I first thought of writing on this topic under my writings on politics, but, I think, the internet hasn’t reached that kind of penetration yet; at least not in India. Nevertheless, the world of the internet is fascinating.
A little bit about technology first. The most intriguing feature of technology is its ironical disposition to act both as a medium of individual liberty and a biggest curb on it through infringement of privacy. Therefore, the first thing I look out for before choosing a gadget — which I rarely do — is to look at the ability of the gadget to enhance my liberty without compromising my privacy. And, I think, the best gadget I have chosen so far is my USB hard drive because I know my ISP is constantly monitoring the activities on my internal hard drive — kept lots of porn on my hard disk for some time to entertain them, but then I actually got worried about the privacy of those poor girls who had been shot furtively, and that’s the most serious problem of technology. The above should tell something about my disposition: I am an off-gadget guy, but I am enamored by the internet.
The fascinating world of the internet is fast becoming unavoidable. Rather, for a person like me, it has to be a habit. I believe, other than porn, the most visited sites on the internet are the social networking sites with the FB leading the herd, but, I think, the FB will either collapse under its own weight or become irrelevant. And, I have reasons to so believe. The other day, I was watching some interview of Fatima Bhutto, where she made an interesting comment about the FB: she found the addiction of people to the FB very weird as it doesn’t serve any useful purpose like addition of knowledge, skills, etc. Though I don’t agree with her comment that peeping into the private lives of people is weird as the man has been doing it for ages now, but the way it is being done on the internet is definitely weird: peeping into other people’s lives has become so mechanized on the internet. After the initial excitement, I think, it will die down itself. The reason for my belief is funny. There is a small side-show “chahca ke bathule” on Red FM; in one of these, the “chacha” claims the credit for the creation of the FB, for he was fed up with the daily bickering of his wife with the neighbors and thus invented the FB; and, the rest is history. Well…I believe Zuckerberg also started with something similar but then lost his way; I wonder how people get the same fun in fighting on the FB as they do in mohallas; the bickering on the FB can only lead to the Malini Murmus. So, I don’t think the FBs of this world have any future unless they reinvent themselves, but the FB is trying too hard to justify itself. The Twitter also needs to do something new, the micro blogging concept is cool, but the follower-ship, especially of the celebrities, stinks. The others, including Google Plus, have not yet started picking pace.
However, the internet doesn’t start and end with the FB. The real fun on the internet starts with the freebies. Once I found a small dog caged inside a drain; it seems somebody covered him with a stone to prevent him from escaping — yes, the people eat dogs here. I removed the cover, and, on being freed, the dog ran on the road like a mad dog as if he would never get a chance to run again. Something similar happened to me when I first heard of “Download.com”. I downloaded everything, just about everything…even a funny software on how to create ghost voices — I hope the dog was not actually mad. But, now I have realized that the real fun lies in the Freedom of Information which the internet provides, and that may well revolutionize this world. The biggest problem, at present, is the random flow of information. I agree the sincere and hardworking people would have found their ways by now. But, for a lazy person like me, who keeps opening the same Google all the time, this abundance of information is really very difficult to manage. I think the next big idea on the internet would be the one which will do something about this problem, i.e. the random flow of information.
Closely linked to the freedom is piracy. I think those who are fighting piracy, or, should I say, trying to fight piracy, on the internet are wasting their time; they just don’t understand the power of anarchy. The anarchy has always failed because people, when in close contact with one another, start thinking of their respective statuses, which creates problems because the status gives power, and the power begets politics, which is always ugly offline. The best thing about the internet is the anonymity it offers, where the power and the statuses may not necessarily be interlinked, and thus the power needn’t necessarily lead to ugly politics; and, if practiced religiously, the anonymity, in fact, leads to security and order. I am a firm believer that, both online and offline, the true source of power is knowledge sans infringement of privacy. When online, if one wants, one can protect one’s privacy to the most ridiculous levels; but, when offline, in the present times, one can’t think of power without infringing someone else’s privacy. I think, after saying so much, I don’t need to mention that I give a damn about the internet piracy except for authorship protection. I just want free information.
Last but not the least, the security on the internet is a real issue. I have a simple formula: Build a separate drawing room detached from the rest of the house and open its door for all and sundry. So, all the hackers, be my guest; you will not find anything except may be some stupid case laws, which anyways you can download freely on the internet — ok, I admit I can’t afford a separate drawing room, so I have created a partition, but sometimes it does create problems. So, going by my formula, the internet can’t be used for any confidential work online. In other words, the concepts like cloud computing should fail, but then I am not a geek.
Well…I think I should have never downloaded those porn: Privacy is the most important right of individuals, and no system can substitute for individual morality.
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