Last updated: 2/3/2000
Link back to course Welcome

Computers, the Internet, and Society
Agenda for Class 3
2/3/2000

1. Announcements
   1. Do sign-in.
   2. Handouts to bring every week
      1. Windows Common Elements
      2. Internet
      3. Word Processing
      4. Forms of Computer Information
   3. Textbooks. The textbook sales at the Macomb University Center have stopped, and the textbooks are back at the Barnes and Noble campus bookstore. Except for Microsoft Office 95 Introductory Concepts and Techniques, the other three textbooks are also widely available over the Internet and through local bookstores. The texts are listed on the Assignments web page on the course web site.  Microsoft Office 95 Introductory Concepts and Techniques is a different story. I believe that it is only available directly from the publisher, Course Technology, or by special order directly from the publisher. Here is how to contact Course Technology:
      1. Web site (does handle individual sales)
         http://www.course.com
         The ISBN (unique industry-standard identifying number) for this book is 0-7895-0742-0. If you follow the link for "Students at Academic Institutions, you can enter the ISBN and purchase the book on line.
      2. Telephone. Their listed 800 number is 800-648-7450 , but you can also try the MI sales rep, Eric Shotwell, Field Sales Representative, (517) 327-0193. I have not had a lot of luck in getting to talk to Eric, but he has responded to the voice mail I have left. Also, Eric is more of a representative for faculty looking for textbooks than someone involved in selling individual copies, but he can probably tell you the fastest way to get to the right office to buy a copy.
   4. Not here last week? Let me know!
2. Internet New Stories
   1. Selling automobiles online. Web sites such as www.autobytel.com are beginning to sell automobiles online. Users compare large amounts of information between manufacturers and models, select options, arrange financing (if needed) and arrange delivery. By state law in all fifty states, auto sales can only be made by a dealer, so the web site then turns the actual mechanics over to a local dealer, for a commission. Also, all of the manufacturers are trying to set up their own web sites for sales. A business drama will be played out in front of us as dealers see their business and profits endangered, and try to preserve their businesses. According to a recent book (Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy, by Philip Evans and Thomas Wurster, 1999, Harvard Business School Press), here is what is going on: An auto dealership has several parts:
      1. Providing information about different models (no profit in this, but it is necessary)
      2. Providing vehicles for test drives (also no profit, but necessary)
      3. Arranging purchasing and financing (they have competition from banks and other financial institutions for financing)
      4. Preparing the auto and turning it over to the customer (some charges and profits here, but there is a lot of price competition from other dealers here, which keeps profits down)
      5. Servicing autos after they are bought (a lot of competition from service shops here)
      6. Similar services for used cars

      Since some of the operations don't bring in any revenue, so they must be subsidized by the parts that do bring in revenues. This is because a dealer that did not, for example, provide free information about different models would loose almost all of its business. Now, the Internet makes providing information about different models very inexpensive. Much more information can be provided and the prospective customer can choose and configure the information to suit their personal approach. For people who don't actually need a test drive (or who do this at a dealer), the sales can also be faster and provide more options for payments and other details, under the control of the prospective customer. So a web site operator can come in and pick off those parts of the dealer's operation. But all of these services rolled up together are what defined the dealership. If all the dealer does is service orders from a web site, much of their staff and much of their control over the process disappears. The revenues are not there to subsidize the non-revenue aspects The dealership has been "blown to bits." The authors of this book say, "Car dealers are sitting ducks." The end result is known. the main questions are: (a) Do the dealers understand that they are doomed? and do they admit it? (b) Can they retain their monopoly under the state laws? (c) How fast will their businesses fall apart? (d) What parts will they be able to retain, and can they make a profit on these parts?

   2. Access to computers and the Internet. In the State of the Union Address, President Clinton mentioned the Internet three times - once briefly to thank Internet games and TV producers for implementing voluntary standards. The first mention was for connecting all classrooms to the Internet. The last mention was call to close the Digital Divide, the lower rate of computer and Internet usage for African-Americans and Hispanics. In a trial balloon the saturday before the speech, White House staff suggested a $50 million program to support groups that are working to help low-income families get online. Last year, a Commerce Department study found that African-American and Hispanic Americans were 40% as likely to have Internet ascess as white families. Urban families making $75,000 or more are 20 times more likely to have Internet access than the poorest families. rural families are the least likely of all to have access. Having a college education means that you are eight times more likely to have a computer and sixteen times more likely to have an Internet connection, compared to those with only an elementary education. Nick Grouf, CEO of PeoplePC, which sells low cost computer, was quoted as saying that, "Every day that passes, there are children not being exposed to PCs and the Internet. That means they are de facto being left out of the economy 10 to 15 years from now, and that's a very frightening prospect." (New York Times, 1/22/2000 Pg A7 and 1/28/2000 Pg A16). Clinton is also following up on this after the State of the Union Address.
   3. Some people had their anti-pornography blocking software deny them access to Superbowl sites because of the XXX in front of the IV.
   4. A new Internet-related device was mentioned in the New York Times on Thursday, 2/3. The iTag, under early testing, is a device that you can point and click at your radio, or perhaps other objects such as billboards. It will remeber what was being said at the time. Later, you can go to your page on the company's web site and pull up the information.
   5. A new form of Web security leak has been uncovered. Many web sites place "cookies" on your computer when you go to them. Cookies solve a problem for web site designers; they let the web site know that you are the same person who requested information a while ago, and not that other person. This is one way that a web site can have a continuing dialog with you. A cookie is a small file that stores information about your use of the web site, but it is stored on your computer. On subsequent hits, the web site can open your past cookies from that web site and figure out what you did earlier.
      
      Cookies are supposed to be read only by the server that set them, but now it is coming out that there are companies that, when you go to their web site, survery all of the cookies and store the information about your use of the Web. Apparently many health-related sites make use of cookies, and those cookies have health-related information about you. Then, if you go to one of the "spy" web sites, that web site can gather your health-related information. To protect your privacy, as most web sites promise to do, a web site that uses cookies should probably encrypt the information stored there, so that it cannot be read by other web sites.
3. Windows common elements - handout
4. Word Processing - handout
5. Internet
   1. History
      1. The Internet was initially developed in the 1970s in response to US government funding for a secure electronic network. Many people contributed; it is difficult to identify a "father of the Internet". Once the Internet was in place, others started developing applications -- matched client-server pairs that used the Internet for transporting information. The early growth of the Internet was slow, since communications were cumbersome and the applications were not very useful. Continuous improvement and the growing power of computers caused an acceleration in growth. Email and the World Wide Web were the two applications that caused the current phenomenal growth rates, which started in the early 1990s. Some of the early applications were:
         1. Telnet - remote login to run the remote computer
         2. FTP - File Transport Protocol to send files back and forth
         3. Email
         4. Gopher - Early version of the World Wide Web, without graphics, and links could not be in with the information
      2. The World Wide Web was initially developed in 1993. Time Berners-Lee, who was at a European nuclear lab at the time (CERN) is universally given credit for the development. He saw that text with embedded links and a cross-platform protocol would meet many needs and become widely used. Berners-Lee now heads the World Wide Web Consortium or W3C, a representative body headquarted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, which develops the specifications for th HTTP protocol and the HTML markup language. It is so prevalent that many non-experts assume that the Web is the Internet. Actually, it is taking over more and more of the other Internet applications.
      3. The US government initially provided funding and leadership for the Internet. For example, it assigned the domain name monopoly to the company Network Solutions. However, a loose federation of businesses and individuals has always been important in developing the Internet. No one owns the Internet, there is no CEO for the Internet; it is primarily managed by its users. The Internet Engineering Task Force approves changes, but they are implemented by independent operators of the individual routers and gateways. The US government has been busily removing itself from any leadership role. For example, it has turned over the domain name business to a private governing group, the Internet Commission on Assigned Names and Numbers, headed by Esther Dyson, to privatize this function.
         
         The World Wide Web is managed by the World Wide Web Consortium. This group also has no power other than the fact that it is representative and that its standards support the improvement of the Web for its users.
   2. Handout