roundtable: DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - part 1

roundtable: DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - part 1

DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - part 1

Richard K. Moore (rkmoore@iol.ie)
Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:47:28 +0100 

Date: Thu, 25 Sep 1997 13:47:28 +0100
Message-Id: <v0211010ab05009e7f0f3@[194.125.43.181]>
To: roundtable@cni.org
From: rkmoore@iol.ie (Richard K. Moore)
Subject: DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE - part 1


Dear roundtable,

This series on "Democracy and Cyberspace" has been received with some
enthusiasm on several internet lists, and I'd like to offer it in serial
form to roundtable.  The point of the series to present a longer-range
perspective on cyberspace - to step back from the trees to see the forest.
My observation is that the Internet community is faced with fighting one
fire after another on the regulatory/commercialization front, and may be 
in danger of losing the war for the battles.  In particular, our mind-sets
seem to be overly dominated by traditional telecom models, and we are
failing to appreciate the dominant role likely to be played by the
mass-media industry in the future of cyberspace.

If there are strong feelings for or against receiving this series, please
let me know off-list (or on-list if you prefer).


rkm

__________________________________________________________________
[part 1]

                     DEMOCRACY AND CYBERSPACE

                Copyright 1997 by Richard K. Moore
                         Wexford, Ireland
                          rkmoore@iol.ie
             http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal

               Presented at International Conference
      "Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age"
                      University of Teesside
                         18 September 1997
                         [Revised: 24 Sep]


Digital cyberspace: a quick tour of the future
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Let's stand back for a moment from today's Internet and from the temporary 
lag in deployment of state-of-the-art digital technology.  From a longer
perspective, certain aspects of the future cyberspace are plain to see. 

As regards transport infrastructure - the pipes - cyberspace is
simply the natural and inevitable integration/rationalization of the
disparate, patched-together, special purpose networks that make up
the nervous system of modern societies.  Besides the _public_
distribution systems such as terrestrial and satellite broadcast,
cable, and telephone (cellular and otherwise), this integration will
also extend to dedicated _private_ systems, such as handle point-of-
sale transactions, tickets and reservations, inter-bank transfers,
CCTV surveillance, stock transfers, etc.

The _cost savings_, _performance gains_, and _application
flexibility_ brought by such total integration are simply too
compelling for this integration scenario to be seriously doubted.
Just as surely as the telegraph replaced the carrier pigeon, and the
telephone replaced the telegraph, this integration is one bit of
progress that is bound to happen, one way or another, sooner or
later.

Significant technical work is still required on the infrastructure,
to provide efficiently and reliably such mandatory features as
security, guaranteed bandwidth, accountability, authentication, and
the prevention of "mail-bombs" and other Internet anomalies.  But
these features don't require rocket science - they are more a matter
of selecting from proven technologies and agreeing on standards,
interconnect arrangements, and implementation schedules.

The global digital high-bandwidth network - the hardware of
cyberspace - will in fact be the ultimate distribution mechanism for
the mass-media industry: it will subsume broadcast (air and cable)
television, video-tape rentals, and perhaps even audio cd's.  These
familiar niceties will go the way of vinyl records and punched cards.

Cyberspace will be the universal connection of the individual to the
world at large: "transactions on the net" will  be the the way to
access funds and accounts, make purchases and reservations, pay
taxes, view media products (films, news, sports, entertainment, etc),
initiate real-time calls, send and receive messages from individuals
and groups, query traffic-congestion patterns, etc. ad infinitum.

Each transaction will have an associated price - posted to your
account - with some portion going to the ultimate vendor (eg, content
provider) and some going to the various intermediaries - just as with
credit card purchases today.


[to be continued]
__________________________________________________________________



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Posted by Richard K. Moore - rkmoore@iol.ie - PO Box 26   Wexford, Ireland
         http://www.iol.ie/~rkmoore/cyberjournal            (USA Citizen)
  * Non-commercial republication encouraged - Please include this sig *
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