hi all
a re-post of a re-minder
janet
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Internet Identities - Who Are We?
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The miraculous medium which is the Internet provides access to
unprecedented communication on a global scale. On a personal
scale, I discovered the PARKINSN listserv support group on-line in
July 1995. Both events, going on-line and finding a Parkinson's
Disease (PD) support group, changed my life.
The Upside: I can now lay claim to a PD cyber-family whose members
are contributors to several PD forums on-line. The Downside: I
have discovered Internet 'games' - hoaxes, viruses, flames, spam,
and multiple identity syndrome. This is still an uncontrolled
frontier, after all.
A brief history. The Internet was created in 1972 for some USA
government agencies and universities; it was 'free' and limited to
plain-text-based E-mail messaging. And the games began: E-mail
anonymisers entered the scene (begging the question: When does
'anonymising one's E-mail address' morph into 'protecting one's
privacy' and 'concealing one's identity'?)
After the World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in 1991, photographic
images became WWW-viewable and Internet-transferable. In fact,
pornography, much of it illegal around the world, comprised the
bulk of the initial traffic on the WWW. 'Chat rooms' and 'avatar
games' where identities are re-invented as a given part of the
'action', and which had been popular in the text-based Internet
world, now flourished.
Enter the general public of the global village, you and I, who
want to look up information for homework assignments, or buy a
book at amazon.com, or check out the hurricane warning, or locate
long lost relatives, or share inspiration via a web site, and who
don't necessarily understand what kind of world they are surfing
into.
Anonymity can be used to share ideas, emotions, and information
without racial, religious, disability, lifestyle, or economic
'factors' getting in the way. Anonymity can also be used to
manipulate and deceive with apparent impunity.
It pays to be circumspect: I would never walk into Central Park
(say) and sit down on a bench donated by Columbia University (say)
and lay my emotional self bare to a stranger who simply happens to
wear a nametag declaring "Hi! I'm Joe and I have PD!", just as I
would never leave my grandson in the care of a stranger wearing a
nametag claiming "Hi! I'm Joe and I am a babysitter!"
Caveat Emptor (Buyer Beware) pertains here. Most of the WWW forums
and chat rooms and website services are free; if we pay nothing
for a service, we need to be cautious about how we use it,
especially in this market-driven society of ours. Which brings me
to the concept of a market-driven WWW.
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 potential
pitfalls. When telephones were a relatively new technology, some
were abused; I worked for the phone company way back when,
advising customers on handling obscene or harassing calls. Caller
ID and other techno-advances have transformed that scourge into a
virtual antique. (Telemarketers are the new version, but
technology is catching up with them too.)
The difference between the telephone communications networks and
the Internet and WWW communications networks is that the users,
you and I, pay hard cash for every aspect of telephone service. In
a sense, those transactions form the basis of our 'id' or
'password' or entitlement. I suspect that future Internet users
will have to ante up something similar, maybe in the form of a
combination Internet-identity-passport-cashcard.
My cyber-hint for today? If you join an on-line PD forum, I
recommend sharing telephone numbers and telephone calls as part of
getting acquainted. My telephone number and my E-mail address have
been plastered all over the Internet for the past two years. I
have never received a harassing or obscene phone call; there is
nothing to fear but fear itself; trust me!
Do not necessarily suspect all, but do be circumspect with all.
The medium may not bring the message we expect, but it is still a
miracle, in my humble opinion.
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as published in the Parkinson Paper, Volume 25, Issue 2, May 2002
newsletter of the Parkinson's Society of Ottawa-Carleton
1053 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 4E9
Tel: 613 722 3241
Janet Paterson
Menber Editorial Commitee
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updated 2003/02/11
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janet paterson: an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit primarily perky, parky
pd: 56-41-37 cd: 56-44-43 tel: 613-256-8340 email: [log in to unmask]
my newsletter: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newvoicenews/
my website: http://www.geocities.com/janet313/
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