The big web continues!

In ICT, change is the only constant thing, everything else is always the same but with little or no semblance at all from yesterdays, last month’s let alone yesteryear’s appearance and capabilities. If at all they appear the same, look closely for the differences are in the similarities and the constants of change have caused the changes in similarities to the extent that what appears the same is in truth different. In ICT, trends are differently the same!
After the presentation of the paper describing the basic design of the Internet and TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) in September 1973 by Kahn and Vinton Cerf, the speed of progress towards the Internet as we know it today appeared to accelerate at an alarming rate. In 1975 packet radio networks were tested in San Francisco. TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) was incorporated in distributions of Berkeley Unix by Bill Joy at the request of DARPA, creating great collaboration in the academic scientific research community. In 1977 Theorynet was created to link researchers via commercial networks like Telenet by Larry Landweber of the University of Wisconsin. In order to help manage the DARPA Internet program as well as act as a sounding board for DARPA’s plans and ideas, the Internet Configuration Board (ICCB) was established, obviously by DARPA in 1979. In the same period, Landweber met with university researchers, the National Science Foundation (NSF), and DARPA to explore the creation of a “computer science research network” which was named CSNET. 1979 was to be an eventful year with the creation of USENET, a “poor man’s ARPANET,” by Tom Truscott, Jim Ellis and Steve Belovin, to share information via e-mail and message boards between Duke University and the University of North Carolina, using dial-up telephone lines and the UUCP protocols in the Berkeley UNIX distributions. The following year, the US Department of Defense adopted the TCP/IP protocol suite as a standard. 1982 marked the tipping point with all hosts connected to ARPANET being required to convert to the new TCP/IP protocols by January 1, 1983 with the interconnected TCP/IP networks being generally known as the Internet. The progress did not end in 1983, but has been an on-going process with the turn of each year edging us closer to a better Internet accessible by all. It should be noted that from the beginning, the intended purpose of Internet was to facilitate research and not commerce or the generation of profits. In fact until 1991, commercial enterprise on Internet was strictly prohibited. Other notable events related to the Internet have taken place and continue to take place and these notes are rather inconclusive and cannot be exhaustive as change and progression are imminent.
As with all creations of man, there should be a case for and a case against this generally necessary evil. Was the end product what was envisioned and is it without consequence? It goes without say that Internet has brought with it more good than evil and its benefits far outweigh its demerits but what are the merits and demerits for truly, the Internet can create havoc, destruction and its misuse can be very fatal.
Advantages

Communication:
In this area, Internet has excelled beyond expectations though innovations are going on to make it faster, more reliable and cost effective. With the convergence of Internet and computers, the world has become “smaller” to the end that one can traverse across the globe in a matter of minutes if not seconds. With embedded technologies such as e-mail, people situated miles away, can communicate almost instantaneously. Major advances have been made in other embedded technologies such as instant messengers and more recently voice over internet protocol technologies with products such as G-talk and Skype making big waves on the scene. With the help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts, can explore other cultures of different ethnicity or even conduct business with someone who is geographically far away from you.

Information
Information is probably the biggest advantage Internet is offering. The Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet. The search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN are at your service on the Internet. You can almost find any type of data on almost any kind of subject that you are looking for. There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subject known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, the list is endless. Education and research are the most assisted spheres with major changes and future focus’s showing that emerging trends are that the long established forms have been greatly affected in favor of Internet and computer assisted research and learning. The medical domain has also been affected as almost every coming day, researches on medical issues become much easier to locate. Numerous web sites available on the net are offering loads of information for people to research diseases and talk to doctors online at sites such as, America’s Doctor. It comes as no surprise that during 1998 over 20 million people reported going online to retrieve health information.

Entertainment
Entertainment is another popular raison d'être why many people prefer to surf the Internet. In fact, media of internet has become quite successful in trapping multifaceted entertainment factor. Downloading movies, music, games, visiting chat rooms or just surfing the Web are some of the uses people have discovered. There are numerous games that may be downloaded from the Internet for free. The industry of online gaming has had dramatic and phenomenal attention by game lovers. Chat rooms are popular because users can meet new and interesting people. In fact, the Internet has been successfully used by people to find friends or lifelong partners. When people surf the Web, there are numerous things that can be found. Music, hobbies, news and more can be found and shared on the Internet.

Services
Many services are now provided on the internet such as online banking, job seeking, purchasing tickets for your favorite movies, guidance services on array of topics engulfing the every aspect of life, and hotel and or airline reservations. Often these services are not available off-line and can cost you more.

E-Commerce
Ecommerce is the concept used for any type of commercial maneuvering, or business deals that involves the transfer of information across the globe via Internet. It has become a phenomenon associated with any kind of shopping, almost anything. You name it and Ecommerce with its giant tentacles engulfing every single product and service will make it available at your door steps. It has got a real amazing and wide range of products from household needs, technology to entertainment.

Disadvantages

Theft of Personal information
If you use the Internet, you may be facing grave danger as your personal information such as name, address, credit card number etc. can be accessed by other culprits to make your problems worse.

Spamming:
Spamming refers to sending unwanted e-mails in bulk, which provide no purpose and needlessly obstruct the entire system. Such illegal activities can be very frustrating for you, and so instead of just ignoring it, you should make an effort to try and stop these activities so that using the Internet can become that much safer. An example could be that of pop-ups which appear when you visit some sites saying that you have won in a competition that you did not participate in.

Virus threat
Virus is nothing but a program which disrupts the normal functioning of your computer systems. Computers attached to internet are more prone to virus attacks and they can end up crashing your whole hard disk, causing you considerable headache.

Pornography:
This is perhaps the biggest threat related to your children’s healthy mental life. A very serious issue concerning the Internet. There are thousands of pornographic sites on the Internet that can be easily found and can be a detrimental factor to letting children use the Internet without adequate supervision and controls put in place. For the mature user, this more often than not has a negative impact on social behavior and the mental wellbeing of the user as addiction is commonly rife.

Addictive:
All things if done to excess can end up proving disadvantageous. The Internet is a very addictive tool as there is so much information, products and services on offer. Its underlying web technology, which means that it more or less does not have a beginning and a defined end, hence one can navigate from one website to another where they are redirected to yet another website until one spirals into a rat race. The convergence of chat rooms and instant messaging as well as voice over internet technologies, are other areas that can prove to be quite obsessive with some users spending as much as 16 hours a day in chat rooms. This then unfortunately has a negative impact on productivity.

“Our present century may not be quite as perilous for the human race as an ice age in the aftermath of a super-volcano eruption, but the next few decades will pose enormous hurdles that go beyond the climate crisis. The end of the fossil-fuel era, the fragility of the global food web, growing population density, and the spread of pandemics, as well as the emergence of radically transformative bio- and nano technologies—each of these threatens us with broad disruption or even devastation. And as good as our brains have become at planning ahead, we’re still biased toward looking for near-term, simple threats. Subtle, long-term risks, particularly those involving complex, global processes, remain devilishly hard for us to manage.
But here’s an optimistic scenario for you: if the next several decades are as bad as some of us fear they could be, we can respond, and survive, the way our species has done time and again: by getting smarter. But this time, we don’t have to rely solely on natural evolutionary processes to boost our intelligence. We can do it ourselves.”
With enough minds, all tomorrows are visible!
“Wherefore seeing we also are encompassed with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us” Hebrews 12 verse 1.