Dear JohnI should think that most folks aren't the slightest bit interested in most of the things that happen on the internet. Like most of us they use what is, or what they feel, is, to their advantage. Digital technology, the internet of things, has been of great advantage to many people...and of course most people will take advantage of stuff that comes for free, especially if it works and helps improve their lives. Contacting their family and friends through social media, keeping in touch all over the world via Skype...conducting one's business by using a website and working out how to maximise hits...with or without paying, are all grist to the mill. People have always spied on people, whether it be watching after the welfare of the young, or warding off the attentions of the local sex maniac...still goes on, via or not via the internet. Difference is that it is on a massive scale, is very efficient, but makes lots of fuck ups...but they are getting better at it. Buying over the internet and having it delivered has been a godsend to many disabled and vulnerable elderly people.
Buying at auction on Ebay and using Paypal to keep a sandbag between oneself and the seller or buyer is also a good idea. Using free exchange or disposal community sites, taking from people stuff that they don't want rather than it being dumped and used for landfill, is a good way of minimising waste.
The internet is still safe enough for people to use it to conduct business, transfer money, invest, organise holidays at home and abroad, visits, purchase goods. It can be a jolly good idea to monitor people in their sleep. Very efficient in hospitals and saves on staff and better than heart/stroke, seriously ill patients not being monitored at all. Being allowed to go home early after an operation due to efficient home monitoring over the telephone. Quicker operations, accurate brain scans for tumours, laser surgery. The use of computers in diagnosis can even out-diagnose doctors on occasions.
Networking can be an efficient way of marketing a business. Doing the work from ones' computer saves on office space, expenses of motor transport, pollution of the environment, going to work. Video conferencing can mean avoiding travelling by aeroplane or train to distant lands to do business.
Farmers use the internet to monitor their hens against foxes, to tell them when to warm up or move eggs, or whether the eggs are fertilised. Farmers can also use gps and satellites to analyse their land, for water content, for types of soil, for pesticide, or fertiliser and programme their tractors and sprayers to be efficient with the sprayers, so using less of these harmful products or using them where and when they are needed.
On the personal front, I am putting in hardware and software at home, so that I can automatically switch on the central heating whilst on my way home, and switch it off automatically, if there is no one at home. I can switch on the cameras to monitor who has visited whilst I am away, or when I am at home. I can communicate with strangers without opening the front door.
Driving ones car with the use of gps can get one there on time and very efficiently, saving on fuel and wear and tear, warning of traffic jams; no more stopping for ages whilst one pores over maps and gets lost. Such stuff might not be perfect but it gets better all the time.
A Smart television can mean increased choice in what programmes one watches. And not all edutainment costs money. Home entertainment is far better these days, I can tie in my computer, my tablet, my ipod, my television and my radio so that I can hear it through bluetooth, on a hi fi system or by earphones or headphones. I can listen to my favourite programmes whilst I work on d.i.y. If I don't know how to do a plumbing, electrical or any other job, I can get on to Google, and/or Youtube and get advice on how it is done. I have saved a lot of money and time that way, and got a better job done. Where I can't do a job, I can get a tradesperson in, there is lots of choice and I can check their credentials and reviews before they even cross the doorstep.
I can go on line and research my investments, trade online very cheaply and instantly. I can get access to my bank accounts, transfer money from one account to another, so saving on overdraughts. I can do research into almost any subject under the sun...and all for the cost of a phone line, broadband and a connection to the internet.
All this...and so many more advantages come at some cost, of course. But, does it bother most people that their activities are being monitored on such a massive scale by so many organisations.
Personally, I can't see anything wrong with those advantages. There are disadvantages no doubt, but obviously, for most people the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, else they wouldn't use the stuff. I certainly wouldn't like to go back to the gold ole days when computers and the internet were for dossers and programmers.
ATB Dougie. On 15/01/15 15:45, John Young wrote:
Well and good, except for the shallowness of digital technology, its beguiling allure to those able to afford its expensive gadgetry dand services, especially the "free stuff" without paywalls, firewalls, censorious moderators, or press protection from sensitive information to which they assure their access is sufficient. Most humans remain unaffected by digital narcotics, unable to afford the habit even when dispensed freely by do-gooders advocating cellphone networking everywhere, doing exactly what digitized civil libertarians exactly oppose yet willingly adopt enthusiastically in order to gather data on their supporters exactly like authoritarians they aid and abet. Not only is digital technology the world's greatest spying tool but ubiquitously arms its users to violate each other's privacy and to cheer it on deliriously with faintest of illusory security of digital cryptology and networking. None of dreamy digital delirium cautions herein lies users' worst nightmare -- even asleep you are being monitored by IoT and medical prostheses, hard, soft and bio-chem. cc None dare cliche abuse fox in the hen house, tin-hat, weirdo, paranoiac, creepy, out of touch, geezer, kiddie, clueless, crazy, fundamentalist, medieval. Digital technology madness, a vainglorious hegemon heading for suicidal incest tagged cyberwarfare against phantoms of its mirror images, is precedented by narcissistic manias savage and civilized, rebellous and royal. Comsec dreams of itself godlike, speaking only to itself. At 02:44 PM 1/14/2015, you wrote:Dear John,The trouble with meandering down those hidden paths through them virtual Elysian fields, over which no one but Bishop Berkely has ever trod, is that one just stirs up megabytes of metapollen...a variety of sniffers lie in wait at every vantage point in ones' journey to analyse and predict and identify and profile the forward and backward movement and discern the speed and estimated time of arrival and what is required for consumption at the end of the journey...and what it would/could be spent on.John Doe would need computer training to Ph.d level to even have an inkling of secure protection and whether he/she was an atheist or a script kiddy, would make no difference. He/she would also have to depend on others having at least the same level of skill and experience. At least 99% of the population couldn't and never will achieve a sufficient standard...including meself...unless of course we develop computer programmable brain software or hardware...:-) . (Who will program the programmers, and who will watch over them...:-) ).If we didn't have faith and belief what would we be and where would we be...but mere programmed biological computers making decisions based on statistical analysis fed into selected algorithms, via inputs, or ports of streamed "facts", predicting outcomes through the use of those perfect algorithms...whilst life plods on in automatic mode....nuffink can go wrong...nuffink can go wrong...If we didn't have authorities we wouldn't have standards. And a world without standards would mean no investors and without investors, we wouldn't have the hardware or the software, or the apologists and exploiters and hangers on who live off the host species, which would mean that life without a comparative world of right and wrong would become pretty boring...we would turn on one another more than we do now and stagnate and die...and be replaced with some other more adaptable life form...Darwin's theory of evolution rules.Just think, perfect comsec for an infinite length of time, would make life very dull...in my view. Life is much more interesting...better...because of its uncertaintities, rather than in spite of them.Dream on...;-) . With kind regards...:-) ATB Dougie. On 14/01/15 16:30, John Young wrote:Comsec dream: secure means uniquely controllable by each person.Free of faith, scripture, authorities, investors, apologists, exploiters.
