Privacy and the Internet essays

Privacy and the Internet essays Robert Wright wrote an essay featured in Time Magazine on October 19, 1998. The essay was called Sin in the Global Village and it focuses on personal privacy in cyberspace. The Internet is a rapidly growing web of information that more and more people are using. The benefits are for instance immediate access to information from all around the world, electronic mail that arrive at a blink of an eye, being able to publish ideas on personal web pages, and even downloading a contemporary pictures over Waikiki beach just to see if theres any waves etc. Robert Wright is introducing the idea that the Internet has become an instrument of privacy killing. In the same way that the public is getting access to countless bytes of information, the accomplished computer user gets access to the private preferences and thoughts of the public. Wright suggests that people should be careful when publishing a Web page containing personal thoughts because anyone with Web-authoring software can easily trace the URL (electronic address) back to its origin. In short, peoples visions about a totally anonymous Internet are false because of the electronic trail that is left for others to find. Linda Tripp, who taped her conversations with the former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, exposed President Clintons recent oral sex scandal by means of surveillance. Wright is suggesting that this could happen to you too. Computer surveillance isnt all that uncommon these days so one should look out for what you write and where you go on the Internet because someday it might be used against you. Disintegration of privacy complicates life. Wright lists some of the precautions people have to think about in ordering a hotel room for an extra marital date: dont write e-mail to each other about it, dont use your credit card in paying for the room, and dont look into the security ...