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Showing posts with label the internet of everything. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the internet of everything. Show all posts

Monday, December 26, 2016

Is the Internet the Garden of Eden or God?





For decades, the internet has provided everyone from professors to trivia experts instant access to information.

What once was,

The internet is molded in our likeness...
The internet flows with falsehoods...
The internet is nebulas a formless ghost of the past, present, and future...

In the beginning, there was darkness -

...and then there was light...

Connecting the world's computers offered us access to just about any 'fact' we could imagine - in theory, anyone could connect with the source of research, witness news as it happened, or form an opinion based on available information.


In the days before 'shells', the internet was free-form - we connected at the prompt, bumping around in Mirc rooms, and searching with tools like InfoSeek, AltaVista and WebCrawler. Bulletin boards offered asynchronous, yet informative, relationships.

Then came Prodigy, Compuserve, Delphi, and finally, America On-Line. These communities helped technological neophytes engage in the bold, new world. Overnight, the sparsely populated playground of nerds flooded with teenager angst and desperate housewives: "Cyber-sex" and "troll" hit the lexicon.

It was great.

From oil changes to Russian political history, if you have a question, the answer was out there on the 'net. Raw. Unedited and sometimes, difficult to find. It was a treasure hunt.

Move forward 20 years and there are 60 trillion webpages using an index 95 of petabytes - nearly twice the size of data mankind created, ever.  But what in the world can 60 trillion web pages tell us?

The internet is full of gossip...
The internet is full of dogma...
The internet is filtered...

Generations of adults have grown up with the internet and google. But now the raunchy and raucous cyber-land is settled and gentrified.  Today, proper search engines find what the "collective" wants, not necessarily what we, individually, are searching.  Indeed, even when the "powers that be" utilize "my" unique internet wonderings as my personal baseline, I want what I want right now, not 30 days back.

I am reminded of the time I took a few inner cities (Los Angeles) kids for an off-road trip in the San Bernardino mountains.

Every year, a group of young city-dwellers would venture "up the hill" for an all-volunteer-sponsored trail ride in the forest.  It was our chance to show off the woods and their opportunity to get out of the concrete jungle.

The little girl in my truck was wide-eyed.  It was her first time in the mountains.  Her head on a swivel, she innocently asked, "Where do all those trees come from?"

"What do you mean?" I responded.

"Who planted all those trees!?"

I was stunned.

Every tree, bush, or swath of grass this little girl had ever seen was designed, planned, and planted - her environment was completely man-made.

And that's the point - I fear the internet has an overcrowded and hollow wonderland between what we know, and what we strive to understand.  Seductive in design, the results are not organic.

She lived in somebody else's world.

So it is with the newly connected, brave new world.  The masses do not question the virtual until they have the eyes to see the real.  The internet is Westworld -  fooling us into believing somebody else's vision of reality.

We have willingly removed the distinction between 'virtual reality' and 'reality'. All of our things will be digitally connected.  Someday, we will all be connected through the 'interwebs'.

Is google, God?

The escape, if there is one, resides in the 'old ways'.  The way of the printed, read, and repeated word.  Searching for answers in the real world, along the Path.

Storytelling.

Don't get me wrong, the internet is a wild and entertaining place.

It's a shame we'll need to be connected via technology only to discover we've been connected all along.

Wednesday, February 17, 2016

Apple, The FBI, ISIS and You - The Internet of Everyone


"The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers. We oppose this order, which has implications far beyond the legal case at hand.

This moment calls for public discussion, and we want our customers and people around the country to understand what is at stake." - Tim Cook

This issue has implications beyond the disgusting terror attack in San Berdoo - and as much as we despise ISIS and its followers, I can't help but believe that today's request by the FBI is more slippage toward that Orwellian vision.

One of my gripes with Google is their disregard for our privacy - invasive advertising, location detection, etc., etc.  If Apple gives in, they become nothing more than a prettier Google and Google is a sieve; so is Windows.

"Dominoes Fall"

"We have great respect for the professionals at the FBI, and we believe their intentions are good. Up to this point, we have done everything that is both within our power and within the law to help them. But now the U.S. government has asked us for something we simply do not have, and something we consider too dangerous to create. 

They have asked us to build a backdoor to the iPhone."  -Tim Cook

Here's the point: Its obvious iPhone is one of the most secure phones in the business, not even the FBI can break in. It's what I expect from Apple.

Some argue Apple should "do the right thing" and open up to the authorities.  Of course, Apple is doing the right thing by securing our personal data.  This is foundational to a digital existence.

From printers, and Netflix to your phone, today's world logs your actions and is subject to outside observation.  Current generations unfamiliar with life without the internet, accept this openness.

But there should be an island of privacy.  Apple gave us a slice with the A7/8 chip.

Assuming the unlikely event that Apple prevails, the FBI, indeed the US must find another way:
  • Patch up the holes in our immigration process.
  • Intensify anti-ISIS marketing.
  • Neutralize them in their backyard.
Whichever side of the dispute you fall on, remembering why we're arguing either point is most important:
  • ISIS put this in the headlines.  
  • These two murderers pushed the FBI to consider data on an iPhone.  
  • Radical belief forced Tim Cook to release a letter of explanation.
The erosion of privacy isn't a result of a heavy-handed government or a weak corporation. The assault is born from ancient people who loathe your freedom.  We must defend freedom from all directions at every instance.  From the copier to your phone.

"Ideas are Bullet Proof.."

Everybody in the Gov't has a gun: The FBI, Homeland Security, Immigration, FDIC, USPS, and even the IRS.  ISIS has guns, HUMVEE, and steak knives.  The fear 



Apple has ideas.  In the end, Apple will probably lose this fight.






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