After my Co-Instructor Mark’s presentation on the history of content and subsequent discussions, my interest was piqued about a History book I had heard about by Erik Larson; THUNDERSTRUCK. Mr. Larson authored another great read on the history of my home city, Chicago, entitled DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY.
To the point, THUNDERSTRUCK details the history of “wireless” AKA radio from the discovery of “Hertzian” waves and the intrigue and high drama around Marconi’s invention of the wireless in turn of the 19th Century London. Amazing how history repeats itself. In the 1890s the scientific establishment was intrigued with discoveries about the electromagnetic spectrum but did not recognize its practical value until Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) invented the first devices usable for wireless telegraphy. Six months after his company was established in 1897 at the age of 23 Marconi’s stock was worth about $20 million in today’s dollars. Forthwith he began establishing a “standard” and imposing exclusivity conditions on his contracts including the condition that his shipboard installations were only allowed to communicate with other Marconi stations and that no other wireless vendors could be used for 14 years. Marconi demonstrated the first transatlantic communication in 1901 defying the widely held belief that “electrical” waves could only travel in straight lines. It wasn’t until 1907 that the “Wireless” was in widespread use paving the way for Radio. Similarly the Internet and was an academic and quasi military technical feat until the invention of HTML, the World Wide Web and the IPO of Netscape.
A noteworthy mention in the book was from one of Marconi’s competitors who was fast on his heels with wireless inventions but had a greater vision. In the June 1890 edition of The Century Magazine, Nikola Tesla wrote, “We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly irrespective of distance,” “Not only this, but through television and telephone we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face.” There you go, the first historical mention of Television.
An aside: Marconi’s fellow countryman Allesandro Volta (1745-1827) demonstrated the first electrochemical battery in 1800. The first rechargeable lead-acid battery came in 1859. Battery technology lags far behind electronics.
The parallels to today strike me. As Rebekha from class has pointed out to Mark and I, The world divided into competing Television standards, namely NTSC, PAL and SECAM which have created barriers to global broadcasting. Consumer DVD players are region specific so that international territorial distribution boundaries can be respected. The list of digital media standards and variants is formidable: MPEG2, MPEG4, H.264 (a variation of MPEG 4), MP3, AAC, AIFF, WMC, AVI, AVC, Quicktime, Real etc. Telecom and IP related standards are even more numerous and the distant cousins to Marconi’s wireless standards are even more prolific including a variety of competing system for broadband wireless (AKA 3G) and mobile TV. Competing Mobile TV schemes include South Korea’s DMB-T (Digital Multimedia Broadcasting – Terrestrial which can also work via DMB – S for satellite), Qualcomm’s Media Flo, and Panasonics Mobile Handheld offering. What works for 1:1 Internet connectivity is ill suited for the 1 to many nature of Television broadcasting.
The saving grace of digital files is that they are easily compressed, converted, transcoded or otherwise manipulated using software with the caveat that any conversion can result in some loss of data so that a digital “master” must be maintained. The master is immune to the analog foibles of degradation, noise and other forms of degeneration and remains pristine provided the digital recording medium remains intact, which certainly should not be taken for granted whether optical or magnetic.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
On Privacy, Not
Privacy has been an ongoing theme of discussion in several class sessions. Students have expressed concern about agreeing to the onerous terms-of-service form the likes of Google. Google, Tivo, AOL, Amazon, Facebook, and just about any Internet service you register for, collects mountains of data on its users. Clickstream data is collected on just about any site you visit, with cookies used for identification. What the corporate overseers do with this data has often been called into question. Allegedly registered user data is applied “anonymously” for targeting ads, metrics and “personalization” features, however monumental breaches in security have been well publicized.
In spite of egregious errors and some corporate misconduct, usually due to incompetence rather than malfesciance, I feel that allowing Google and the like to spy on me is the least of my computer privacy worries. Malware, SpyWare, phishing, and other forms of criminal computer identity theft are much more worrisome.
But computer identity theft can be mitigated by firewalls, antivirus/anti-malware software, email filters, and just plain being careful.
Of much greater worry is data collected by financial and credit organizations on every credit card and financial transaction of every kind. Data is collected and stored every time you use your social security number, drivers license, mobile phone, home address bank account, every time you check in or out of a hotel, get a prescription filled, change addresses or get a car. The real trouble is with data aggregators that can “match” data from an assortment of databases and assemble a dossier on millions of us. What is even worse is the existence of organizations that sell personal data online and continue using methods like “pretexting”, impersonating a legitimate authority, to obtain personal information. It’s bad enough that the laughably named US Patriot Act removes any illusion of protection from big brother, we also have to watch our backs form the likes of Intelius, bestpeoplesearch, searchpublicinfo and docusearch. I haven’t even begun to scare myself about what the major credit beaureas like Experian and TRW are doing with my data. I know from experience the lingering nightmare of ID theft, having seen a friend loose her passport to a burglar. It just as easily could have been myself as the Apartment we shared was ransacked.
If you really want to worry, look no further than the mile wide breaches in computer security that have led to the loss of millions of SS#s and credit card numbers, many of which are inside jobs resulting for the theft of data or simply stupidity.
Digital conveniences such as WiFi and multi-gigabyte SD Flash drives are also a feast for thieves and a constant threat. A few gigs is plenty of room for millions of credit card numbers and credit histories, let alone a terabyte drive that fits in a small pocket or purse.
The future looks bright for security and ID theft countermeasures. Keep fraud alerts on everything, check your credit reports, lock up your files. Resist allowing RFID tags on Passports and being surgically implanted upon birth. I support National, Photo, biometric ID cards. At least identity theft will be more difficult, the bad guys will have a harder time with aliases and slipping past borders, and when your being spied on they will know its really you using your debit card at Starbucks and holding up the line.
In spite of egregious errors and some corporate misconduct, usually due to incompetence rather than malfesciance, I feel that allowing Google and the like to spy on me is the least of my computer privacy worries. Malware, SpyWare, phishing, and other forms of criminal computer identity theft are much more worrisome.
But computer identity theft can be mitigated by firewalls, antivirus/anti-malware software, email filters, and just plain being careful.
Of much greater worry is data collected by financial and credit organizations on every credit card and financial transaction of every kind. Data is collected and stored every time you use your social security number, drivers license, mobile phone, home address bank account, every time you check in or out of a hotel, get a prescription filled, change addresses or get a car. The real trouble is with data aggregators that can “match” data from an assortment of databases and assemble a dossier on millions of us. What is even worse is the existence of organizations that sell personal data online and continue using methods like “pretexting”, impersonating a legitimate authority, to obtain personal information. It’s bad enough that the laughably named US Patriot Act removes any illusion of protection from big brother, we also have to watch our backs form the likes of Intelius, bestpeoplesearch, searchpublicinfo and docusearch. I haven’t even begun to scare myself about what the major credit beaureas like Experian and TRW are doing with my data. I know from experience the lingering nightmare of ID theft, having seen a friend loose her passport to a burglar. It just as easily could have been myself as the Apartment we shared was ransacked.
If you really want to worry, look no further than the mile wide breaches in computer security that have led to the loss of millions of SS#s and credit card numbers, many of which are inside jobs resulting for the theft of data or simply stupidity.
Digital conveniences such as WiFi and multi-gigabyte SD Flash drives are also a feast for thieves and a constant threat. A few gigs is plenty of room for millions of credit card numbers and credit histories, let alone a terabyte drive that fits in a small pocket or purse.
The future looks bright for security and ID theft countermeasures. Keep fraud alerts on everything, check your credit reports, lock up your files. Resist allowing RFID tags on Passports and being surgically implanted upon birth. I support National, Photo, biometric ID cards. At least identity theft will be more difficult, the bad guys will have a harder time with aliases and slipping past borders, and when your being spied on they will know its really you using your debit card at Starbucks and holding up the line.
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