Introduction to the Web - Coursework Example

?Introduction to the Web Introduction The invention of computers has leaped mankind to a new level and has drastically changed the lifestyles of individuals. It has caused revolutionary changes in almost all fields of life, ranging from education to business, medicine to tourism. The year 1970 marked the evolution of another great invention that further changed the modes of communication, data sharing and researching relevant information- Internet. Internet began as a project undertaken by American Defense Agency to establish a connection between four computers with each other by means of phone lines. After the passage of almost two decades, Tim Berners Lee devised a mechanism for individuals to access information at CERN in Switzerland. He developed a new file format hypertext and a new protocol hypertext transfer protocol. The combination of the file format and the protocol became to be known as World Wide Web. The year 1994 marked the launch of the first graphical web browser that increased the popularity of internet. The project that began with the endeavours of few members turned out to be the biggest information storage platform and source of a diverse range of services. The progression of the concept of internet can be evaluated from the fact that there were only 562 hosts till the year 1983, whereas the number of systems arose to 2 million by the year 1993. According to the latest figures from Internet Society (2010) for July 2010, there are 768, 913, 036 hosts on the internet. 2. Contributions of the Internet There has been a significant impact on individuals and societies, due to the advent of internet. The field of communication has witnessed such great developments that people in one part of the world can be aware of the happenings in the other end. The field of education has also revolutionized to a great extent as it enables the students to attend their class sessions from the vicinity of their choice. The field of business has been made more structured and organized due to the incorporation of information management systems. Earlier, students and researchers had to make uncountable trips to the libraries to find research related to their research domains. The invention of internet has provided an ocean of knowledge for the modern man, where he can get guidance about any field of life. The impact of internet on the society shall be analyzed in detail with the help of some available web applications: 2.1 Email The web application of electronic mail (email) has made two words very important in the modern world: efficiency and speed. Email provides effective delivery of required content in a low cost manner. The speed of email has reduced the geographical barriers of the world since recipients get emails from senders within seconds, irrespective of the place on the planet. An internet connection has to be possessed by the participants of the email; otherwise there is no cost of sending an email. The conventional modes of delivery (like postal mail, telegram) of messages were dependent on the location of the recipient. It even eliminates the need to possess a stamp or envelope. The effectiveness of the delivery of the email is almost 100% unless the email address is not correct or the recipients email inbox has no space to receive new messages. It is often considered even better than making a traditional phone call since the recipient does not have to be present to receive the email. It saves time of the sender as he does not have to attempt making contact with the recipient several times; the recipient can check the message at his own time and convenience. Email has made life simpler and fast paced. People tend to feel closer to their peers who might be residing thousands of miles away due to the speed of email. A message can be sent to multiple recipients at the same time which also saves times of the sender. Attachments can be sent via emails that may contain word documents, pictures, videos etc. Formal emails serve as professional records of communication between the colleagues and form the basis of communication in modern businesses. 2.2 Mailing List, Newsgroups and Social Networking Mailing lists and newsgroups provide an effective platform for individuals to communicate with people of similar tastes and interests. These participants might not know each other personally but this medium brings them together due to their mutual interests. It does not only provide individuals with a platform to voice their opinion about a specific thing, it also enlightens individuals with the viewpoints of others. It may induce a level of tolerance among individuals, in the context of listening to the opinions of others. It also increases one’s knowledge about different aspects of life. The members of the community may belong to any part of the world, culture or religion; this does not become a hindrance in any productive discussion. Such platforms also promote equality in terms of their professional status; some participants might be team leaders, whereas some participants may not be very successful in their professional careers. Everyone’s opinion is free from such materialistic aspects and stands an equal chance of being heard by the world. The discussions are presented in a chronological order therefore a silent observer can even benefit from the discussions. Such people have also been termed as ‘lurkers’; people who do not post anything, rather only read the ongoing discussions. Mailing lists give the feeling of belonging to a virtual community. On the contrary, newsgroups do not offer any such feeling since individuals do not have to subscribe to them. However, they serve to enhance one’s level of knowledge and facilitate discussions on different things of interest. The concept of mailing lists has been moreover over-shadowed by a more innovative concept of social networking since it facilitates the communication of individuals in a more diverse manner. It enables the exchange of images, videos and articles in a more effective manner. Social networking sites witness millions of new users every year therefore it even helps people to find their long lost friends and relatives on them. Social networking sites not only provide a medium for people to communicate with people of mutual interests, it also enables them to share information and data according to their terms of privacy and settings. 2.3 Instant Messaging There are over 50 million people around the world who use the internet application of instant messengers (like AOL, MSN Messenger) to communicate with their peers. Instant messaging facilitates real time communication with the individual who might be present on the web at that same time, unlike emails that may not be read at the same time as they were sent. It has also been widely adapted in the office environments to make quick inquiries about different things and to provide quick updates. Other revolutionary aspects of instant messaging are the voice and video chats. Voice chats provide the experience of a real phone call to both the participants. The free-of-charge service is independent of the duration of the voice chat session and the location of the participants. The traditional mechanism of phone call proves to cost hefty amounts if the participants are far away from each other and it is also dependent on the duration of the call. Video chat is possible with the presence of a webcam on both sides. Through video chat, one feels as though both the individuals are present in the same room, although they might be residing at different ends of the world. 3. Legal and Social Implications Along with the positive contributions of the internet, many social and legal implications have also been witnessed over the years. Internet is such a powerful medium that certain codes of conduct and policies need to be formulated for its usage, since otherwise it could start being used for causing harm and malicious intent. 3.1 Codes of Conduct Internet users have certain legal and ethical obligations towards the other users present on the web. The Internet Society (2011) expects its members to follow a certain code of conduct when they are present in a professional environment: All accepted customs of internet etiquette should be followed to ensure that healthy communication takes place among individuals that is free from any malicious intent. Fraudulent and insulting statements should be avoided. All users and colleagues should be treated with respect and equality. Intellectual property rights should be respected. There should be no instances of plagiarism and due credit should always be given to the original source of the work or idea. Every internet service provider follows a certain agreement user policy (AUP) that is expected to be followed by the account holders. Such policies ensure that the internet is not used for causing harm to anyone or getting unjustified benefits for oneself. 3.2 Privacy Internet is such an open medium that nothing can be considered safe or hidden from the world. It is due to the openness of the internet that several social issues arise. Extensive measures are taken by organizations to ensure that their intellectual assets and customer data is not leaked into the hands of the malicious intent users. Internet offers numerous applications and services due to which individuals tend to unconsciously reveal their personal information on the web on unauthentic websites. Federal Trade Commission (2011) stated that such actions are highly discouraged since it threatens the privacy of the individuals and causes instances like identity thefts and credit card frauds. Some common sources, where information is revealed by individuals, are online shopping websites, online banking services and email web accounts. Information is considered to be a great asset for any organization in the modern times since it is used to extract useful customer buying trends and behaviours for the formulation of effective marketing and production techniques. Financial institutions, medical centers, supermarkets and other sources possess data that can be used for such purposes. The techniques that are used for analytical decision making are called data mining and matching techniques. A Working Party was established in 1999 that was responsible for introducing appropriate security measures on the internet to ensure that such unlawful actions are not carried out with the data of the customers. It worked towards the acceptance of the notion that people have to stay anonymous so that their online privacy can be preserved just like their offline privacy. Much research has been done to ensure privacy of sensitive data of individuals. One of the techniques is encryption. This technique was developed for the transfer of data from a source to its destination so that no intruders or hackers would be able to intervene to retrieve any information. It proved to be effective and protected the authenticity of the data, however, its common adaptation has arisen few issues. FBI communicated their concerns about Paul Zimmerman’s innovative protocol. He is a software engineer who developed the encryption mechanism with the name Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Allaert and Roca (1997) explained that it enables the individuals to send their emails in an encrypted format so that only the recipient can decipher the email. Homeland security agencies consider this development as a big threat since they are not able to tap into encrypted emails and detect any security threat. 3.3 Viruses and Worms With the advancement of technology in the modern world, hackers and intruders have also become more technology savvy. Worms are programs that have the capability to search for network connections so that they can replicate themselves on other systems and cause harm. Lehnert (2003) gave the information that Love Bug worm was witnessed in 2000. It ended up costing an accumulated amount of $8.7 billion. Viruses are similar programs that can corrupt files and data on any system. Virus protection software is advised to be used by internet users to save them from the threat of losing their data. Sending virus and worms is also against the law and the criminals are liable to pay for the damages caused by their programs. Other kinds of malicious programs can also be programmed to reveal sensitive information in the infected system of the user. Such sensitive information might include passwords, PINs and important emails. 3.4 Intellectual Property Rights Internet users have access to an ocean of information on the web that makes it vulnerable in nature. Any individual can claim rights on any intellectual asset and claim to be its owner. Copyright law has been formulated to ensure that due credit is given to the original creator of the idea or data. Creek (2001) explained that intellectual property rights provide the following privileges to the original creator of the data: Only the owner can create copies of the work and distribute it. Only the owner can lend or rent the data. Only the owner can present or broadcast the work in public. Due credit should be given to the creator of the data if it is used anywhere. Several laws have been formed by UK for the protection of the user and his data on the web: The Computer Misuse Act 1990 (Perera, 2008) The Data Protection Act The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 3.5 Software Piracy Software piracy has become so common that it is not even considered as an unethical thing by individuals. It involves the usage and reproduction of software without the permission or rights from the owner of the software. It is considered criminal to participate in any activities involving software piracy. 4. Practical use of Wiki or Blog Wikipedia was searched for information management systems and it was discovered there was no extensive information available for the respective topic therefore it felt necessary to contribute some information to this article. Information management systems have great relevance in the modern world and are frequently researched by internet users. The addition of information in this field of business will benefit researchers as well as students. The link for the altered article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_information_system#Types_of_information_management_systems Figure 1 shows the content that has been added in the article. According to the laws of intellectual property rights, due credit should be given to the original source of the information. The advantages of the information management systems have been researched from an authentic article written by Pant and Hsu (1995). The article was included in the conference ‘Information Resources Management Association International Conference’ that was held in Atlanta in 1995. Articles are always considered more authentic if they have been published in some journal or have been acknowledged by the inclusion in some conference. The reference has been cited in the text as “[4]” and the corresponding reference has been included in the References List, as shown in figure 2. The accurate referencing of the source abides by the rules of intellectual property rights. It can also be assured that the work has not been plagiarized from any source; few parts have been influenced from another author who has been given credit by accurate referencing. Figure 1: Data that has been added in Wikipedia Figure 2: Reference of the article that has been used as a source for the information References Allaert, F., Roca, O. 1997, Data Security and Privacy, Conganat Organization, viewed 4 March 2011, Creek, L. 2001, Internet and Copyright Law, Web Developers Virtual Library, viewed 5 March 2011, Federal Trade Commission, 2011, Deter: Minimize your risk, viewed 3 March, 2011, Internet Society, 2011, Internet Code of Conduct, viewed 2 March 2011, Internet Society, 2010, Internet Domain Survey - July 2010, viewed 4 March 2011, < http://ftp.isc.org/www/survey/reports/2010/07/> Lehnert, W. 2003, Web 101 Making the 'Net Work for You, Addison-Wesley. Perera, D. 2008, The Computer Misuse Act (UK) 1990, viewed 2 March 2011, Read More