PROPAGANDA MADE EASY

       I read a sad piece in the paper about a 19 year old who shot and killed 10 people.

       This killer had read some racist material on line and became convinced that he should kill people not of the white race. 

       It was once very difficult to reach people with a message unless you were a leader of some kind or had buckets of money to advertise. 

      The internet has made it easy to set up sites that can reach millions. The internet allows us to easily make up a site that is attractive and eye catching. People start to read something and it sounds reasonable to them. They bungle into more of the same message very easily by clicking on a few links.

     People use the facilities of the internet to easily communicate what ever idea comes to their head. Many times it can be racist , violent or to an extreme political view.

     So is it time to put some control on internet sites that allow people easy access to millions ?

     As bloggers, most of us enjoy communicating about interests we have. I reach around 160 people with my own expertise to set up a blog. With more skill and interest someone can easily set something up that catches more fish.

     So is it time to create some regulations that prevent the extreme and dangerous messages from being easily publicized? This would be far from easy. The free speech people would have their say. The bad guys would not like to see their rights taken away. 

      Where will this end?

THE INTERNET PROMISE.

   Ideas for the Internet were around in the 1950's . As with most things they start in a primitive form. Researchers kept pounding away on developing an internet where all people  could communicate with each other.

    I remember my first experience with the internet.  In 1995 one of our teachers ,who was the main computer expert in the school,  set up a noon hour where she would connect to the internet. She spent the whole noon hour hooking things up and getting a telephone line. What she showed us was an article in MacLean's magazine. The magical moment I was expecting turned out to be one of the bigger disappointments in my life.

    Well, all things on the technical side of the internet continued to develop. It became much easier to get on the internet and use the internet for data storage , research and communication.

    So before my first internet encounter in 1995 it was thought that the internet would draw us together as all people could communicate with each other. That sounded  like it would bring about much improvement to our world. Nothing but positive things were predicted about the internet.

   Then the internet got so good that a few sharp business operators thought of ways to make money on the internet. The hucksters decided that ads could be used to sell things. A guy invented Face Book so that we could say things to each other and he could make money ...lots of money. 

    The problem is that people felt free to say things...anything whether it was nasty, true or false. So we began fighting and in the process being divided and fighting with each other.

    So it is a disappointment that something that was designed to bring us together ended up being used to bring all kinds of harm to society.

   Now almost everything we do on the internet is traced and the sharp operator collects all our information and uses it to control our information. 

  At the present time I'm considering buying a recumbent trike. Guess what? I see many recumbent trike ads directed at me. 

    It looks like the genie has got out of the bottle. Will that genie ever be under control again?

Just What is on the internet About Us?

  Some of your comments on my last post got me thinking about  more things as to what information is on the Internet about us. As you know from my last post I have been spending time looking for information on some class mates that I was with 54 years ago. For a few there was lots of detailed information. For some there was nothing. For some there was just the possibility of a phone number. 

   Some of the information about us is securely locked away in government or private business computers. My son works for a company that produces, sells, installs and services security systems. These systems are meant to keep your personal, government and private business very secure. Yes, there are hackers. They seem to get pretty high up the ladder in their search for information. Most business things can be done via the Internet. I can file my income tax return on the net. I can buy and sell things by using my credit card. I can do my banking right from home. My bank did inform me one time that a disk with some information on my business and many others had been lost. They of course had this backed up and no bad guy has been able to  use the information. the disk is probably still lost. 

    But most things out on the net are pretty basic. The first half dozen entries are phone numbers. I don't know why it takes a half dozen websites to distribute your phone number and say that you may be on face book or some other social net working site. Some things are sort of fly by entries. Yes, I seconded a motion at a library board meeting. Yes, I'm named in my Dad's obituary. Once I accidentally found my application to teach for the Canadian government overseas. I've tried to find this again but no luck. Sometimes other people say things about us. It seems that there are many genealogy sites that include a few things. 

     Bloggers leave a huge trail behind them. We usually start our blog with a profile. Each entry we make is out there as a separate piece of information. I also write on another blog and find that those posts are listed separately one after another. Much of our material is picked up in searches. Somebody googles something and our site is included and listed. If it's on the first page someone may take a look at our post.

    So yes,  there can be quite a bit of information about us out on the Internet. I can hardly wait for the comments to fill in all the things I've missed or don't know. My curiosity is killing me!

    

Pleasure in Internet Search

      In 1957-58 I took a one year teacher training course. There were 400 in the class and the course was intense as we were expected to take over a class room and teach at the end of the year. So 400 young people met, worked and played for a year. Many good friends and acquaintances were made.

     I came from a small one teacher high school. For me to be thrown in with 400 other people was terrifying. My home village only had 235 people!  I survived and probably learned a thing or two. I got a job and could sort of teach. I was eighteen years old and if you think about an eighteen year old they are great but not very ready to teach.

    I left the teachers' college and began a career. I saw about six of my former classmates since that time. I left the area and at times lived far away So recently I became curious as to what happened to some of these people. Fifty five years have gone by. I wonder what has happened. 

    So off to the Internet to have a little look. One of the first names I Googled I found the person had died. I thought a bit and said well , since most of us are up in our seventies it might not be a bad idea to search obituaries. Fortunately, I found only one more obituary.

    I did find some interesting results. One guy became a school superintendent. Another a Lutheran minister. Another went back to the farm and farmed with his family. Another went back to his home town taught, farmed and wrote. He wrote columns for the CBC. He then put his columns in two books. So the results so far have been interesting and surprising.

     One challenge is that most of the women married so I don't have a name for them. The class was 75 % women. 

    So since I am curious and have some time I practise ( Bugs me that spell check doesn't know the difference between practice and practise) my Internet search skills.

How Internet Advertising Finds You

      This morning I listened to Terry O'Reilly on the Age of Persuasion which is a CBC radio show. Terry O'Reilly is an advertising man who's been making advertising for large companies. These ads go on TV and in newspapers and are kind of a shotgun approach. They try to make the ad catchy whether or not you want a product or not. So the people who buy nothing but a Honda are showered by ads for Fords, Chevs...


     This morning's program explained that the big TV and newspaper advertising has suffered with competition from internet advertising. He explained how internet advertising operates.


     A couple of months ago I was looking for a new Internet provider. I checked out Telus. Ever since then I've had an ad on my Face Book page for Telus. So it works like this. If I want a car and I check out car loans. I put in the exact car in order to get a loan quote. Let's say I want a Honda Accord. The next day I'm going to have an ad on my home page for a Honda Accord and it will be at a good price and they"ll even throw in the wheels! You are one of the few people who gets this ad along with other probable Honda Accord purchasers. Terry O'Reilly explained how this happens.


     There are cookies that identify us. These are small bits of code. It operates much like a finger print. If the police have my finger print and find my finger print at a crime scene , they come to my house right away and say, "You're coming with us." They've matched the finger prints. Where ever we go on the Internet we leave traces. The places we go are picked up and matched to what we are interested in.   So another computer program sends us the exact ad for something we are interested in. 


      When we shop on line we leave information about ourselves. When we travel we leave information with airlines, hotels etc. These people are often very willing to share or sell our information. So along the way a tremendous amount of information is collected on us. If we use our credit card at 2:00 AM in a casino , our rating for credit card payment could be suspect? If we stay at a five star hotel or if we chose economy hotel information is built up as to what our tastes are. So after a while the Internet knows more about me than my wife does. 


     So it's very easy electronically to focus ads to very specific customers. This is cheap as compared to TV or newspapers. There doesn't have to be a lot of money spent to design a catchy ad. Internet ads  have  a big bang for the buck as people are targeted and very little energy is wasted..

Cashless Society Coming Next.

      We've had  vague knowledge a way back in our head that someday we might not have any cash in circulation as we have today. I recently listened to a documentary and was surprised at how soon it may be that we do not have cash in circulation any longer. 


     In my last post I wrote about the penny being discarded in our cash. Many comments were on the sentimental value of the penny. However all commenters could see the practical reasons for getting rid of the penny. Other comments could look ahead to the loss of the nickel


     It was a few days after these comments that I discovered the reality of a whole country without cash. This may be coming sooner than we think. Most of us have cell phones and are connected to the Internet.


     There is now technology developed that would allow us to do business with out cash. We would have a chip on our cell phone. This chip would communicate with the chip in our bank card which is in our pocket. We would simply key in the price of the total of the items we are purchasing and away we go. The Canadian mint is assessing one system now. 


     Sweden is much further advanced in going cashless. They have a cashless system in place. However, cash is still in circulation. About 90% of Swedes go cashless. There are a few people for whatever reasons still want to use cash.


    One must look behind and wonder when we started using cash. What did we use before cash? 


    So I guess quite soon we will be able to say, "Have chip. Will shop."

Using Internet for Research

        A few days ago one of the comments I received had, "You did your research!" in it. Now I took it as a complement. Then I began thinking about what I had done on the Internet and what it was like before the Internet. 


       Today you can type in a few key words and come up with many sites which may have the information you are looking for. You have to  look at the source and decide whether it is reliable. What's really cool is that with each site there are usually links which take you to related sites. In other words the search engine does the leg work for you. Much of the information is easily downloaded. You can link your material to a site and your reader just clicks and they are at the site you used. On my previous post I was looking up dandelions. I found far more information that I had ever imagined so I linked my post to the site and if anyone wanted to check the site they could.


      Now I think back to when I was a child in a one room country school. There were probably 50 books in the bookcase. Most of them were fiction. By the time I was in Gr. 5 I had read "Planes for Bob and Andy" twenty-five times and wanted to be a pilot when I grew up. I didn't get into a proper library until I went to Teachers' College. We were told about the Dewey decimal system and how to find a book and sign it out. That's okay, but we had no  idea in our head about what we wanted to discover unless an instructor had given us an assignment. 


      Today schools have various forms of computers and make use of the Internet in many very practical ways.    When I last taught I used the computer for creative writing. The Internet was for the use of a dictionary. The Internet has come along way since then. Now there's room for kids to fool around on the Internet. Soon after I retired I went back to the school to use a computer. A teacher had his class in the computer room working on a social studies assignment. The two kids beside me looked for jokes the whole period. They even had the nerve to print off jokes. Their teacher checked them several times and they assured him they didn't have any problems!


     Now we have large public libraries with huge collections. One can browse through an area and find books that may be interesting. You still only guess if the book has what you're looking for. It's slow ponderous work. You do not get clues that spur you on to other ideas. Now the entire library catalog is on the net. I can browse in the library without leaving home. I have access to any book in a public library in Alberta. All I have to do is go down to the library and pick it up when it comes to my local library.


      Today with the Internet you can sit at home and discover new topics and add knowledge to things you already know without having to leave your house. Convenience? You can search the net in any twenty-four hours of the day. You don't have to wait until the library opens.

      So a simple comment the other day made me think how fortunate we have become to be able to use the Internet for research at any level... and even find some good humor from time to time!

There's a First for Everything

         There's a first for everything  even if you're a senior rookie to the internet!

          Since we are taking a trip this summer we are making some arrangements now. My wife likes to plan ahead....away ahead. I'm the opposite. I make plans at the last minute. It causes some tension around here at times.

        We found a good deal for parking while away. The catch was that we had to make a reservation on the web. I have not been a user for very many years. I understand how things work. I understand that most banking is electronic. However, my wife is not at all comfortable giving out a credit card number on the net. I don't push the issue so we don't do business on the net. Well, today to take advantage of a good deal we had to break down and do business. This deal did not include a credit card number. So we filled in the necessary information and clicked on reserve and it was done.

      Now for my wife to be sure of the deal we had to print all forms. It was like magic when I went to my email account and found that the reservation was already there.

      So with much trepidation a first took place for us. A business transaction was done by us on the internet. I'm sure that many more deals will have to be done. We will be less wary and the system is quickly moving to more and more business being done on the net.

More Political Future With the Internet

         A few days ago I posted apiece about the influence of the internet on the Egyptian and Tunisian political upheavals.

        I asked many questions that I'm sure have been asked before and was quite certain that developments were taking place some where on the use of the internet for good or evil.

      I was most surprised to hear a commentary a few days ago to the effect that the Obama administration is looking at the effects of a total shut down of internet communication. In other words they were saying if we have to shut down the internet to control communication what might be some problems.

      I was amazed the hear this thinking from a democratic country. I could see a third world dictatorial country shutting down internet communication but I never thought a democratic country would shut down internet communication. I thought our right to communicate and free speech would have been held at a higher level. I'm sure that somewhere in Canada they are looking at a similar scenario.

      How sad that in countries that have a high regard for freedom and democracy that they would consider restricting speech and communication.

Political Future With the Internet

         The world has been watching as the Tunisian regime was toppled  and another is threatened in Egypt. These events have been initiated, organized and promoted with heavy use of the Internet. It's been fascinating to watch developments as they unfold.

        These events have caused me to think about the influence of the Internet in a wide variety of situations. Voter turn out in democracies has been falling. Is the Internet a facility which could be used to increase voter participation in elections? I'm sure that the technology is present that could set up a valid voter system on the Internet. With higher voter participation the political landscape may fall on it's head. Politicians could use the Internet to their advantage as President Obama did in gaining the Democratic nomination and election to the White House. Voters could rapidly organize campaigns of recall if there were recall laws. Politicians would have to listen very carefully to the public and games played now would not be as effective.

       Now citizens are using the Internet  to bring down regimes. How long will it be before some strongman- dictator devises some scheme to maintain his grip on power by using the Internet? What will the next generation of social media look like? Face book and all the others are recent developments and their use has expanded enormously. When face Book and other social sites were introduced the use we see to day was unimaginable at that time. How will new technology which is in the pipes influence the use of present media? What new tactics will organizers come up with?

       Changes have been unexpected and rapid in Tunisia and Egypt. I'm sure that six months ago these events were not  imagined. What other countries will be changed as a result of assistance and use of social media? 

      I'm sure that I'm not the first person to ask these questions. I'm sure that many are studying the use of technology and what possibilities there are to bring about change in the political world. I just haven't looked for blogs or websites that deal with this topic.