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---
title: "Information Scarcity"
date: 2024-03-01T21:55:39+01:00
tags: ["internet", "internet_security"]
---
I will not be picking battles between the extreme right or left side of the political spectrum.
In fact, I will merely try to report on the negative impacts that capitalism has had on this astounding
technology, referred to as "the internet". I will also try to stay away from emotional writing, even
if such a technology lies very close to my heart. This does not mean I side with left nor right.
This means the common individual should focus more on the problem at hand and come up with the best possible
solution for that specific scenario rather than just falling onto the extreme left or right wing.
This is especially true for developers..
We live in a world where money is power. That fact should not be ignored. The creation of internet was
an unexpected turn for the market. Companies realized that it was a powerful tool to gain new customers with. And
of course, how could it not be? You are more exposed to the new customers' eyes and are therefore, more likely
to make more sales and profit, right? How could have that possibly turned for the worse?
## Data Protection
The internet that we live in today is a mess. Service creation -> data collection -> data breach. In that order.
Service creation refers to any act of writing or shipping software for the end-user (or the end-developer depending on what you are creating).
Data collection refers to the collection of personally identifiable information without explicit or full consent from the user
(which, let's be real, is the case in 2024. Well, unless you are keen on reading the 2000 word long privacy policy for every product that you use, which
can be changed by the company at any time of the day. Without your consent. Have fun reading these vague essays).
Data breach refers to the unescapable information compromise that will happen sooner or later in the process of shipping software to a wider audience.
Production code is never 100% safe and free from security vulnerabilities. Therefore, every time a maliscious user discovers an unknown vulnerability,
a potential data breach is about to take place. The possible outcomes range from absolutely nothing to the total data compromise for the users.
Sometimes I find myself questioning the intelect of the people who create solutions to simple problems, yet feel this internal need to surround
the solution with software rubbish. Perhaps you have noticed that many websites nowadays require account creation with a personally identifiable
email address, phone number, gender, address, and much more. Most of such websites deal with problems whose core solution is SIMPLIFICATION, yet they go the other
way around, endlessly complicating their systems over and over again until they break. And as you might imagine, the more code a product has, the more
vulnerable it is to security vulnerabilities. That is the number one lesson every developer should be aware of before starting out on their
problem solving journey.
Not to mention the pace at which the developers are forced to work. Data protection is most definitely not the top priority for a company as much as
the process for profiting is. Developers are constantly pounded and pounded to create software as quickly as possible. Limiting them with impossibly
short deadlines and stressing them out. This most definitely leads to security bugs.
## Rise for the Money
Do we really wish for such use of such a powerful technology? A technology that has the potential to transmit GIGABYTES of information every second,
yet is limited by the SOS (shiny object syndrome) of humans and their will to make money by wasting processing power on
advertisements, distract the end-users with useless popups, make them fill forms, and create accounts to spam them with
new deals and make even more money? All of that while also collecting in bulk all sorts of personally identifiable information?
Just to give them the content that they needed to inform themselves? Just to accomplish the one basic idea that internet,
this stunning technology, promised to bring to the table since it ever came to existence? How did that happen? How did usage of
such a technology further push drawbacks against it?
The approach that the first internet took, was by far the best at fulfilling what we define as "internet" - a place for
people to find and share information, not necessarily limited by race, background, actions, political standpoint, or any other form of bias.
Before the companies realized the potential of this technology and invaded it with bloat, internet was a place for individuals to share information,
get to know other people, and create something personal. Something private. Something that was a digital footprint of the community.
That footprint represented people and their will to collaborate and share information.
However, as companies and governments got more involved, they started throwing more and more
capitalistic structures into it, which resulted in a slow death of the initial goal and reason behind this technology.
This can be widely shown from the fact, that blogs, BLOGS, a once subjective and private online expression of somebody's persona
or presence, are now spitting blood to be the top tier result on Google's search page. That evidently puts money and power before
community, collaboration, and especially, *content quality*. Which is quite self-evident after you notice the vagueness that most
articles have online. The page fills you with popups, advertisements, forms to fill, and required login pages, just to access content
that is precooked by artificial intelligence, is extremely vague, and potentially misleading. Yes, it is indeed, a triumph for information
scarcity that is taking place on one of the biggest highways of information we currently possess. And it does indeed, show one of many
negative traits of capitalism after you throw it into a free cyber space.
## Clapback
Formerly, to escape this hellish use of the internet, you had to stop using the internet. Now, there is a
new world that digital rights activists and freedom seekers are creating. It is a strong and willingful movement
that has been standing its ground for many decades. It was in September 1983 that Richard Stallman launched
the GNU project, whose goal was to create a fully functioning operating system and a toolset to work with data on
that system. Today, a combination of the GNU project and Linux kernel (the core of an operating system) is known as GNU/Linux
and it is a perfect alternative to the proprietary systems like OS X or MS Windows that we do not deserve nor need.