Agenda for Computers, the Internet, and Society, October 28

Last updated: 10/27/03
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Agenda for Class 9 on October 28
(Computers, the Internet, and Society only)

Announcements
1. Essay A due. Floppy diskette or email.
2. Personal web pages due on floppy diskette.
3. Starting October 20 this year, Pipeline will require a current-version or recent-version web browser. You can get free downloads of Netscape 7.1 and Internet Explorer 6 SP1 (Service Pack or Update 1) from support.wayne.edu/allwsu/software/support/index.php (live link on course web site).
4. What you should be working on
  1. Weekly reports - EVERY week, whether we are meeting in class or not
  2. Postings - two per week
  3. Essay A and personal web page due at the next class, October 28.
5. Quiz 2 will be November 11, 60 minutes at the start of class.
6. Topics for Quiz 2 (handout). Includes reading questions for ALL of Release 2.1, even though Quiz 2 on November 11 will only cover Chapters 1 through 5.
Essay 2: Due December 2. This essay should have the same length as Essay 1. For the topic, pick either The Lexus and the Olive Tree or Release 2.1, and choose any two of the topics from the Internet Issues handout. Integrate these two topics into a single subject for your essay, using material from the book you chose. Be sure to tell me in the header at the beginning of your essay, which book and which topics you are writing on. In addition, essay 2 should have the form header, title, introduction, body and conclusion.
PowerPoint (handout)
Potential Internet developments
1. Web Services. Many related corporations view this as the next step after client-server web pages. "Objects" or "agents" will interact on behalf of users, both corporate and private users. An common example is that you will direct your scheduling agent to get in touch with your dentist's scheduling agent, and work out the appointment for your cleaning. Your scheduling agent will consult your schedule and preferences, and the dentist's scheduling agent will see when the dental technicians are available, and each agent will record the appointment in their owner's schedule file and send notices. Presumably owners will also be consulted if there are too many choices, or if there are no available appointments. An article in the New York Times (10/27/03, Business Section Pg C4) says that IBM is developing and pitching Web Services as a more cost-effective way for businesses to use computers- lease the agents and pay only for the services you actually use, instead of buying a whole computer system that does everything. The same article says that Microsoft direction is to give individual users lots of services and let them choose. A subgroup of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working on web services since about 2000.
2. IPV6 (IP Version 6). There will be no real IPV5; We are currently using IPV4 which defines an IP address as four one-byte numbers (a byte is 8 0 or 1 bits, with values from 0 through 255) separated by three dots, for example 141.217.12.23 for the IS web server. Since each of the 32 bits can have a value of 0 or 1, this yields 2³² different IP addresses, or slightly in excess of four billion, for a current world population of slightly over six billion. You would think that with a little bit of sharing, this would be enough. But no, we are actually running out. The largest reason is that each of us will probably end up with many IP addresses, since each electronic device is headed in this direction; telephone, cell phone, cordless phone, pager, computer, laptop, printer, PDA, garage door opener, washing machine (yes!) and more besides. In addition, vending machines, gas pumps and so forth will have IP addresses. IPV6 addresses this by using 16 bytes or 128 bits, for a total number of addresses in excess of 3 followed by 132 zeroes. The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has been developing IVP6 since about 1992.
3. Internet 2. This is a much faster Internet, currently operating at about 1 Gbps, and will ultimately be thousands of times faster than current broadband access. It will not be a new Internet, but an upgrade to the current Internet. The organization Internet2, a University/Industry consortium, is leading development. WSU is part of this. One current development is that Universities are buying up "dark fiber" - optical fiber laid down during the Internet bubble, but not in use.
4. New York Times 10/23/03 Circuits section Pg E8. The PlanetLab organization is developing an Internet infrastructure (routers and gateways) that will be smarter than the present infrastructure. For example, it will be able to detect spikes in traffic into or out of a site that could indicate spam, worms or Denial Of Service attacks. Routers will compare information to detect these attacks, and block them. PlanetLab currently has a testbed network operating over the Internet, with approximately 250 computers.
Encryption or scrambling
1. Uses a key or number to scramble letters - multiply the number by the key, which scrambles the message bits.
2. Symmetric encryption - same key scrambles and unscrambles. Only suitable for personal files, since sending the key to a second party exposes it to interception, and the message to cracking.
3. Asymmetric encryption - different key for scrambling and unscrambling. Public key / private key. RSA. This works because the public and private keys are two factors of a very large number. Cracking the code involves guessing and factoring this number, and factoring is one of the most time-intensive computer operations there is. 40-bit, 128-bit and 500-bit encryption. Can escalate level of protection easily.
4. Certificates and authentication.
5. Online purchasing.
6. Blowfish demo. Unencrypted
  
  This is a demonstration file for encryption, as implemented in Blowfish. Now the file is not encrypted and it can be read by anyone. If there was confidential information in this file, and someone got hold of the computer, they could read the information. Even supposing that the file was pass3word protected, someone could conceivably bypass the encryption part of a program, or use a program that bypassed passwords, and see this information. But if the file itself is encrypted, that still wouldn't do them any good, because they wouldn't be able to read the information even if they could open the file.
  Blowfish encrypts a file using a passphrase that I choose. This is both a password for the decryption part of Blowfish, and the phrase that is used to encrypt with (the encryption key). I will use the passphrase "Baby it's cold outside." In Blowfish, the passphrase is case-sensitive.
7. Encrypted
  
  Ò*&mcœØçShñw'ü_KC‑æˆd%ïeDvèI¸“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õg“7mÌW©õgš]˜~ÛQáW± e¬“d
Discussion of Release 2.1
1. ICANN - The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers - sets standards for assigning Domain Names, the actual work is carried out by private corporations.
2. Markets
  1. Place for buyers and sellers to meet and do business
  2. Needs information and regulation.
  3. Transparency leads to confidence and increased activity
  4. Commerce before markets
  5. Role of money
  6. David's simple market
  7. US market situation for jobs
  8. Russian lack of transparency - Khodorkovsky arrest for economic crimes, but commonly seen as politics
  9. Iraq needs investors, but "capital is a coward" (Secretary of State Colin Powell, earlier)
3. Regulation Vs transparency
4. Anonymity Vs privacy Vs accountability (persistent reputations, publicly available)
5. ISPs as the tie between the Internet and the physical world, to curb many abuses.
6. Dyson writes that the Internet should be regulated by the needs of its users. Parents should have pornography blockers and other methods for protecting their children from Internet pornography, and make personal choices about the level of protection they want. Other firms should have encryption software available at different levels, so that users can choose their level of protection. Same with spam-blockers, antivirus programs, and so forth. Government should have a
7. The recent surges in the number of spam messages, the number of viruses and worms, the Internet vulnerabilities in Microsoft software, Microsoft closing down its chat rooms because of concerns over stalking of children, and even this summer's blackout point to the possibility that the private methods have not worked, and that government needs to step in. There have been recent articles in the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press, for example, describing how people are avoiding using email because of spam.
8. Issues are still important. Much of this is about what it will be like to "live online." Questions will be important even if government does intervene.
Internet
1. Email
2. World Wide Web - single client and single server interaction
Internet - issues / Read the news!
1. Just another technology?
2. Will there be enough jobs for people?
3. Permanent underclass?
4. Racial / ethnic / cultural equality
5. Invasion of privacy
6. Relationships between Employees and Employers
7. Falsifying information and/or the source of information
8. Intellectual property rights
9. Pornography and children
10. Pollution and environmental degradation
11. Dependence and the potential for disasters
  1. Y2K problem
Other computer and Internet news
1. New York Times 10/27/03, Business C4. Online retailers are gearing up for the holidays. A survey by Forrester research says that web commerce is improving. Many corporations have "usability teams" that are beginning to branch out to brick and mortar stores also, for example to make sure that all clerks have maps for advising people who call wanting directions. For example, it is easier to find what you want, and more surfers become customers these days. However, Forrester Research says that many web sites do not show the customer the full range of products that is available, soon enough. As an example, Dell computer sells services, but many of its customers went elsewhere until the web site was redesigned.
2. New York Times 10/22/03 Business Pg C3. Amazon.com is now generating real profits regularly, as a result of price cuts, new product lines (selling online for other merchants) and selling worldwide.
3. New York Times 10/22/03 Arts Pg B1. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says that encrypted video tapes will be provided to voters in the Oscars who are members of the Academy. Recipients will also sign pledges to hold the tapes privately. In the past, up to one-third of movie DVDs provided free to Oscar voters ended up being pirated. Not everyone is satisfied; many of those who hold run-up awards, such as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), would not be elligible since they are not Academy members.
4. New York Times 10/26/03 Business Section 3 Pg 1. Silicon Valley is on the uptick again. Actually, companies that had techies at the helm, instead of MBAs, have a fairly good track record at surviving the bubble. Actual businesses and a real shot at making profits are requirements now.
5. Wired Magazine, November 2003, Leader of the Free World (Pg 152) and Open Source Everywhere (Pg 158). The Linux Operating System (OS) is a good example of the Open Source movement. The Unix OS is also an OS known for its secure and stable operation, and was also an Open Source development. But Unix requires expensive computers, while Linux runs on the much less expensive PC hardware. Now Linux is moving into the business world. The undisputed leader of Linux is Linus Torvalds, its benevolent dictator. Many people suggest improvements and additions to Linux, and write and submit the code as well. Torvalds decides what goes and what stays. He retains this authority, even though there are thousands of people working on Linux (IBM advertises that it has 7,000 alone), because everyone involved agrees that he is fair and wants the best for Linux users. The second article describes the spread of Open Source outside of computer programming. There are three ideals listed:
  1. Share the Goal. Open Source works when a large group of people agree that a problem exists, and agree on what is needed to solve it.
  2. Share the Work. Break the project into smaller pieces that individuals can work on. there must be an integration and review process that has legitimacy in the eyes of the contributors.
  3. Share the Result. Anyone can contribute to any aspect of the project, and use the entire result, even to make money, which is even encouraged.
6. Some of the advantages claimed for Open Source are
  1. Product developed by users, so it is what users want.
  2. Each section is reviewed and improved by many people, so that mistakes are more likely to be caught.
  3. Development is often by volunteers.
7. Some of the other types of Open Source projects are
  1. Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia (www.wikipedia.com) named after software originally used in its production.
  2. SETI@home, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, where volunteers offer their computers for scanning spectra during periods when they are not used.
  3. The Open Textbook Project (starting up) to develop free textbooks.
  4. The Human Genome Project was a collaboration that cracked the human genome, and is moving on to other species.
  5. Project Gutenberg, which digitizes classic texts.
8. An example of problems that can be created by proprietary approaches is described. Biotechnology companies patent many of their results. The result is, according to the article, a maze of patents that can block each company from work it would normally be doing. Much of this work is also critical for underdeveloped countries, many of which see it as the key to increasing agricultural production and controlling starvation and malnutrition. An Open Source project (Cambia) built a open database of 300,000 patents, which is now necessary even for the patent-holders. The collaboration is developing gene transfer methods that will move beyond the patented ones and, it is claimed, be better.
Personal web page
1. Get all files together in the same folder - pictures, etc. This will result in relative URLs and links using filenames only, not folders. This means that you can check the links on your own PC, then upload them to the web site and the links will still work
  1. In Netscape, choose File / Open File in Browser... or in Internet Explorer File / Open...
2. Use Netscape Composer unless you have and know some other application
3. File name for personal web page should be (first initial and full last name).htm