Intermanity

As a whole, is humanity better for having the internet, or would it be better-off without it? There can be little doubt that many of the atrocities committed on the internet have very real and negative effects on the world (human trafficking, pornography, and bullying to name just a few). But by the same token, so much good has come from the internet, such as more effective family history work and strengthened relationships through social media. When it comes down to it, however, all of these things related to the internet have one common thread - communication. The internet is limited in its goodness by the goodness of humanity, as it is simply another tool for communication. The internet is human in nature, and so it is only as good as the nature of those who use it.

The Internet is a Hippie

The most surprising thing to me while reading "The Cuckoo's Egg" was the fact that Cliff Stoll was, in fact, a hippie. In my mind, I have never associated the hippie movement with computers. Judging by Cliff's descriptions, however, it would seem that the hippie movement was involved with computers in a very real way. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. Cliff's description of computer networks and trust really brought this idea to the forefront - that computers of that time, and more specifically, computer networks, were built with a degree of trust, and with the belief that they should remain open and free for everyone. When it is spelled out like that, the connection to the hippie movement becomes clearer - ideals of an open, free, and unregulated lifestyle spilled over into the computers these people were developing and working with. When put into this perspective, the apparent lack of security the Cliff encountered while tracking down his hacker makes a lot more sense. It's not that the administrators and developers were incapable or unintelligent; the culture surrounding computers was simply based on similar ideals to the hippie movement. Unfortunately, as occurred with the overall hippie movement, reality set in and most individuals realized that these ideals had little or no place in the real world. This realization led me to an interesting thought - how much of an influence does the current culture play on technological innovations? How would the internet be different, for example,  had the internet been developed during wartime, or during an economic recession? I believe that the prominent culture of the day has a large effect on the technologies developed in the same period.