Privacy and the Internet
Robert Wright wrote an essay featured in Time Magazine on October 19, 1998. The essay was called "Sin in the Global Village" and it focuses on personal privacy in cyberspace. The Internet is a rapidly growing web of information that more and more people are using. The benefits are for instance immediate access to information from all around the world, electronic mail that arrive at a blink of an eye, being able to publish ideas on personal web pages, and even downloading a contemporary pictures over Waikiki beach just to see if there's any waves etc. Robert Wright is introducing the idea that the Internet has become an instrument of privacy killing. In the same way that the public is getting access to countless bytes of information, the accomplished computer user gets access to the private preferences and thoughts of the public. Wright suggests that people should be careful when publishing a Web page containing personal thoughts because anyone with Web-authoring software can easily trace the URL (electronic address) back to it's origin. In short, people's visions about a totally anonymous Internet are false because of the electronic trail that is left for others to find.
People shouldn't hesitate in using this contemporary phenomenon called the Internet. Is their any reason to panic? I certainly don't think so. Sure, someone could be monitoring your every move in the same way that someone could follow you on your way to work. But what good would that do? Somehow I think the people that should worry are the people that are doing illegal things over the net and that seems justified to me. This reminds me of something my host parents told me when I went to high school in Maryland that applies to Internet users: "Be responsible". Disintegration of privacy complicates life. Wright lists some of the precautions people have to think about in ordering a hotel room for an extra marital date: don't write e-mail to each other about it, don't use your credit card in paying for the room, and don't look into the security cameras in the lobby, and look out for strategically placed cameras that record pictures that are transmitted over the Internet. The Internet's front of total anonymity has created a lot of temptations in people especially in the pornographic and gambling sites. Wright means that the fear of retribution from computer hackers or other advanced computer users is a good thing mainly because the fear might help people stay in line. The Internet cameras that are put up frequently around the world for the purpose of people being able to watch what is going on
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 948
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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