Sunday, September 12, 2010

Online Review (6): Balkanization of the Internet

The envisioned dream of the Internet where everyone communicates electronically with anyone – globally, free-of-charge and without sovereignty – may remain a utopian. Although, parts of our dream have come true; we roam through parts of the world; interact with like-minded people (Rheingold); immerse in real and surreal lives (Turkle 1995); gather information; and repurpose it. The list of things we can do ought to be endless and borderless.

That being said, there are dark ‘clouds’ cascading over our global landscape. For instance, cloud computing has become more ubiquitous. Cloud computing is the use of virtual servers over the Internet (Pring. 2010). Critics even argue to extend this term by saying that anything outside the firewall is now in the cloud. It encompasses a subscription based or pay-per-use service that potentially extends Information Technology’s capabilities (2010). Here in, lies the crux. This means we have moved away from the utopian free-for-all use of the Internet.

We all need to be vigilant about who manages, controls and owns the ‘clouds’, and ultimately all our information. Governments are increasingly reasserting their sovereignty, the Economist (2010) argues. Examples include recent issues with Google in China; BlackBerry in Germany and India; Australia’s own censorship on adult videos, and so on. The Economist (2010) states that the Internet used to be controlled by a balkanized model. This is a model that consists of a collection of nation-state networks still linked by the internet protocol, but for many purposes act separately (Lessing 2004). This balkanized model has started to emerge again, the Financial Times (2008) argue.

This further underlines the demise of net neutrality, which at the onset of the Internet was one of the main objectives of the Internet. The term describes the way Internet users ought to have control over the content they add, view, use and the applications. All content, sites, and platforms should be treated equally, which allows the network to carry any kind of information and application, Wu (2008), Berners-Lee (2006) and Peha (2007) state. They also argue there should be no restrictions by one’s ISP. However, in reality it is a topic that has been much talked about, but not been practiced as intended.



Above image shows the governments in the listed countries that filtered content returned by Google (2009). This list of countries is not exhaustive, and constantly changing. Again, this shows in our borderless world, the idea of no sovereignty and net neutrality remain a utopian.


References:



‘Google lays out browser aims’, Financial Times, September 4, 2008

Knorr, E. and Gruman, G (2010) What cloud computing really means. InfoWorld, 19 July 2010, accessed on 7 September 2010, viewed from Infoworld: cloud-computing


Lessing, L (2004). The Balkanization of the Internet (Internet). Lessing 2.0 blog. August 17, 2004. Accessed on September 11, 2010 Viewed from Lessig's blog

Peha J.M., Lehr, WH, Wilkie, S. (2007). The State of the Debate on Network Neutrality. International Journal of Communication 1 (2007), 709-717

The Economist Newspaper (2010), The Future of the Internet: A virtual counter-revolution, 2 September 2010, New York: NY

Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: identity in the age of the Internet. New York: Simon & Schuster

Rheingold, H. (2000). The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Cambridge: MIT press.

Wu, Tim (2008). "Network Neutrality FAQ". 26 December 2008, accessed on 11 September 2010. Viewed from Network Neutrality

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