This latest threat to Microsoft Windows got me to wondering, as hackers become more and more sophisticated, about two things:
(1) Other than proving they can do it, what could be the motive for trying to disrupt and/or take down the internet (other than teenagers who don’t have the ability to understand the consequences). It seems at this point it would be a major (temporary) disaster for most of the world if the internet went down, including those who are the source of the problem. By taking down I mean that users would not be able to access it.
(2) My privacy is extremely important to me. Maybe it’s my generation. Seeing my phone number and every address I ever lived at come up on an internet site bothers me. Those who grew up with this are maybe not bothered by it. It is so important to me that I “might” be glad if the internet went down and never came back. It hasn’t been that many years that our economy functioned just fine without it. I would seriously miss the instant availability of iinformation and online banking and shopping and being able to connect with people all over the world; but, I hate it that swarms of minimum-wage drones are spreading out all over the US collecting information on every living being and buying lists of utility customers, etc. and selling it on the internet. I hate it that arrests in college, info. about divorces, fictional name statements, almost anything anyone has ever done that is public information is now available to anyone. There are a million scenarios, but what about an abused wife who’s husband can find her address and phone number in two minutes.
This all aside from the ability of businesses and the government to function and the jobs related to it.
Could you live without the internet and would you want to? What do you hate about it?
I like all the free stuff out there. All those free flash games, news and comics. I agree with you about all the info out there.
No internet would find me in the same chair I am now watching my TV and playing lots of freecell. I used to play that a lot. I had won over 300 games in a row before I started on the internet. I’ve only played it like 5 times since in the past 10 years.
I think it would do us some good if the internet came crashing down. Invasive Spam, Malicous software and identity thieves are allowed to spread unchecked on today’s unsecure Internet. A Complete and total failure of the system that results in massive financial ruin for the tech industry (and any company that relies too heavily on e-commerce) would force a rebuild of the network in a more secure manner. Lets have an Internet-Crash to reset the electronic world we live in similar to the stock market crash of 1929 that reset the business world almost 80 years ago.
One of the first things available on the internet was technical specs, which made life for electrical engineering geeks like myself MUCH easier. I used to keep piles and piles of books lying around, becuase I knew that if I needed to contact the manufacturer of a part to get the spec sheet that it would take days or maybe even a week or two to get it mailed to me. Losing the internet would slow me down at work quite a bit as a result.
Other than that, the internet for me is mostly entertainment. I could live without it, but I would miss out on a bunch of fun. I also wouldn’t be able to do the dope while I eat lunch (like I’m doing right now) and that of course would be a huge tragedy. I would probably end up doing something boring like working through lunch, and we can’t have that, now can we?
The thing most people don’t realize is that all of this information was available before to anyone who bothered to look for it, it just wasn’t all neatly stacked in one web site that you could get to with a couple of clicks.
Everyone gets these alarmist e-mails that say if you go to google (I think) and type in your phone number, your address and a map to your house pop up. Back before the internet, you would walk down to ye ol local library, look up the phone number in a criss-cross directory, then walk over to the map section of the library, take the map book over to the photocopier, and have the same thing. All the internet does is save you the drive down to the library and a couple of minutes of thumbing through books.
I happen to be adopted, and many years ago went searching for my original birth parents, armed only with one half legible signature on a form that someone had forgotten to cut out. I was able to figure out my mother’s name, and was able to trace most of the places where she lived, up until one year, after which I wasn’t able to find any more records of her (turned out she moved back in with her parents that year). I didn’t need the internet to do any of it, and in fact back then the internet was still in its infancy, and stuff like that generally wasn’t available online yet.
I didn’t even own a computer until I was in college (not counting the Nintendo or Atari 2600). I’m totally lost now without the internet. I’m usually not sure where my phone book is- it’s so much easier to just look up numbers in Google. I wouldn’t know how to get anywhere or how long a trip would take without MapQuest. After 9/11 I stopped watching TV news and now rely only on online newspapers (and Google news) to get news that’s more recent than the morning newspaper. And I wish I had “find in this page” for the morning newspaper, too…
I don’t particularly enjoy talking on the phone, plus there’s that inconvenient need to call people when they’re awake and at home (or have their phones with them). Writing letters requires me to find paper, a pen that works, an envelope, and a stamp, so that won’t work. I’d never be able to keep in touch with friends and family without the internet.
No internet. Good or bad thing?
Like all breakthrough technologies that enable faster and wider communication, the Internet is like television. You have to take the bad with the good. Television has some great programming and can show breaking news live to the moment. But it also has a lot of crap and can be used to dispense propaganda. Similarly, the Internet provides a means to easily share ideas and other content, but it also has a lot of misinformation and can impinge on privacy issues. But overall, like tv, much more good than bad IMHO.