The future is ours to see 4

Darkness

Last night I saw “the hidden Internet” on Belgian TV. The news-anchor announced the “Tor”-network, and gave it that subtitle, because police and government had to admit that they had no tools to fight the treat.

I laughed. The item was broadcasted, just one day after I wrote my last column in this sequel. “The hidden Internet”, how wrong can people be...?

There is no “hidden” Internet, because the whole system in itself is hidden. It is a false believe that we-see-what-we-get. Most people are not aware of what they load into their lives, just by surfing the Net. They simply do not understand that they are down-loading all the time, just by switching on their computer.

“Tor” is one of many illustrations of what the back-alleys of the glorified electronic highway have to offer. One of the connections which are difficult to trace, if one hasn’t sufficient knowledge, and most people don’t even understand that they can’t access their email when the Internet-connection is down…

We all surf the “hidden” paths, because we cannot actually see them. Even the best informed Nerd can be hacked, or thrown out of an established connection, because we don’t really see, are not aware until, or after it happens.

Like all techniques mankind develops, systems like “Tor” will evolve. They will always be a step ahead of who is chasing or trying to break into the underlying canals. “Used by criminals and pederasts”, the news-anchor informed, because official institutions are unable to interfere. The awakening of fear of what we don’t understand, or cannot see. Electronic-wise mankind entered the middle ages, and the threatening devil is summarized as “the hidden Internet”.

What we have to understand is that the Net is just a next step in our evolution, like fire, or the invention of the wheel was. It enlarges our possibilities, and it will shake up our systems as we know them. People have to learn to think like their daily used digital highway, if they don’t want to be accidentally killed by it. This change of thinking is the most difficult for the so-called establishment. They didn’t become established because of it, not even companies like Microsoft (think of the free development of an OS like Linux), and establishment is in itself conservative, because it wants to keep what it gathered by the means of what they know and understand.

Conservatism is outdated very fast since the introduction of Internet. Nothing lost so many believers in such a short time as the Gods, most people still worshipped about 50 years ago. The new generation is divided. The majority does not take the religions serious anymore, and a small part tries to stop this evolution with bombs and guns, using the Internet to spread their word, and don’t understand that they use a tool which will wipe them out eventually. The power of Internet is still mainly information, and informed people were always the downfall of established conservatism!

…to be continued…

The future is ours to see 3

Let’s talk about communication…

It is a general believe that Internet, and especially Social Media, are instruments to enlarge world wide communication. Mankind never assumed a bigger mistake. Since the mid nineties we were offered an amount of tools through which we can broadcast our selves, show-off, if you like, but interaction, in fact, is very poor. Basically Internet tools are developed for a wider range of commercializing, and all too often mistaken for communication.

The base for communication is interaction between two or more individuals. They react on each others needs and expression: words, sounds and images. This is where misunderstanding begins: Internet in general is about up~ and downloading the same issues: words, sounds and images, however, with an enormous lack of interaction.

If we would behave in a room filled with people, like we do on the Net, that room would empty in no time. Imagine individuals expressing them selves without listening or looking at others.

Internet is an invention which could only happen in times where individualization is the main goal for almost all of us. It would not work in a small village where people sit and talk in front of their houses after working hours. Those people would be too busy communicating to go inside and lock them selves up in front of a machine. The invention of the www was possible, because communication was already fading.

Communication, a basic need for humans, has slowly slipped into a false interaction of pimping up our needs. The world of commerce took over, and this had nothing to do with the launch of the Internet. This slowly slipping started with globalization and industrialization, and the electronic highway became nothing more then a logical follow-up in this process. When people complain in their own private environment about a lack of attention, it is not the computer or Internet to blame. This disinterest in the others needs lies far beyond, or better: before, the electronic possibilities of today. We, as people, are loosing the abilities of communication, and convert them into slogans as a form of expression, and ego focusing. Why? -  Because we interact on, and copy the media around us.

The biggest disease mankind is suffering is the commercial rat-race, which let us believe that no happiness, or even humanity, is possible, without gathering more and better, but see – the opposite happens. Global crisis, a decrease of poverty, more unhealthy people… The question is: can Internet change this?

Internet, or what comes next, will grow, not only in volume or reach, but as a medium that will replace the way the world is ruled today. The www is the monster that kills commerce. The signs are already all over: the illegal download of music, films, software, hacking of enterprises and governmental institutions…, still a minority today, which can be dealt with. The losses are high, but can be overcome. No one realizes that this way of interaction is just over 15 years old, and the damage done is already many billions, and increasing… What the business-world still does not understand is that our economic system is not build for the Internet, that globalization in terms of the G20 is a farce. There are no borders anymore, and warriors are no longer men-with-guns, ruled by a government, but everyday-people-with-mobile-phones. That is today and changing fast.

Members of a young generation become billionaire’s over-night, while other members of that same generation use the same field as their playground for free, is as eating from two different sides: the first still limping on old values, the second showing the way to the future. Today the alleys and bushes of the Net are filled with Robin Hoods’, calling them selves “ethical hackers”, those who show others the lacks and gaps of the electronic highway. They hide the future in side, because Internet in itself does not belong to anyone, which means that it is truly free, and no act can change that. Men invented their worst nightmare: the killing-machine of the world today’s systems…

…to be continued…

The future is ours to see 2

From a historical view, it is a dangerous path we are going today. The wired connections we are facing, but do not see, is like an enormous city of alleys: narrow and dark. At least for most of us! There are some individuals, which are generally addressed as Nerds, who can shine their light on a doorstep or portal, now and then. They understand the techniques, but not what can be done with it.

No one invented or developed the Net to hide and seek, however an unknown amount of bytes and bits are used for it today. The average terrorist or child-pornographer does not have the skills, in spite of the fact that they work and play in the dark back-alleys, where even the geeks among us have trouble to enter.

Internet is not so much an electronic highway, as well a mathematical one, by which I mean: it is not about the way of transport, but about the vehicle that carries what we send.

Mathematics is endless. It won’t ever stop. Two parallel lines always cross in infinity, is a mathematical rule, but no one knows what infinity really means. It can be calculated, we even have a symbol for it, but it can’t be seen, and predictions which cannot be verified the hard way, are at least disputable… Infinity is, in a certain matter, the end of mathematics, but when we reach it, it won’t be infinity anymore. That’s the trouble with our glorified electronic highway. We see the wires and can tell how much cable is needed to connect every individual on this world, but we cannot foresee what transportation possibilities lye ahead. And it is not only transport in disguise…

When people hide something, it is never about hiding, but always about that “something”. Hiding itself, the way of transport, is not the goal. It’s all about the package within, which can be encrypted to make it even more difficult to find.

The world is changing, hasn’t really changed yet, because what is happening on the Internet, is still to much a copy of the hardware we know since mankind exists. I write this by hand, not just thinking and it appears. It is materializing in front of me on a white-sheet-look-a-like, and I will send and publish it in a very similar way, even if I do not have to walk to the post office anymore. The game we play is still the same, nothing has changed. Life has become easier, in a matter of speaking… But is that so?

Mankind always played hide and seek, as long as we exist, but we never had so many alleys and bushes to go for. Infinity could be nearer then we think, or believe, because the numerous ways of traveling this highway are literally endless, and won’t ever stop as long as we are here…

…to be continued…