1:08 PM
Bhautik Joshi
Controlling Internet ?I was watching a NDTV Debate show ast night, The Big Fight, on how internet can be controlled and if yes, who should control it.The internet has grown by leaps and bounds today; controlling this medium of communication is practically not feasible for anyone. The internet itself has grown today because of contributions of web pages set up by users across the world, in the movie matrix, the father of the Matrix, or the creator, creates a program called Agent Smith, he then realizes that this program has grown so strong that it has overtaken his own creation, and here Agent Smith is the Villain in the movie, the same way its not easy to control something which you have created and it spreads with contributions from people around the world, its going to grow to infinity.
Today in USA RIAA is fighting hard against music piracy, targeting P2P services encouraging music piracy, but every time one loophole is closed, a new emerges unnoticed, and grows fast amongst internet users till the time is tracked down a lot of damage is already done, Kids not only have access to internet, but also to mobiles, even here a kid is exposed to dangers of pornography, these days small time mobile shops load such x-rated stuff for dirt cheap rates, in my experience of using internet for last year 9 years, when I started surfing the internet as a teenager, I have seen both the bright and dark side of the net.
The whole movie industry around the world is suffering losses to movie piracy, they have tried out ways to curb piracy by trying new methods, like the Warner Brothers offering movie downloads on their site the day DVD’s for recently released titles are brought out in market, sites like Netflix have also made attempt towards encouraging people to watch movies online on rental basis. Still you will find cam prints of movies available to download, clips for mobiles and so on and on and on….
People today have gone so sick, that I have seen, boyfriends and husbands posting obscene clips of their wives and girl friends on sites and forums, its not just one DPS scandal, or the Baazee scam anymore, such clips are flowing from city to city and from towns to towns on mobiles across the country.
I such scenario asking an ISP or even in that case Mobile Operator to act as a watchdog on its users is not feasible and they are not going to take it, as everyone knows today Sex sells, internet users are no longer interested just in browsing or chatting, file transfers, movie and music downloads is also a factor of interest which fuels internet connection growth. So it’s like asking a doctor to cure a disease, whereas if the disease is going to get eradicated the existence of doctor would be endangered.
Today I don’t find it surprising to hear that some 10 or 11 year old kid or even in that case maybe a 8 year old kid watching porn, or reading porn stuff, earlier access to these kind of material was only through print medium, and VHS tapes of such movies were secretly being sold in some movie parlours, or B-grade flicks being shown in small time cinema, but now modes of communication have evolved, access to such material is becoming very easy, if we talk about programs like net nanny and host of other software’s available today to block such objectionable content, a kid would be smart enough to find a crack to these software’s, every thing that is being innovated in technology or for internet, a way to find its crack or to detect a loophole by which the whole intent of devising such tools goes in vain.
Recently there was a case against the site Myspace.com which is another community site, where a kid was abused by some prankster, since then the site has taken necessary precautionary measures to stop such events.
There is a community of the people of Underground who also run the internet; these are people who belong to a anonymous community who cannot be tracked so easily or prosecuted, even if their sites are hunted down, they would change their server locations the next day with a new site address, so its becomes difficult to track down such people.
Coming to control of blogs, yes they do require some code of conduct, and yes the blogger community can itself setup such code of conduct with a common consensus, which alerts people intending to blog some kind of crap material and encourage freedom of expression for genuine bloggers. Even I have my own blog, at times I feel that even I should vent out my anger on my boss, the political system, or even at times my mind has being clouded by communal thoughts, but I know my blog would never be the right place to express my feeling, This could be correct if I am writing it down in my own personal diary, which is personal to me, but a blog is my personal thought window for the world to open it and explore my thoughts which comes in the category of a public broadcasting media. It’s here where your thoughts can provoke someone, hurt somebody.
Coming to the issue of national security, i would like to share a incident of a guy in UK who accidentally stumbled upon NASA website’s restricted zone and found some material related to UFO’s which has now landed him into trouble, here’s a site:http://freegary.co.uk, where people in UK are signing petitions for Gary to be tried in UK instead of USA and prevent any kind of life sentence for him.
You can read the interview with
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/internet/0,71182-0.html?tw=wn_story_page_prev2
National security is definitely a crucial issue, and any trespassing that happens digitally through internet on this restricted domain, it needs to be tracked down and yes, if some one accidentally happens to get into such restricted zones, where he is not supposed to move around, do not prosecute them, just leave them with a warning after doing necessary checks.
Also such restricted zones should be well protected on the internet, not be made available even accidentally to civilians.
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So when it comes to putting boundaries on internet content, one needs to call in a geek who lives on internet day in day out, ask him what to block and what not to block, he would be a better advisor compared to some advisor to the communication minister, who would have read some cyber law books and is away from the practical world.
It is true that with all big discoveries in human history, every big invention has being both a boon and bane to our society, its humans who are inventors of such innovations, and the human race also has a dark side, which cannot be destroyed or controlled, it’s within you... And only you can control it.
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