For much of its life, the Internet has been seen as a great democratizing force, a place where nobody needs know who or where you are. But that notion has begun to shift in recent months, as governments and private businesses increasingly try to draw boundaries around what used to be a borderless Internet to deal with legal, commercial and terrorism concerns.
David Stephenson argues that the Office of Homeland Security should be take advantage of the fundamental characteristics of internet technologies - their ability to empower individuals, to close the loop and to link everything - to combat terrorism.
Government agencies have tried to remove sensitive information, only to discover that copies have proliferated and they're virtually impossible to eradicate.
There is another internet - already operational - where users are receiving connections up to 100 times faster than people at home. It is a network so swift and so powerful its advocates are claiming it has already changed the way we will interact with the internet in the future.
The author argues that the internet can help bring about a more environmentally sustainable world by improving our capability to understand the science of environmental degradation and communicate that knowledge to public and private decision makers, enhancing environmental policy through increased international equity and participation in the policy development processes, and by decreasing resource waste and associated pollution by improving the efficiency economic activity.
The Internet, so relentlessly hyped in the late 1990s, may actually be doing more to boost U.S. productivity than most people have imagined. Its unique ability to foster human interaction may prove to be a hidden catalyst for solving some of society's toughest problems.
A radical research proposal by two Australian scientists calls for turning the Internet into a giant Napster. It could transform the Web into its most natural form -- a free communication device operated entirely by its users in a vast, so-called peer-to-peer network.
A new study finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the Internet does not necessarily spell the demise of authoritarian rule. Examining the cases of China and Cuba, the authors show that authoritarian regimes can actually maintain control over the Internet s political impact and benefit from the technology.
As the Internet continues to proliferate, it has become natural to think of it biologically as a flourishing ecosystem of computers or a sprawling brain of Pentium-powered neurons. However you mix and match metaphors, it is hard to escape the eerie feeling that an alien presence has fallen to earth, confronting scientists with something new to prod and understand.
Experts agree that the Internet is playing a role in the rising demand for energy, but what role is the subject of debate. Some say the Internet is causing a reduction in energy use, while others argue the Internet is actually sucking up more juice.