78 lines
6.6 KiB
Markdown
78 lines
6.6 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
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.
|