Session Twelve:
The Internet and Related Issues

Lecturette 12 - Other Internet Issues
 

The rapid growth of the Internet produced a tremendous economic boost.  In addition, it created a number of problems both in the home and in the workplace.  Issues include that of access to pornography and violence, particularly by children, the issues of privacy and confidentiality, and the issue of capacity.

When the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed, it contained a title known as the Communications Decency Act.  This provision sought to prevent easy access to pornographic and scatological sites.  Immediately, the Act was challenged in U.S. courts on grounds of the violation of free speech.  The  U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Act as an unwarranted violation of the first amendment and the Act was nullified.

A second effort was made in 1998 to address the issue of pornography, particularly as it relates to children gaining easy access.  This Act, known as COPA, for Children’s Online Protection Act, requires the digital equivalent of “plain brown wrappers”.  Under this legislation, web owners are required to place a warning page before any “objectionable” material so that a casual surfer does not open the site to find nudity, sex, or other “objectionable” activity.  The legal difficulty stems from the term “objectionable”, since it is not clear exactly what constitutes “objectionable.”

Site owners have generally complied, but a legal challenge is underway.  In the meantime, access to “objectionable” material has become a significant legal issue at the elementary and high school level, as well as in the workplace.

Studies are beginning to show that the time spent “surfing” the net while in the workplace are unproductive time for the employer.  Workers find airline tickets, cars, books, music, and a variety of other goods and services online when they are supposed to be working.
In addition, sending and receiving jokes has become a major use of the e-mail server.

For the employer, such activities reduce the value of the enhancement which access to information over the Internet may provide.  The worker who is surfing for hobby, travel, or personal material is using an expensive corporate resource.  Using e-mail to transfer jokes uses up valuable bandwidth, both for transfer and storage.

Employers have responded by developing internal policies known as Acceptable Use policies.  These rules govern the timing and use of information technology resources in a variety of ways.  Some are quite draconian, forbidding ANY personal use of corporate or agency resources for personal use.  Such a policy would preclude not only surfing porn sites, but also posting, say, a soccer schedule or church bulletin.

Less restrictive policies strive to achieve a balance which recognizes the value of the worker to the firm by giving the individual discretion to use corporate or agency servers and browsers for personal use within some guidelines.  Pornography, graphic violence, and racial or other epithets are generally taboo under these rules.

So far, the FCC has used its power of forbearance to avoid becoming the “Internet cop.”  The agency clearly lacks the expertise and resources necessary to attempt to control or regulate content, even if it could construct guidelines and standards acceptable to U.S. courts.

Further, the FCC is limited in its jurisdiction to the U.S.  Its ability to regulate sites in Europe and Asia is nonexistent.  The global network of the Internet makes it almost impossible for any one country to govern content.  Instead of government regulation, the current trend is toward developing and promoting filters.

Filters come in several varieties.  The kinds that include a physical barrier are called firewalls.  The so-called “V-chip” is another form of physical filter which is being developed to screen and perhaps block certain types of material.

Other forms use encryption and messaging between sender and receiver prior to opening the site.  These operate at the network layer to establish the content of the site for the incoming viewer.  If enabled, the software could block the viewer from entering the site.  Services like “Net Nanny” operate in this mode.

Other issues include security and confidentiality.  The development of the public key encryption system known as SSL for Secure Socket Layer, has become the industry standard for allowing the use of credit cards online.  This system, which provides for 128-bit encryption, establishes the security of the link at the network layer.  All transactions can only be viewed by the two participating sites.

You can tell if you are actually in a secure mode by checking the URL.  If you are secure, the URL will show a letter “s” after http and before the colon like this:  https://  In addition, both Netscape and Internet Explorer have a padlock icon at the bottom of the screen to indicate whether the socket is secure.  In Netscape, it is on the lower left.  If the padlock is locked, it is secure.  IE has a similar icon just to the right of center on the bottom bar.  Don’t always believe the popups; many sites think they are secure, or so assert, before the secure socket is actually set.  The development of these methods of security is critical for enabling e-commerce.  Amazon.com and e-bay.com could not function without credit card transactions.

E-commerce has grown fantastically in the last year.    Part of this dramatic growth is a function of greater confidence on the part of the buying public in encryption and firewall security.  But more important, web sites are creating a look, feel, and touch which appeal to shoppers and turn them into buyers.  Amazon has spent a lot of time and energy trying to recreate the experience of browsing in a book store.  The links to other works by the same author, to other authors for the same subject, and to reviews, is designed to make you recreate the experience of standing in a store, looking at the spines, and picking up a book to scan.

Other vendors create new forms of value for the searcher by finding the lowest cost, comparing two products, or otherwise simplifying the comparison of one supplier or one product or service from another.  The global dimension allows businesses to create very small niches in which to operate.  Identifying a “virtual” community that could not profitably be served by a physical store has become a hallmark of e-commerce.  Exploiting “just-in-time delivery methods has further helped to reduce costs and maximize gains for Internet suppliers.

Finally, capacity is becoming an issue quickly.  Demand is increasing dramatically, while capacity remains basically at 28.8 kbps.  We are transitioning to a 56k standard, and commercial and corporate users may have access to higher speed transmissions, but by and large, speed and capacity remain low.

The IEEE predicts that within ten years, the need will be for bandwidth on the order of 100 megabits per second to the home.  This capacity would allow 500 channels of television, with multiple applications running, each receiving a separate product.  The telephone companies are currently building out to such a capacity.  In the meantime, DSL is expected to provide high speed connectivity that is “good enough” until the full capability is realized.

The current Internet, touted as the “Information Super Highway” is, in fact, a farm to market road.  Anyone can access it using any manner of vehicle and at any speed.  The Next Generation Internet group (http://www.ngi.org) proposes  a model more like the highway system, with limited access high speed networks developed for certain applications.   Their primary focus is on networking supercomputers and in transferring data on the order of 2.5 terrabits per second  (terra is 1011 power).  Such capability would theoretically allow super computers to provide local forecasting of tornadoes in real time.

Within your lifetime and careers, there will be tremendous growth of the Internet.  Demographics are already changing.  Where the early internet reflected the educational establishment, particularly white and male, that could use it, the modern internet is seeing dramatic change in the numbers of women and older users.  In April 1999, AOL announced that its female subscribers outnumbered the males.  Seniors are flocking to the net, often at senior center “cybercafes” because of the low cost of finding old friends and acquaintances, and sending and receiving e-mail with friends and family members.

And sometimes (but not always) you can use the Internet to take university courses….