This relates to the article entitled “The Social Life of Information” but also to what we were discussing in class the other day, about cd or computer disk waste. The article seemed to bring up more questions than it answered. In terms of the music industry, it is very easy to download music from the internet and not have to buy cd’s. And this is usually done illegally, which hurts the music industry. But on the other hand, if people are downloading music onto an mp3 player, which can be used and reused, less cd’s are required, so that may be a reason to embrace this action, because the consequences to the environment are less than if you kept buying cd’s. But people often get blank cd’s and download music onto them, so in effect, the internet may encourage more cd use.
The article talks about the fluidity involved in information exchange, and sugests that musicians should “shift their income streams from products and copyrights (that rely on fixity) to performance (which is fluid)” (pg. 198). Taking this a step further, the fluidity of the internet has had some pros and cons. For instance, the bank ING Direct relies on telecommunications and internet communications for transactions. They do not have a lot of physical buildings in place, but rather they are able to offer a higher rate of interest because they do not have to construct or heat as many buildings, because most of the exchanges occur online or on the phone. On the one hand, this reduces the waste involved in construction of a building, and reduces energy in heating or cooling the building, but on the other hand, does this encourage more computer and phone use? And if banking is leaning towards this approach, instead of relying moreso on paper documents, ultimately we have something less tangible to rely on, and so security becomes a big issue, as was expressed in the article with the vinegar residue on the paper. It limits us from seeing a larger picture, and ironically too, it is allowing us to reach out and learn more about the bigger picture. But check out this news article on internet security: Wireless Net In the future, will we be able to track criminals that use a system that is so versatile and open to loopholes? We will have to keep updating security systems as each new technology becomes more complicated and advanced.
I think software security will be an eternal problem. If we look back in the history all software security technologies that were though to be unbreakable have been broken. Everytime somebody invent a new security technology, somebody find a way to break it. I don’t think it will ever be possible to completely secure the internet. But what is even more scary is that the cryptography technologies that are currently widely use by all financial institutions, government etc… might soon be easily breakable. This could have disastrous consequences. I will do another post about that shortly.
It’s important to note that nothing is ever completely secure. All you can hope to do is give yourself a good chance.
It’s also interesting to note about MP3’s, people who are really into sound quality continually bemoan the loss of quality an MP3 encoding will have. Likewise with people who stand by vinyl over CD’s. What I got out of that article is that the information is more complex than just the words or the sounds. There are definitely intangibles we lose when we change data from one format to another.
I agree that nothing is ever completely secure. It is a good thing that there are some amazing hackers out there. They help keep technology moving forward!