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2004/02/16 Re-newed Re-vised Re-post: Internet Identities - Who Are We? hi all a re-visioning of a re-post of a re-minder re-newed janet --------------------------------- Internet Identities - Who Are We? 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, parodies, all frequently perpetrated under the umbrella of Multiple Internet 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 then the games began: E-mail anonymisers and re-mailers 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 friends and relatives, or share inspiration and experience 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 or Queen's Park or any Park (say) and sit down on a bench donated no-charge by Columbia University or the University of Toronto or the Massachusetts General Hospital (say) and lay my emotional self bare to a stranger who simply happens to be there and sporting a nametag declaring "Hi! I'm Joe and I have PD!", just as I would never leave my grandson or granddaughter, not to mention my cats, in the care of a stranger wearing a nametag claiming "Hi! I'm Joe and I am a baby- / cat- sitter!" 'Buyer Beware' or maybe 'Money Talks' pertains here. Most of the WWW forums and chat rooms and website services are free; if we pay 'nothing' for a service (e.g. free user names and e-mail at yahoo.com or msn.com or ... ?), 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 (at least I hope it is - where do they get their calling lists from anyway?) 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. (I pay Bell Canada $35.00 every month for the my own phone line and I pay Look Communications [aka Idirect.com] $24.56 every month for access to the internet on an unlimited basis.) In a sense, those payment 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 this month? If you join an on-line PD forum, I recommend sharing telephone numbers and telephone calls as part of getting acquainted with new cyber 'friends'. Despite my telephone number and my E-mail address having been plastered all over the Internet for the past three years, I have not received a single 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. Marshall MacLuhan's famous quote comprised two parts: "The medium is the message and the user is the content". A-men to that! --------------------------------- updated 2004/02/06 originally published in the May 2002 newsletter of: Parkinson Society Ottawa, 1053 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, Ontario K1Y 4E9 Canada janet paterson a new voice ~ www.janetpaterson.net pd: 56-41-37 ~ cd: 56-44-43 ~ tel: 613-256-8340 an akinetic rigid subtype, albeit primarily perky, parky ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn