The Internet Thread. You Bet.

[Anime Forum]

Without the internet, AF wouldn't exist nor would many other things. The internet has positives, but also has obvious negatives. I could list them all, but Im sure most users of the internet know the ups and downs of it. What is your opinion on the internet? Has it changed you? Discuss.

[nslay]

We're still learning how it can be used. In the past 10 years, all sorts of new uses of the Internet have emerged, such as Social Networking, Blogs, File Sharing, One-click hosting (File lockers), "Cloud", etc...

Computing is still in its infancy and you can expect some big changes in the next 10 years.

However, more pressing, is that the Internet is turning into the biggest spy platform ever imaginable and with more services migrating to the Internet (all the way to even starting your car), governments and companies can know almost anything about you and what you're doing.

You're being tracked almost all the time, mostly by companies you've never even heard of. Even if you avoid using Google services, for example, almost every site (at least those I frequent) features Google Ads. This allows Google, for example, to construct a very detailed web history for you (by cookie or IP address).

There is a really neat plugin for Firefox called Collusion that demonstrates this kind of tracking:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/collusion/

It's not very useful, but it is kind of neat to watch.

On top of that is the emergence of applications of Machine Learning and Data Mining algorithms in the past decade. This kind of technology can take numerous pieces of information about you (e.g. from tracking, social networks, etc...) and can make predictions about you (e.g. your preferences). This is used, for example, to return more relevant search results (e.g. in Google or Netflix) or to serve better advertisements. It has legitimate uses, but it can paint an accurate picture about you which is kind of creepy.

The worst part about all of this is that it is usually packaged into a trendy, powerful, software or service. The user sees a tool or service that solves their specific problem and the developer sees a tool that can collect valuable information about the user. But people seldom think about the latter.

Take Google Earth, for example. It is powerful for navigation and just random exploration (especially with satellite images). But what better way to know peoples' favorite vacation spots, restaurants, friends' houses, place of employment, home address, etc ... ?

How about Facebook?

And these services are slowly grinding away our privacy expectations. I can imagine people in the 1990s being horrified of the kind of exposure we find to be normal now. It started with a basic profile with name, age, e-mail, friends, then came pictures, picture tagging, statuses, comments, likes, personality, etc ...

Add cell phones into the mix. I think, Android, for example, is an elaborate spyware platform. My gosh, a lot of the free applications need access to irrelevant information. Why would a task killer application need to know your location or read your address book? That's ridiculous!

Lastly, I'm a big opponent of the everything on the Cloud. It is not a new idea. The notion of utility computing (like gas or electricity service) has its roots in the 1960s with MULTICS. And it makes sense in the days when computers were the size of rooms and so expensive only companies and governments could afford them. You would have a cheap terminal (like a monitor with a keyboard) in your home to a big super powerful super expensive mainframe. But with the emergence of personal computing, you have powerful hardware that is cheap, compact and portable. So what problem does it really solve? Well there is synchronization which can be convenient (e-mail, calendar, etc...). If you're a company (like a game company or movie company), you might like to use the cloud model to protect your intellectual property. Or maybe you're an Ad compnay (like Google) and you'd like to harvest information about users (e.g. with ChromeOS, the Big Brother of computing!). I find the latter two reasons deplorable and I have a lot of faith that consumers won't buy into this idea for all applications (as was imagined).

And why does all of this matter? Should you ever have a Facebook page, for example, featuring pictures, or comments, or anything in disagreement with a recruiter or hiring manager (or even your manager), you could lose an opportunity (or your job). Political and religious affiliation or comments can definitely play a big role. Privacy is important because people are naturally opinionated and judgmental.

Or lets say, Google, offered a personal information service or a background screening service in the future where you could buy information about an individual. This probably won't happen, but what could stop them?

Or how about, an organization or government hacking into Facebook and stealing information about users?

Maybe the latter two scenarios are extreme. But it's certainly something to think about.

In my opinion, there will be some big lawsuit over privacy and some big reforms in privacy law in the next couple of decades. It'll be epic.

[Kumagawa]

it ruined my life

[IluvAllison]

I think, in ways it is ruining my life, having a computer and internet nearby me. But in other ways it is also helping me.

[abcdefgh12345678]

The internet is everything. Without it, I'd feel like I was dead.

[GameGeeks]

The internet is everything. Without it, I'd feel like I was dead.

That's just sad, really sad.

[Ranshiin]

That's just sad, really sad.

Someone should turn that into his user title. "Without the Internet, I'm nothing." QQ. lol.

[GameGeeks]

Someone should turn that into his user title. "Without the Internet, I'm nothing." QQ. lol.

Would, but got no gil.

[ghostthegreat]

I love the internet for the research part. I want to look up the closest town to Sydney? Boom done. And a picture? No problem. On the other hand, when you look at it from a writing perspective, I kinda long for those days of paperback/hardcover books being the only means of being published. Back then, you couldn't just upload your book to Amazon. All in all, I do love the internet.

[GuiltySpark]

love it

[Ribbon]

These my personal pros and cons of the internet:
+ A good tool for school projects and assignments.
+ Lets me meet awesome people from around the world.
+ Anime. (:
+ I save money on music, movies and t.v series that I would
normally have to purchase.
+ Shopping online can be much cheaper. (:

- It's addictive and takes up a lot of my time.
- Discourages me from going outside and playing sports.
- It distracts me from homework.
- Because of social networking, I am constantly surrounded
by people. Sometimes I would like to be alone in my own thoughts.

I think that's about it...

[LILBTHEBASEDGOD]

I created the Internet.

Lil' B

[Ensifer]

The Internet may pose some problems but they are mainly down to human error. People complain that the internet is "taking up their time" or some other excuse but truly, it is them who are "taking up their time" by being on it. I adore the Internet, without it I wouldn't be able to see the beloved anime that we all enjoy, socialize with other folk, watch pointless videos on YouTube, download MMOs; the list goes on.

[Forbichi]

Its addictive, but it brings alot of fun things your way. Games and whatever you like.

It takes up a lot of time but it can also do good things for you. Like my sister who got a good grade on a subjects she's terrible at. Because some guy on youtube makes vids talking about the core of each paragraph. Its things like this that make the internet so interesting.