Embedded Systems Engineering Standards Column vol 15.3 April 2008 Standards: the end of the interweb as we know it? By Chris Hills

 

These are my own personal views and not those of my company Phaedrus Systems see www.phaedsys.com which is where the full version of this column, with links etc, resides under the Technical Papers button.

 

Only a few short years ago (the late1970’s) the Internet was the preserve of technical people. Those at the well connected universities, researchers, government facilities and the like.  Most were very technical. I have a NATO document (September 1973) from the group that effectively started the Internet. It was a mix of US, UK, French and Canadians who met at Sussex University. They developed the methods and protocols of the Internet as it is today. It is a myth that the US invented the Internet. A lot of the time it was simply connecting networks that were already out there and harmonising the protocols.

 

People not at these connected institutes used dial up bulletin boards like “FIDO” the amateur global bulletin-board system. Thousands of independent stand alone bulletin boards running on home computers  such as Comadore 64, Ataris, Amigas and even PC’s.  With Fido “email” took three days to get to from the UK to Australia by relay.  Again this was largely run and used by technically astute people.

 

However in the 1980’s some dial up bulletin board systems, largely in the US, such CompuServe, Aol and the like provided a lot of on-line consumer and social networking for non technical people. These were self contained systems not connected to anything else. Remember in the US local phone calls were free so the take up was faster than in other parts of the world.  These were a different breed of non technical user and may I suggest not quite the same intellectual calibre even if they did have a better social life!

 

There was way back in the early days the “September Phenomenon”. At the start of the academic year the new in-take would feel, or crash, their way on the Usenet NewsGroups (NG’s). These “newbie’s” were usually brought to heel by the old hands and taught “netiquette” and the social norms developed.  People were polite and respectful. Partly because, as I discovered on several occasions, the people you were communicating with were often the Gods who had invented, developed and inspired the internet, computers, computer languages, methods and other significant things.

 

Then we had “the September that Never Ended” See the WikiPeadia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September  There will be more on Wiki later.   AOL in their infinite wisdom dumped all their users onto the internet in 1993.  Most had no idea what the internet was and many thought it was just a new extension to AOL .  This is when many quiet academics, researchers and technical people discovered just how brash, ignorant and arrogant some Americans can be. To many of us who were on line in 1993 AOL still stands for “Arseholes On Line”.   

 

It was around 1992 that the Web browsers and HTML started to spread.  (Invented in 1990 and first appeared on the Internet, as opposed to the CERN Intranet, in 1991) http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/  so many of these post AOL  users had little understanding of the technology or the tools and system other than the AOL or Compuserve front ends and web based systems. In fact for the majority of users now I would say that the web browser IS the internet. 

 

It is from this point that the internet has started to change. Some would say decline.  As “cyberspace” became more accessible and was direct to people’s homes some saw a way of making money. Principally the pornography industry who pioneered much of the on-line commerce and shopping technology.  As bandwidth and speeds increased they could sell pictures and then films on instant download globally from a server somewhere “safe”  without having to worry about the police,  postal inspections and import customs.  This prompted other online shopping to the point where now it is a major part of, what was, the high street retail market and if you don’t have a web site you don’t exist.  It also makes everyone equal in that anyone can have a web site or a blog.   Sadly, as we know from looking at some blogs, everyone is not equal just as having a word processor does not make you Shakespeare or Joan Collins.

 

Which brings me to the main points: At one time all the information and exchanges were on FTP sites and Usenet Newsgroups.  Now due to things like Google Groups, a web based front end to Usenet many in the “September Rush” get no further than Google or Yahoo.   Also now every chip vendor, tools company, distributor not to mention club, church,  political party, group of one upwards  etc has a web forum. Even the “secretrative” Freemasons have a web site!  http://www.ugle.org.uk/     So rather than all the information in one place e.g. the newsgroup comp.arch.embedded it is now spread all over the place.   That said I find that, usually, thanks to “google groups” you get people asking questions that show they have not even bothered with a google search.

 

Now the information is dispersed and at the same time the technical level and general manners and politeness of the users has dropped to an abysmal level.  At one time students would politely ask questions now they post homework to three different  Google Groups (Usenet NG’s) asking for the whole thing to be done for them and an email address to post the answer to because, usually they don’t  have time to enter into a debate.  When politely asked questions and asked to please post in reasonable English i cn undstnd nt txt spk the response is usually  “F off  u cnt [can not] tell me wot 2 do”   followed by “Isn’t anyone going to answer my (home work) question? “  The thread then usually disintegrates into a slanging match or p***ing contest. This is happening far more often. Also in the past people were innocent until proved guilty. Now the tendency is to shoot them first and ask later (if at all).  The technical research forums are now a bear garden.  People seem to post just to argue and win petty points.

 

Worse I am seeing what appears to be working “engineers” stuck on the basics but unable to read or for that matter find the data sheets or the manuals. This is despite almost every datasheet and errata, app note and example source code the silicon or tool company has ever published being on their web site in PDF form. If it is not on the first page of Google they can’t find it.  Note there are other search engines but many don’t even seem to know they exist!

 

So we have data and forums everywhere dispersing the information with a rise in the number of impolite, arrogant and ignorant users who seem unable to search for things or have a polite discussion.  However it is not all their fault.

 

It depends partly how you search and for what, those who have been around know that some phrases got better results than others or rather know what the keywords are.  Also something that many don’t realise is which search engine you use and where you use it from.  

 

Many search engines have “sponsored links” and you can “buy” keywords. The more you spend the higher up the list you come.  So searching on a word will get you who ever has paid the most for that word with others paying lesser amounts going down the page. If you haven’t paid Google you don’t rank very highly. 

In fact search engines rule the internet so much that the French government had decided to sponsor their own system to rival Google

Part of the reason is that Google stores so much information about its users and all searches.   AFAIK Google stores this information far longer than is legal in the EU and is having discussions with the EU about it. The EU want them to at least halve the length of time they store the information.  Also they can use this information to look for patterns etc not just in general but on individuals.  I believe that this information is used by the US government in it’s never ending quest to save the world from what ever their bogey man is this year. 

 

I was beginning to think a page of “useful links” on my web site would be of little use now but I am rethinking this.  It may be the only way people may find some sites.  However as I am sure some of you will point out this is just My List and will only be sites I like. So it is just as biased. Though not in a purely mercenary way and neither will I track people who look at it.

 

This is only part of the picture. Other parts are far more frightening.  Some of it is the information itself.  Everyone loves Wikipeadia. However there are claims that in some pages cliques and pressure groups, companies, politicians and governments are slanting the information and getting rid of moderate or other editors who disagree.  Certainly in the political and religious areas though this also extends into social and historic areas too… As has been seen with the US “charm offensive” since 9/11.   It has been alleged that in several places Wikipeadia entries about incidents in the Gulf war and Iraq have repeatabley become  adjusted to reflect the US government view rather than the one more readily supported by the evidence availible.

 

There are quite a few “information” web sites about how wonderful the US and its drive for freedom and democracy and quite a few on the dangers of their enemies that can be traced back to US sources… I even found one of these fake sights claiming to be Swiss/European saying how we must all help the US. When examined closely it was a US sponsored site. Among other things they haven’t realised we use different spellings and date formats.   

 

However it is unfair to single out the US Government.  Spin and blogs are not unknown in the UK Political circles either!

 

There is another far more dangerous point about the search engines and finding web sites. It should be a lot more worrying for all of us.  The Internet watch foundation http://www.iwf.org.uk/ is an organisation you can report site will illegal content to.  They are principally fighting paedophilia.  The UK ISP’s take the IWF list of reported sites and block them to their users. Personally I think this is misguided in that it does not stop the paedophiles nor their web sites, it just restricts who can access.  I would rather they spent the money and effort stopping the paedophiles at source.

 

The reason why it is worrying to me is that we are all aghast that China is restricting its people’s access to the internet and what they can see on Google but no one has complained that in the UK, and everywhere else as far as I can see, exactly the same thing is happening. OK, we can still access the BBC where the Chinese can’t but we can and are being stopped from accessing some web sites and on search engines we are being guided for (currently) commercial if not political reasons. 

 

Recently internet technicians working for the Pakistani telcomms company wanted to stop an offensive item on UTube. They only wanted to block it in Pakistan. They managed to block it world wide.  Basically Telecoms companies and ISP’s can block all sorts of things.  As most Telecoms companies around the world are tied to local governments it means that governments can control the internet in their countries.  ISP’s on the other hand are less tied. Some are foreign owned.  

 

All the US ISP’s have very strong links with the US LEA so users of US based ISP’s in the UK could find that their filtering and tracking is very much US centric and done under US laws. Something you may not know about until you are stopped on the way in to the US for a family holiday at Disneyland. This has happened more than once (over 1500 times I think) since 9/11.

 

Actually some governments have woken up to the fact that not only can they (and do) control the internet access and use in their own countries but other might try it too.  In fact NATO sees the internet as part of the battle ground here was a comment recently from NATO that cyber warfare is a great a threat as a missile strike.

 

So the internet has moved a long way from the free and easy technical system it was 15 short years ago.  Now it is access controlled, filtered, monitored and censored, with “placed” information and spin (and lets face it: propaganda and down right lies) by governments and companies all of whom assure us have our best interests at heart.  

 

In fact what with the current paranoia (generated by whom?) about on line grooming, on line explosives manuals that were there from day one twenty years ago and “terrorists” communication by email with cryptography the control of the internet will only get tighter.

 

As for the explosives manuals I have (had, not sure where it is now) a chemistry book on gas warfare written between WW1 and WW2 on how to make, and deploy, in a battle field situation, most of the WW1 military gasses as used on the battle field between Iran and Iraq in the last  25 years. This book has been on library shelves for the better part of a century. It is not the only one. It is just as well Jihadists, Communists, Nazis, terrorists etc don’t go to hard copy libraries. Come to that will anyone go to real hard copy libraries other than tramps needing somewhere warm to sit?  If it is not in the internet it does not exist.

 

In an interesting item in the CRYPTO-GRAM, March 15, 2008 by Bruce Schneier discusses the fact that we now rely on vast amounts of information that are not on the bookshelf in the office, the local library or even on the computer on the desk but on the internet. This information is not under our control and is reliant on Someone Else.  You rely on Someone Else to keep the information up to date and backed up in a reliable accessible server. As we all know Someone Else often become Else Where when you need him. The trouble is, these sites move, change and in many cases disappear altogether.   It is called “link rot” which is why many of the places that had pages of useful links stopped doing them. It was not worth the maintenance effort as the search engines became more powerful. However as I have said the search engines are now not as impartial as they once were. 

 

Bruce commented that many of the links in his news letters can disappear after only a few months.  I have the same problem with my column. Also as we are about to launch a new web site as many companies do every few years, all the links into my web sites will fall apart.  

 

The Internet is changing and I don’t think it is for the better.  The world is now relying on a system that give out more information about you than any other and is more controlled and controllable than the telephone system or air travel ever were.  Where is Aldous Huxley when you need him? (Biography)

 

  

 

Author Details and contact

 

Eur Ing Chris Hills BSc CEng MIET MBCS MIEEE  FRGS   FRSA is a Technical Specialist and can be reached at This Contact

 

Copyright Chris A Hills  2003 -2008
The right of Chris A Hills to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988