed would be 100 times faster than now. (Pew Internet & American Life Project 2005)

Internet as a new communications system and advancement in digital technology has changed people lives in good way. It has improved the standard of life of people and brought world together. In business the Internet has made an integral part of an organization's technology. The more likely the resources the Internet has to offer, the more productive the workers would be. The illegal activities happening on the Internet that are frustrating for all Internet users, should not be ignored, but an effort should be made to try and stop these activities so that using the Internet can become a much safer place. Though, internet has created havoc, destruction, the advantages of it outweigh its disadvantages, and millions of people each day benefit from using the Internet for work and pleasure.
(Misic MM, Hill JA 1994)


REFERENCES:

Ann D Rensel, June M Abbas, H Raghav Rao (2006) “Journal of the Association for Information Systems” Atlanta 7(1): 19, 30

Baker, Thomas (1999) “Evolution of the Internet”

http://www.tiac.or.th/tiacweb/Baker/Section1_2.html (accessed 12 December 2008)

Butler R (2007) “The Electronic Library” Oxford 25(5): 517

David J. Henry (1998) “An Introduction to the Internet” http://www.oit.umd.edu/eis/staff/dhenry/inetintro/conclude.html
(accessed 13 December 2008)

“How the Internet works” http://www.livinginternet.com/i/i.htm (accessed 8 December 2008)

Internet Society (2008) “A Brief History of the Internet and Related Networks”
http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/cerf.shtml (accessed 14 December 2008)

Lauren B Eder, Marvin E Darter (1998) “Association for Computing Machinery of the ACM” New York 41(3): 52, 3

Martin.J, Turkel.S (1999) “Introduction to the Internet” http://www.brynmawr.edu/Acads/GSSW/jam/switr/orientation99/sld003.htm
(accessed 8 December 2008)

Misic MM, Hill JA (1994) “Journal of Systems Management” Cleveland 45(11): 5-6

Pakhree, Jayashree (2007) “Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet” http://www.buzzle.com/articles/advantages-disadvantages-internet.html
(accessed 9 December 2008)

Pew Internet & American Life Project (2005) “The Future of the Internet”
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/pip_future_of_internet.pdf (accessed 14 December 2008)

Simpson, Carol (2000) “Internet Relay Chat. Eric Digest.” http://www.ericdigests.org/1999-3/chat.htm (accessed 10 December 2008)

“The Advantages and Disadvantages of The Internet” http://www.pondered.org/the_internet.html (accessed 9 December 2008)

Thompson SH Teo, Yujun Pian (2003) “European Journal of Information Systems” Basingstoke 12(2): 78

Day 9 and 10: Tutorial Task

Today's tutorial task is about the influence of online world on lives of the current generation.

Emerging online life of the Digital Native by Mark Prensky:
Based on new communication technologies available to them, people are trying to make each activity happen. According to my experience on the internet, i can play games, socialize with my friends, do my assignments and you can also look upto things you really like. Letters which once took time to be written and sent were replaced by emails which can be sent instantly. Long distance communications went from being expensive to free. Chatting is another application which comes in different flavours and has taken the world by storm. Emails and texting are the applications for sharing. Digital natives share the most intimate and emotional details of their lives. This has been mainly successful through blogs. Nowadays people can setup blogs for free of cost. Usage of mobile phone cameras and webcams are the fastest means of sharing. People have also gone to the extent of shopping online. This takes place mostly at ebay which is the best online place to buy and sell your products and information. Digital natives define themselves with the desire to create. They adapt themselves at building new web sites, flash movies and other online creations. Meetings used to be a face to face activity but in the current generation meetings are done online through chat rooms and net meetings. P2P (peer to peer) applications are the most downloaded applications on the net. After emails, search engines are the second biggest use of the net. The most intriguing thing about the Digital Native's e-life is that it is continually evolving. In very short time technology has changed the behaviour of the entire generation radically.

New world by David Weinberger:
People usually use a different alias when they are online. Thats been the way the Americans. They use different avatars and chat id's. They try to show something which they are not. Even now the everyday world of the web seems alien than it was before. Then the writer talks about his experiences on ebay. Buyers and sellers adopt different names by which they are known. The web has sent a wave through our culture. We are meeting new aspects of ourselves on the web. I spend a lot of time shopping on ebay. My purchasing options are in electronics, sporting goods or clothing. In the online world we can do whatever we like by just sitting in front of the computer. Web has always helped me in socializing better. You cant meet every single friend of yours in person everyday. So you try to connect with them online. The web is like a place we have made for one another. I dont see the current generation living without it.

Sources:
http://www.smallpieces.com/content/chapter1.html
http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf

Day 10: Last day and Course Evaluation

Today's lecture was the last one of the summer semester. Today's discussion was supposed to about the complete overview of the course. But as there were only five students present in the class, Adam didnot go much deep into it. Usually in a proper semester this course has an end of semester exam. So just for the fun of it Adam conducted a small exam with 20 multiple choice questions. Some of the questions in the exam were from topics which were not discussed in the class. I still managed to get 11 correct. Then we moved to the tutorial room where we discussed about the academic essay and the last tutorial task.
Coming to the course, i am a student from the school of engineering but i had lots of fun doing this subject. In this course we have learnt about types of communication technologies, types of media and the technologies that have brought people closer. The main topic that fascinated me was when Adam was talking about differences between real world and virtual worlds. We also had guest lectures from Paul Hodkinson and Brady Robards. Brady's lecture was more of an open discussion lecture. Personally i liked Paul 's lecture and how he explained of bedroom acting as an social networking place. We have also studied about free and open softwares. Then there was cyberdemocracy. I like this topic and how Adam explained it in the lecture. I am going to be working on this topic for the final essay. We were also shown videoclippings in almost every class for a better understanding of the subject.
Adam Muir, our lecturer has done a fantastic job. The way he has handled the lectures especially has been great. He let students to interrupt the class inorder to get their doubts clarified. Even the atmosphere in the class was brilliant. Lastly i liked working on my blog and i think i am going to continue doing it.
Until next time....All the best to all of you....

Day 9: Lecture on Cyber democracy, Virtual Philosophy and Cyber Utopia

Cyber Democracy:

Democracy is described as the government of the people, by the people and for the people. The most obvious alternative to represent democracy is to participate. In Ancient Greece, all the citizens had the right to be involved in decision making. "Democracy can only consist in recognition of multiplicity of social logics and the necessity of articulation with no hope of final reconciliation"- argued by Chantal Mouffe in her preface to to "Dimensions of radical democracy". To be democratic, one should have a freedom of speech. In Australia, there is no constitutional right to free speech. An American was sentenced to jail as he had put up censored material on the internet. But the site continues to run without him with all the information. Once you put up something, you cant take it back.

Virtual Philosophy:

What is real?
"If you're talking about your senses, what you feel, taste, smell, or see, then all you're talking about are electrical signals interpreted by your brain" - said by Morpheus, character played by Lawrence Fishburne in the famous blockbuster movie "The Matrix". Film and TV production techniques have changed the way we see the world.

What is virtual?
Strapped to a machine, or in front of a computer, you tend to do acts which are next to impossible in the real world. The current century has seen development of communicaiton technologies altering the economy of the planet.

CyberUtopia:

Virtual reality brings in complex questions about nature of society. It alters the ways in which you build yourself as a person. This allows formulation of new cultures. With virtual world dominating, is the real world going to be natural? I don't think so, our society is not natural anymore. It is controlled by someone else. When this idea of a virtual world is taken away, you are going to wake up discovering that you are in hell. What future lies ahead, only time will tell.

Awesome lecture by Adam...

Day 7 and 8: Tutorial task on Digital Storytelling Project

The audio used in this video has been taken from a creative common site. The name of the sound track is "sunrise".

Source:http://radio.isg.si/audio/by/genre/Trance

Day 8: About Online Privacy

We started off with Adam showing us a book called "Game on". Main emphasis of todays lecture was about online privacy. Network neutrality was the topic that was discussed for the major part of the lecture. Then we had a video shown which had an interview of an American professor Jonathan Zittrain. Jonathan Zittrain talks about his new book "The future of internet and how to stop it". The books deals with censorship, content filtering and online security. The next topic was about Mark Klein, a former employee of AT&T. He exposes how his company was linked with the NSA (National Security Agency) in spying on American citizens by intercepting their internet and telephone lines. Every application we used such as google searches, email were being looked into by the NSA. Then we discussed about EFF (Electronic Frontier foundation). EFF also has an Australian branch called as EFA.
That was pretty much the topics covered for today. Altogether an interesting lecture.

Day 7: On Video Games and File Sharing

Today's lecture was about video games and file sharing. Video game studies include games, gaming consoles and computers. Games are usually separated into different genres like first person shooter, racing, adventure, sports and strategy games. Gaming consoles have been there for a long time now. Military have also used games to train their personel. Video games have always had effects in the real world. for example after playing a racing game on a console people like to go fast in their vehicles. This might lead to a disaster. Do games generate voilence? I would say yes, particularly after seeing the release of heaps of first person shooter and strategy games. Then we had a bit of a discussion about the types of softwares and hardwares used in games and their consoles. We had a group discussion in the class about how a particular game becomes popular. The majority of the answers pointed towards individual intererst and marketing techniques. Then Adam played a documentry "Steal the film 2". The video dealt with file sharing on the internet. File sharing online has been promoting privacy. Downloading platforms such as mininova and limewire are being used by everyone to download stuff which they are not to. This includes making duplicate copies of movies, softwares, songs..etc. Because of this the original makers of the products are not making the money they want to. Even the copyright policy protects only the economic interest of the maker. That's pretty much it and was one of the best lectures of the course so far.