Internet age= Doom age?

Internet is one of the most important and the most frequently used tool in the IT age. Every day, millions of people log in to the internet, whether to check mail, whether to do research work, or whether to transfer money over the internet, or do online shopping, or simply complete an online assignment, like me. Life seems to be somehow stagnant without internet, like a boat stuck in the middle of the sea with a broken compass and tattered sails. But the sea has traps, and numerous dangers, and this can drown our boat. Internet has been abused in many ways, starting from seemingly minor plagiarism to dangerous problems like DNS spoilage.

Plagiarism is one of the most common problems of Internet. With the ‘Googlary’ students now simply cut and paste from other websites, without acknowledging the source, or using the material in the source in a different way. Imagine a world where you could not publish your papers over the internet, just because someone else might steal it and publish in his/her own name. Plagiarism comes from the
Latin word ‘plagiarius’ meaning to kidnap, or abduct. Are we putting up information on the internet for it to be stolen?

Another common problem is internet security. Many people may not know, but even when we switch on our computer and plug in the LAN cable, we are exposing ourselves to millions of hungry hacker, and innumerable viruses. Viruses have been so far being rebutted by anti-virus software. Even if the virus becomes ‘resistant’ we still have newer ‘antibiotics’. But, viruses are not the only threat now. We have a whole insect kingdom of ‘worms’, and ‘bugs’, not forgetting spyware, adware, and even anti-anti-viruses(those which look innocent to the antivirus, but are actually malicious programs) and each function differently. Once they make it through, we need to get prepared to throw the computer down the bin. Is this the cost of simply plugging in internet for checking mail? And of course, not to forget the huge amounts of spam we receive everyday in our mailboxes. Generated by algorithms, these are grammatically correct English with rubbish content, which are not really harmful, but irritating.

The internet has been used as the hacker’s fishing net to fish those who are not so IT savvy. A rising problem has been DNS spoilage. When we type in the address in the browser address bar, it sends the text to DNS for acquiring the IP address of the website, and then we reach the website. People have made it to hack in to the DNS and change the IP address. This has been used to change the IP address of bank websites to rob huge amounts of money from the credit card holder, without the person suspecting.

And not forgetting the sharp rise in pornography in the internet. Pornography is so readily available, that it takes only a click to change Safe Search settings to give thousands of porn pictures, just by clicking on the search button. Video uploading sites like Youtube and Metacafe take only a login or a false click on the disclaimer message to continue to reveal a whole bunch of pornographic videos.

A 24 hour DNS attack analysis.

I believe that Internet is one of man's greatest creations, and it should not be spoiled in this way, as Lim Yee Hung says, that the internet is a double edged sword. But we can make the bad edge blunt and the good edge sharp. Efforts have been made by governments in censorship of media, protection of DNS, protection of the user, remotely, but surely. Light comes with darkness, and similarly comes boon with bane, but we should always extract the goodness. Maybe some impurities will prevent the gold from being 24 K gold, but still, its gold glitters if its polished regularly. Similarly, we need to be responsible for our own actions on the internet, as says our dear old Mrs Chor.

Internet was built as a boon. Internet has gaps, but still effort has been made to cover these gaps. Otherwise, I probably will not be sitting here on my computer making this blog post, because I will probably prefer to fail my Blog III rather than lose another computer. Anyway, the Internet is our creation, and it is our own responsibility to preserve all its goodness, and not allow one rotten apple in the basket make the others rot too.

Democracy creates stability is a society

Democracy, although an ancient concept dating back 2500 years to the Athenian city-state, is a powerful political system the modern world craves for. As opposed to other forms of government like monarchy, and dictatorship of an individual, or of a foreign imperialist government or of a military or political party, democracy upholds the basic concept of all citizen’s right to participate in a decision about how they are governed. Democracy operates in two major modes;
(1) Direct democracy - a form of government in which the supreme power is retained and exercised by the people
(2) Representative democracy - where voters choose representatives to act in their interests.
Whatever the mode may be, the point is how far democracy is successful in creating stability in the society. Stability depends on how far a government is capable of meeting the needs of people. These needs are social needs such as education and healthcare, economic needs such as removal of poverty, building foundation for trade and commerce, establishing stable employment of its citizens and political security by building a strong defence. Studies show that most of the countries with the highest levels of development are democracies. Countries like The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, Germany and Japan which exemplify a representative form of democracy show a positive growth in terms of development. Nevertheless, non democratic governments like Korea and China show positive development as well. But India, one of the largest democracies in the world is ranked far behind, even behind authoritarian China. Overpopulation, poverty and internal strife threaten Indian stability time to time. Again, the constitutional structure of the American government has remained stable over a long period but the quality of democracy has been at stake. The presidency has become far too powerful. The American policy by President George Bush towards the Middle East- for example the Iraq war in show of force against terrorism has undoubtedly led to multiplying social crises like death toll, fall of economy, homelessness, epidemic disease and soon disrupting stability and peace as a whole.
General people may sometimes be misled by advertising acts by politicians, known as ‘vote buying’. The representative authority will loose its power and not be re-elected by the people if it is corrupt or failing in its duty in serving certain interests of citizens. But the problem lies in the seed itself. The question is whether the electoral system can provide honest, corruption free candidates. Here lies the failure of democracy. If the democracy is to be effective people have to think critically and be alert for alluring acts. People should have the courage to raise a voice against injustice and atrocities. Again, the majority should not vote away the freedom of the minority. Democracy should not rest upon a social consensus to carry out the will of majority while protecting the rights of the minority. On the other hand, direct democracy, a people driven government (which operates in Sweden and some states in the USA) definitely curbs the imbalanced power of politicians. But at times too many referenda disrupts conclusive decisions delaying necessary action.
It has to be acknowledged, that democracy, inspite of its few limitations is still better than other forms of governments. In both monarchy and dictatorship, the ruler individual or group wields absolute power and general people have no remedy against its misuse. In fact, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is no individual freedom, freedom of speech and expression. The dignity of a man is violated. After all, monarchy in Nepal had to come at stake in people’s demand. In Pakistan military rule has fanned extremism which induces an urge to return to democracy. Undoubtedly, democracy is more advantageous than other forms of government, so far as ordinary citizen’s status is concerned. Democracy best reflects the will of the people in the governance of the country so it is the duty of the people in the government to usher in a healthy democracy by reforming the shortcomings of the voting system to get genuine political competition and better candidates and government.

Cyber Games: friend or foe?

Teenagers have often been fascinated by video games. The computer games which involve violence has ever been a much controversial point of discussion among medical professionals, researchers, social thinkers and parents. As a teenager and also a lover of video games the article “Violence in society: Blame it on brutal video games / Brutal games” immediately caught my attention which upholds and analyses different points of view regarding the effects of violent video games on human behaviour and consequent social impact. There are views held by social psychologist Dr. Angeline Khoo and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Henry Jenkins that reveal some possible negative impact of brutal games on human psychology.
Although American Psychological Association concludes the negative and desensitising effects of such types of games. However there are opinions contrary to this cited with results by Nanyang Technological Universiy lecturer Dr. Marko Skoric. In fact there is no evidence that video game brutality affected player’s aggression levels in real life. I am really impressed at Dr. Cheryl K. Olson’s comment “Destructive video games can even be helpful”. “People get to ‘work out (their) fears or anxieties without actually engaging in them.” Following this line of argument I also feel ‘slashing’ enemies and resolving conflict in cyberspace takes us to a make-believe world, ‘far from the madding crowd’ transcend the drudgery in real life, at least for the time being. In fact, it is not the game. The sense of win gives the players a vicarious satisfaction which helps to type, but the instinct of violent act, whose seed must have been lying in the sub-conscious state of the person, indulges him in a state of crimes. It is true in 1999 massacre at Columbine High, a mass shootout massacre, the two students craze for deadly shooting games was held as a possible cause, but their friend, Mr. Brook Brown’s inference of their basic violent nature should also be taken into consideration.
So let’s play games for game’s sake. Let’s take the full enjoyment out of it leaving behind the horror and not be addicted to such games that may lead us to mix up the real world with the cyber world and confuse our senses. Let our vengeance (if any) be meted out in the computer screen itself, rather than burst out in practical life.

Violence in society : Blame it on brutal video games / Brutal games

By:
CHUA HIAN HOU, LEUNG WAI-LENG
Publication:
The Straits Times 11/04/2006
Page:
3,4
No. of words:
968
Does playing vicious games result in aggression? CHUA HIAN HOU and LEUNG WAI-LENG revisit the issue The dust has never quite settled. And the jury is still out.Thirty years, millions of dollars in research, and endless controversy over violent video games later, and there is still no conclusive evidence.Does the savagery in computer games make the people who play the games savage too?Answers still differ according to who you talk to. Medical professionals, researchers and academics, all have their own take on the topic.Social psychologist Dr Angeline Khoo, said that "violent video games has a co-relational relationship to aggressive behaviour, but not a causal one". This means spending hours playing brutal video games is one of many risk factors that could lead to anti-social, aggressive behaviour. But it does not necessarily cause it.Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Henry Jenkins, agreed. On PBS, a non-profit media website, he wrote that "no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer".Also, the risk is more likely to impact "bad tempered, aggressive" individuals than normal folks, said Dr Khoo. One of the most outspoken critics of aggressive video games is the American Psychological Association (APA). It charged that excessive time spent slugging it out on such games could make the player more aggressive – conversely, less helpful – and desensitise him to the use of violence – conditioning him to believe that brute strength is an answer to problems. In an August 2005 press release, APA spokesman Dr Elizabeth Carll charged: "Showing violent acts without consequences teach youth that violence is an effective means of resolving conflict." The APA's research showed that perpetrators of in-game destructive acts go unpunished 73 percent of the time – and are frequently encouraged to do so by the game. And in 1999, former military psycho- logist Lieutenant Colonel David Grossman revealed the US Marines showed recruits brutal video games repeatedly so as to desensitise them to violence and instill the "will to kill". Different study, different resultsHowever, for every study that says playing savage games is bad, there is one to the contrary. Nanyang Technological University lecturer Marko Skoric believes that spending a month in cyberspace slashing brigands and decapitating monsters will not make you more aggressive.Dr Skoric did a 2005 study on video games and violence with Dr Dmitri Williams of the University of Illinois in the United States.The study was published in an international communication journal Communication Monographs.In the study, a questionaire that measured aggression levels was administered to two groups of participants aged 14 to 48. One group played online role-playing game Asheron's Call 2 for one month, while the other played no games. The aggression levels of both groups were then measured again at the end of the month.Asheron's Call 2 was chosen for its content, deemed to be substantially more savage than the average video game. Its violence was also highly repetitive, requiring players to slash monsters repeatedly to build up points.The results showed no evidence that video game brutality affected players' aggression levels in real life. Dr Skoric attributed the results, which differed from previously published studies on video game violence, to the fact that earlier studies had focused on the short-term effects of playing video games in an enclosed laboratory. Participants were tested within only 10 to 30 minutes after playing a game against a computer.Said Dr Skoric: "The literature shows that short-term effects are present, but you could get the same reaction if you were watching a good football game and got more excited than usual."Other study snagsMoreover, research studies have limitations. Dr Khoo said that studies are limited by sample size, time and demographic – "so it can't model a 'real' society". In addition, "researchers are morally and ethically bound not to make the study subjects worse off than they were when they started (that is, more aggressive)," she added. Alternative study methods, like retrospective studies which ask violent people whether they were influenced by video games, depended on their recall and are thus, inaccurate as well, Dr Khoo explained.Dr Cheryl K. Olson, a professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School's Center for Mental Health and Media agreed.In a 2004 article in the journal of Academic Psychiatry, Dr Olson wrote: "[There is] no indication that violence rose in lockstep with the spread of violent games... it's time to move beyond blanket condemnations and frightening anecdotes."Destructive video games could even be helpful: People get to "work out [their] fears or anxieties without actually engaging in them", posited a book examining the effects of pop culture on children by University of Southern California sociology professor, Dr Karen Sternheimer. In fact, blaming the media for social ills is a way for the public to avoid addressing the real issues such as poverty, wrote Dr Sternheimer.Like his peers, Mr Brooks Brown, a 25-year-old gamer, has his own take on the topic. But his views carry the tragic weight of personal experience. Mr Brown was a friend of both the killers and victims in the 1999 massacre at Columbine High, where two students carried out one of the deadliest school shootings in the United States. In the aftermath, attention focused on the killers' love for deadly shooting games, Doom and Wolfenstein 3D, as a possible cause.Mr Brown begs to differ. "Eric and Dylan (the shooters) were drawn to violent video games because they were violent, ****** up kids. I am drawn to these violent games because they offer more freedom. And, it may sound naive, but I believe the vast majority of gamers play these games for the same reason as me."
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