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To: new voice net <[log in to unmask]>,
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From: janet paterson <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 11:16:19 -0500
Subject: internet identities - who are we?

hi all

the internet is 30 years old
it has always been free
it has always been e-mail and plain-text based

not very interesting for
**'stereotype warning'**
the information systems dweebs who ran the computer rooms
in the universities and the american government agencies
where the internet's data bases were mostly located

i do believe that 'spam' was invented around this time
along with other tricks of the bored hackers' trade

e.g. anonymiser programs for 'anonymising' one's email address
i.e. making one's email look like it came from somewhere else
i.e. 'protecting one's privacy'
aka 'concealing one's identity'

20 years later,
when the world wide web was invented,
suddenly images and photographs were easily
wwweb transferable and viewable

the primary use of the wwweb in its early days
was for viewing and sharing pornography of all kinds,
much of it illegal around the world
and for 'chat' rooms and 'avatar' games
where identities are hidden and invented
as a given part of the 'action'

enter the general public of the global village
like you and me
who want to look up information for homework assignments
who want to buy a book at amazon.com
who want to check out the hurricane warning
who want to locate and email long lost relatives
who want to share information and inspiration via a web site

who don't necessarily understand
what kind of world they are surfing into

my old metaphor of the
bench in grand central station still holds

anyone can come and sit on the bench beside me
wearing any name tag at all making any claim at all
and not be expected to 'prove' anything at all

caveat emptor = buyer beware

if we pay nothing for a service
we need to be circumspect about its source
in this market driven society of ours

which brings me to the concept of a market driven wwweb

meshing
a non-commercial entity
which has been geared to anonymity
with
a commercial community
which has to guarantee transaction security above all or fail
has one or two inherent pitfalls

telephones were abused in their early years;
i worked for the phone company many moons ago
and one of my duties there was advising customers
on how to handle harrassing or obscene phone calls

with technology and caller identification options
that scourge is virtually an antique now

[telemarketers are the new version
but technology is catching up with them too]

the difference between the telephone communications networks
and the internet and wwweb communications networks
is
the user
you and me
are paying hard cash for every aspect of telephone service

the cash is a form of id or password or entitlement

i suspect that users of the internet and wwweb
will need to ante up something similar
maybe in the form of
a combination internet-identity-passport-cashcard
which could be a requirement for access to
hey!
support groups like ours

unfortunately
such a 'screening' system
would only limit membership to real '3D' people;

dweebs and hackers could still 'infiltrate'
but only one at a time
and
only using their real names

until then,
be careful out there ...

janet

janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit perky, parky
pd: 54/41/37 cd: 54/44/43 tel: 613 256 8340 email: [log in to unmask]
smail: 375 Country Street, Almonte, Ontario, Canada, K0A 1A0
a new voice website: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/
is your website accessible? http://www.w3.org/WAI/


=====
janet paterson
EMAIL: [log in to unmask]
WEB-SITE: a new voice: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/

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