Category: Leon Eckert

To be honest I do not fully understand this passage however I do have something to say about the electronic human rights. In the article the author commented that there may be companies or governmental web developers who may interfere with or snoop on Internet traffic; and that’s a compromise to basic human network rights. As far as I’m concerned, the interference is not only a compromise to human rights, but also a negative impact on the market economy.

The interference had happened all the time — as we have to admit. Having faster access to a certain online shop is like having less distance to a physical store. Paying more to get more attention from the public and thus get more benefit has always been a thing in the history. However, the difference between how far you are from a store with how fast you can access a website is huge. For example if a store doesn’t have a better location than another one then it can always choose another location where there’s even better geographic advantage. But for an online store, the accessing speed is globally shared, which leave no alternative for the disadvantaged store than snooping his opponent even more. It will definitely lead a distorted competition between stores which is not about the quality of their product but rather about the quality of hackers as I would say. It is definitely a bad way for the market economy to develop, but for any individual or community of shared interests, it always seems appealing to snoop on internet traffic to get more clicks and thus gaining more profits. As a result, just as human’s benefit-oriented nature has to be regulated by laws, the unhealthy competition between the community of shared interests should also be regulated. It will take a considerable amount of time before—hopefully—a society where healthy competition occurs and electronic human rights relatively equally distributed could be established.

In this week’s reading, we read “Long Live the Web” by Berners-Lee and “A Network of Fragments” by Ingrid Burrington. What’s intrigues me in Berners-Lee’s reading is how he presents us with the way that web collects our information. I have always know that privacy is of a big concern when we are using webs. But never have I ever thought that it could be this worse.  It can capture your information by identifying the image you post and analyzing the likes you give. And without your awareness, it can collect your private information, from the most basic: your email address, your birthdays to your friends circle and the things you like. Just imagine how this could be taken advantages of by the bad guys. While the web is becoming more and more intelligent, our privacy is becoming more and more transparent.  Berners mentions the universality of the web, but what concerns me also is how the universality can be used in the wrong way. He empathizes the importance of keeping this universality, which he thinks is also what keeps the web prosperous. I do agree with the idea that universality is what booms the web, but that’s also what makes the web dangerous. I do think that we need to regulate the web in some kind of way, but at the same time I really cannot figure out a proper way to regulate without affecting its universality.

The other point that I found very interesting is how Berners separate the web and the Internet. And how Berners take the linked data as the prospect of the web and the Internet. And that resonates with the idea that the Internet is everywhere with Ingrid Burrington. Burrington describes the material physicality and geographic sites of the Internet. To elaborate on that, he concludes that the Internet is everywhere. I used to think of the Internet as the web. But after reading this, I gained a more comprehensive understanding of the Internet and the web. The web is built on the Internet. And the web is an upper layer of the Internet. Thus linked data could produce so many profits and benefits than we could ever imagine in the future. 

http//imanas.shanghai.nyu.edu/~ds5665/website1/selfintro.html