Dans Blog

Never before has crime been so hard to trace, track down, and regulate, thanks to the Internet. I find it somewhat ironic that the Internet was first used by the government, and now the government has a tough time controlling what happens online. People have been stealing information and other goods since the beginning of time; it is impossible to eliminate thievery. What is more suitable is coming up with a better defense for the general public against criminals; against those who want to steal information such as credit card information. Hackers are always two steps ahead of these filtering softwares. There is already filtering software that can act as a first layer of protection against online fraud, but it should be up to the user to protect themselves fully. They should not rely on another government protection agency to protect them online. Protecting an evergrowing number people online would be too difficult.

I believe more can be done and people like William Wallace are heading in the right direction. He says that those who communicate within a small group often lead to no good. An example he makes are terrorist groups. In order for their plans to be successful their plans need to be as secretive as possible. And the easiest way to do that is by not telling many people. It’s one of the reasons why the C.I.A. is so powerful and successful. With this philosophy, ISPS (internet service providers) can then monitor user’s activity more efficiently. However, there will be cases where this method proves to be ineffective. Such as to those (mostly elderly) who use the Internet very occasionally for small bits of information. Obviously, they will be in contact with a small group of people, similar to terrorist groups, however ISPS can most likely distinguish the difference between the two.

More recently there have been attempts to put regulation over the Internet, but almost all attempts have failed. Despite the desperate need, the American government can do only what is within their power. They cannot over-rule the Amendments and therefore cannot regulate “free speech” or the likewise even over the Internet. An interesting fact came to mind here. Since the government cannot overrule the Amendments, essentially protecting them are more important than shielding minors from violent videos or sexually explicit material. Did you know that 25% of Google searches are adult related?

A very important questions arises from this topic; Who should be allowed to regulate to Internet? In essence, the Internet is a largely connected world-wide network with no central location. I believe that each country should regulate the websites that reside within their borders. However, this may prove to be a bad idea because countries may tolerate certain things simply due to the type of government or the type of leaders of the country. This may be a temporary fix, but I think a greater, more powerful, institution should be created (similar to the ICANN group who regulate all domain names over the Internet) that can over rule government regulations over the Internet.