Information Superhighway Essay, Research Paper

If the goal of the Information Superhighway is to unite people, why is it that so far it has only acted as a disunifying agent, creating debate wherever its name arises. The reason is, people are scared of it, and for good reasons as well as fictional. One of these “good” reasons would be personal privacy, a gap in the system sometimes not even denied by those that should be denying it. The internet, carrying as much information as quickly as it does is too busy to worry about protecting the information it transports. Hackers can find out virtually anything they want about people, places, and events. This is not very comforting. I don t want anybody who has access to the internet to be able to know where I, and my family, live, my social security number, my credit card numbers, etc. You must be careful not to give away any unnecessary information. Advertisements for pornographical material especially attempt to draw out personal information, such as E-mail address. Once privy to this information, you can expect the porno company to bombard you with sales pitches via electronic mail. (I speak through word of mouth of course, not personal knowledge) Law makers have not seem to have taken into account internet piracy, and with no laws to intimidate, the waters of the internet are fraught with peril. It does, however, seem impossible to stop and still have a usable “Super Highway”. The problem is, without prior knowledge of the crimes that can be committed, the law makers don t know what to anticipate, and thus what to outlaw. This problem is caused because of the pace of the advancement of technology and the pressure applied by the push of those preaching Information Revolution. Each day brings new possibilities, and these yield both positive and negative outcomes. The positives are bigger, better, faster; the negatives are that criminals have access to the same improvements. Also, because its new, the law makers can t anticipate the new twist in plot.

I feel the solution is very simple, at least for this aspect of the problem of Privacy. One hand must shake the other. The law makers and the minds behind the technological advancements must join forces and remain a step ahead of the general public. This may not be very popular among the most liberal, but it would appear to be a way of improvement without tampering with the general structure of the highway. The debate over what to do about the issue of privacy I m sure will rage on into the next century. We bicker and tear each other apart when we want the same thing. We don t want to be afraid to log on. We don t want to be afraid to have our children log on. There should be a sense of comfort when surfing the net, similar to how one feels when they read the newspaper in the bathroom. We are from that now, but all we need to do is come together. Law makers join with engineers