Final Thoughts

Ladies and gentlemen as a nation we as individuals can not afford to loose our nations identity and infrastructure, as humans we will require online communication it give us a essential element in our daily busy lifestyle,  we really need to be self aware of future shock of the oncoming events because they at the momment are presenting a tidal wave if they come into fruition.

With over a million users now actively using the Internet in Australia for communications purposes, it is a viable ecology, yet we can not afford to let this ecology be affected by ‘Net Neutrality’, or we will be dealing with a very similar situation to what was portrayed Terminator 3 closing scene, where Jon Connor was in the communications bunker at Crystal Peak, he was standing in front of the older computer equipment, and people calling over the radio, is any body out there?  is anybody reading me? we can yet afford Internet 1 to become a waste land via our ignornance towards developing nations

We can not afford to turn a blind eye to our freedoms of communication and exchanging information between each other, it is also a vital point of understanding the true freedom of information, I am worried about Australia’s Internet Future primarly because, currently we have world issues that evolve around oil supply, everything is linked to money and costs factors.

The mere fact that Oil could raise to $400.00 a barrell, how will your company survive? How will the Government of Australia react to this prospect.

To me it seems that one major aspect of this unit is that people fail to forget, that data costs money, many people forget to understand that we pay a little contribution towards the Internet as it is in our daily lives, we need it to  have a affective lifestyle.

I will leave you with this question to think about, are we turning a blind-eye towards information and communication?  

Thanks for your time, I would like to thank Cynthia and the rest of my Net 11 Students, it has been a pleasure to have such in depth discussions on the discussion board and thanks for all the email’s guys it has been great.

God Bless and Good Luck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Module Five

Module 5: Info-Communication Concepts

With considering the implications of Module Five in a reflective manner I shall try and answer each componant in a interesting manner that may include referencing material to provide a solid aspect of the questions.

• How might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?
• How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?
• Why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

 

A) How might the metaphor of an ‘ecology’ impact on the way you think about, understand or use the Internet?

Affectively establishing an understanding towards the questions requires you to develop a understanding of what the term ecology really means and what reflective aspect does it have on Internet Studies in the manner of how and what does it truely mean when being a part of the Internet and how does the ecology evolve. Ecology when looking up the term means:-

1. a. The science of the relationships between organisms and their environments. Also called bionomics.

    b. The relationship between organisms and their environment.

2. The branch of sociology that is concerned with studying the relationships between human groups and their physical and social environments. Also called human ecology.

3. The study of the detrimental effects of modern civilization on the environment, with a view toward prevention or reversal through conservation. Also called human ecology.

As mentioned in Module 5, the direct interpretation of Information ecology is :-

“We define an information ecology to be a system of people, practices, values, and technologies in a particular local environment. In information ecologies, the spotlight is not on technology, but on human activities that are served by technology.”(Nardi & O’Day, 1999)

It is essential at first to understand the definition of ecology in this post to enable how ecologies change and there is a similar pattern that develops with regards to the Internet, that also develops in other ecologies.  It has a definite relationship to the question of what is Internet Ecology.

The metaphor ‘ecology’ does have an impact on the way you think about or understand and use the Internet on a daily basis. As the Internet evolves it develops similary the constraints to the evolution aspect that happens in the sea which is a sad development that ecologies are meant surive and not decrease in size by sustain growth. Communication, is one aspect of developing online ecology,  but communication may cause more issues and succesfully destroy’s the Internet habitat via people not fully understanding the methods and the design of the Internet.  We must comprehend changes in the not to distant future, e.g. ’net neutrality’ and aspects of it may cause fundamental flaws to develop in online ecology habitat’s, and it will be a very dangerous step in creating a man made world wide tital wave that will crash the information ecology that is now succesfully being developed by many countries.

When considering what is now online, our ecology environments such as Telstra’s Broadband is considered the BigPond, and they use this as a sales term to describe their service; within this service you have users, who on a daily basis interact on different parts of the Internet as a system to communicate. This is a very viable ecology, as the users grow and enhance their abilities on learning and adapting towards the information revolution. When considering this ISP as the big pond, the users, come and go but the environment produces enough sustainable growth in order to keep the services a float. But regulations and agreements the services flourishes daily and it allows a healthy relationship built up with a succesful customer base. 

How might the word ecology, have a impact on this situation?

The enviroment is a user-based environment which has rules and guidelines that depict what the capabilities of the user can do, when looking at the Oceans laws of the sea it is very similar. We can actively say the rules for created ecologies stipulate what is allowed and what is not allowed, the environment grows as people leave and join and the growing environment and it will be guided by specific rule structure that is developed by Telstra. Humans will interact via ip adresses and communicate in many different aspects and ways that  allow them to enjoy their online exprience.

How can this  structure be damaged?

Viewing the ecology of the developed structure on Telstra’s BroadBand Products, you can actively see that if new regulatory guidelines constantly get established have a minimal effect on the userbase because the company still get’s users joining daily for the Internet experience. Disgruntled users have the capability of joining other broadband infrastrucutre like Optus,IINET and so on.  If all Internet Service providers were effected by a dramaticly revised form regulation such as ‘Net Neutrality’ which is currently being tested in Canada, growth of product and development structure of user base would be affected and would suddenly decrease as the detrimental effects would start to take affect on the user database. Therefore the Australian Internet ecology would be affected by outside means that cause a detrimental effect on the users(organisms) of the information environment.

You can take this  one step further,  and compare Internet ecology to the Oceans of the World remembering that they are protected by maritime laws. Internet is a broad aspect of many different parts and functions and many nations allow their users to actively participate and actively communicate on a broad spectrum via Technological advanced means. Design flaws  allow for many issues to develop in the Internet ecology, for such as pollution effects our oceans easily effects the fishing and bird life, therefore the overflow of information develops into information pollution and the effects of this are so obvious on the current aspect of Internet 1.   Ecology needs to constantly grow in order to achieve sustainability, yet people will come and go on a daily basis, but the Governments of this World need to take on the regulatory requirements and remember that the Freedom of Information is the only key to success in any growing environment. Take away the freedom of information and you will be disrupting the ecology and causing a ripple effect that would be equal to an atom bomb,  that will lead to a destructive measure that will damage the internet as a communication tool.

Ecology of the Australian Internet needs the organisms(humans) to flourish online and learn and develop with the communication tools that are available. Being allowed to be online is a privilege to our nation and the ecology behind this needs to be protected by the Australian Government or we will suffer greatly as a nation. We can not afford methods of Net Neutrality to become a part to our way of life or our way of thinking or as a component to the Australian Internet Ecology, we must look at these keys of success as they are vital components to the success of the Internet, like the fish in the Ocean are vital for our own life.

B) How are the concepts ‘information’ and ‘communication’ understood within the framework of an ‘information ecology’?

When understanding concept 12 you can see that that information is reliant on the communication processes in order to live and be maintained, and that there are developing humanistic and socialistic values behind the real processes of what users do on the Internet and online activities. We must view information and communication as the individual components that encapture themselves into the framework of information ecology as they are what forms the ecology, they are the parts of it that give it life. These parts are essential towards growth and development of online activivities. Each specific part has it’s own role to play online and it drives the Internet, and then creates alternative paths and routes for people to develop into and understand,  Information provides a valueable source of food whilst communication can be considered the tool towards encapturing where the information is.

C) Why don’t we talk of a ‘communication ecology’?

Because ‘communication ecology’ is limited in it’s development, as it is the task of what people’s do online, communication with others. We need the information online in order to survive and understand what is happening on a daily basis, without information. There would be no purpose to online activities except congregation, therefore millions of systemless systems and nobody doing anything much except sitting their like stunned mullet. Information is the key essential part towards online growth and it gives the ability to enhance people and businesses towards new postive directions and understandings in order to enable them to succesfully grow. Information and communication need each other to surive.

Case Study: Peer to Peer

P2P refers to a ‘file sharing’ system that operates between peers.

Understanding peer to peer, the word reminds me of two computers working together like on LAN(L)ocal (A)rea (N)etwork reminds of one computer spying on the other in order to accomplish the tasks at hand, peer to peer is a very interesting topic that revolves around one word that comes to mind, is the Napster Revolution. Napster was a company that was developing a technology that would enable users to share music,video,sound,pictures online for free by sharing the information across the world. This developed into series of court cases that later developed into more people getting into serious trouble as Napster sufferred in the hands of the courts.

When contemplating the word suffered in the hands of the courts, I don’t condone the fact that Peer to Peer networks were originally established in order to breach copyright laws by providing free content that would essential take away the rights of the material from such companies as Universial Studios. Major businesses lead to the downfall of Napster. I see this whole episode as yet another flaw in Internet design where the major players never got off there hind legs and woke up to the Internet Revolution that was occurring right before there eyes. They waited for the community to get the ideas flowing and when they pounced on it to draw a quick dollar from them.

Companies are definitely at fault with regards to the downfall of the Napster Revolution and firms involved with the complaint are equally to blame as Napster was, because they decided to challenge these high rollers in court action. The firms that took on Napster should have been prepared for future shocks of Internet impact as it grew in the United States they were not prepared for the future shock that resulted in the negative output towards their company being attacked by online sources, it would have been a perfect plan to establish there own form of online peer networks at a cost, yet this gentleman went out on his own towards establishing it.

Copyright is a major concern in all peer to peer networks because people still frequently love to send files around the world, their are many different aspects of tracking and tracing these people in order to control this aspect of security breach but law enforcement can only act on known suspects, many firms do conduct online audit’s of users activities and deal with the people there and then via breach’s of AUP.

Preparing for ‘future shock”

The advanced Internet user cannot afford to become complacent in tracking these shifts – understanding the Internet is an active, dynamic and ongoing process which requires engagement with, and reflection upon, the myriad of forces and perceptions which will shape the future of the net.

Clearly understanding this as a normal user, you must be prepared for the incoming changes to what developments and advancements in technology that do occur, in order to move with the time, we have gone from Black and White Televison’s into Full Color 1080dpi Televisions, we have advanced and we have become prepared for the changes. We must understand what the requirements are, but the fact is it works two ways, we as a nation can be affected by some many different aspects of change that will interfere with the developing nation. We should be more concerned with the development of our networks, yet alone controlling the regulatory factor behind it with such mundane ideas as net neutrality.

Net Neutrality at the momment is the future shock that may await our country and many developing countries development into succesful broad band infrastructure. I use the term may await because not to much is known of the facts of ‘net neutrality’, should we be scared of this change? Simply put no, because the beneficial element of this change will cause a devastation online that would be equal to millions of users suddenly not wanting Internet any further in this country; so the future shock of ‘net neutrality’ really depends on how the Government and big business looks into the implementation of the idea, and comparing the idea towards other countries model’s.

From Module Five, some of the known ‘Future Shock’ developments include:

• Further penetration of broadboand
• Increasing delivery of multimedia – video, voice etc;
• Increasing security & authentification – smartcards, digital signatures etc
• Wifi / portable computing / communication devices
• Intelligent agents
• Semantic web

Technolgical Developments have implications on all of us, I would consider smarter ways to log in online if they were presented in a manner that was acceptable towards me. That would not include various factors of a RFID smart chip inplanted inside a human in order to make it a smarter alternative towards authentication.

Preparation is a definite key to understanding how the future develops, as you are a online information warrior, one key for surival is to always being prepared for change and developments of your online activities, but remember this line “there is no fate but what we make for ourselves”, because it really has a bearing on your online activities and online development over-time.

As I have been the ‘Net Neutrality’ talker on the forums, I will just say that my time in this land of cyberspace will finish if this function comes into reality, I will not stay or play a part in any role of the destruction or interferences of the freedom of informations and we all have our own roles to play in the protection and the future of Internet 1. No company or Government has the right to illegally profit by control measures, I personally am worried about this talk on ‘Net Neutrality’? Yes, primary reason it is a destructive mechanism to ecology of what Internet 1 is about and that is Freedom of Information.

Internet 2

“The incubator for many of the emerging technologies that are shaping the future is known as Internet2 . Formed in 1996 and administered by the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), Internet2 is a partnership between universities, corporations and government agencies. … Internet2 is a not a single network, but a consortium of hundreds of high-speed networks linked by fiber optic backbones that span the United States and and link to other countries. It transmits data at speeds up to 2.4 gigabits per second–45,000 times faster than a 56 Kbps modem…”(Lerner, M)(1996-2008)

Since I have been online I have seen a lot of websites promoting different products that seem to be the answer to everyones problem, then broadband showed up on the street, I was soon connected to Optus cable and my needs were met with the cost factors being easy and accesible to all consumers. With the current construction of the consortium with regards to the NBN being built and developed in Australia to see Kevin Rudds dream of everyone having capabilities in the Digitial Economy, I still see that Internet 2 will just still be what it is today; a educational tool for the development of structured networks within the countries of  China and the Americas.

Taking into consideration the technology involved and understanding the website, I have actually viewed this website many times over my years on broadband, the ideas of it are still in it’s beginner stage but the development of it may lead to succesfully developing a network capable of reaching everyones home in the future, which I guess is Kevin Rudd’s dream, but is Australia prepared for the future shock involved with this development?

When comparing the developments of the Napster Revolution and how big business was not prepared for the future shock that is existing. Is this country really prepared for the development and the ideas that are surrounded by Internet 2, with the way the current telecommunications are taking their time at constructing the NBN, I dare say it has not even been considered.

 

References :-

Nardi as a ecological system, Curriculum Module 5 retrieved August 27 2008, (Nardi & O’Day, 1999)

Allen M (n.d) Net 11 Curricullum Module 5. Retrieved August 27th 2008.

Lerner, M (1996-2008). Learn the Net: The future of the Internet. Retrieved August 27, 2008, from Learn the Net:Future of the Internet Web site: http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/03future.htm

‘Net Neutrality’

http://www.google.com/help/netneutrality.html

Pollick , Michael (2003 – 2008 ). http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-net-neutrality.htm. Retrieved August 28, 2008, from http://www.wisegeek.com/ Web site: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-net-neutrality.htm