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Internet Purity
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Internet Purity An internet purist is one of those annoying wankers who keep crapping on about the real world possibilities that will come about because we have the internet now. I hate internet purists. There is a problem in this for me because one of the bachelor degrees I am studying for seems to have been formulated, designed and implemented by the biggest internet purists on the planet. They fervently believe that the internet is going to bring about world peace, democracy and make everyone rich, with nothing more required than to sit behind a computer screen and like or un-like a product or world leader or business. And despite every indication that they have been wrong in this belief from the past twelve months, they have cherry picked the apparent success stories to back their claims. None I find more frustrating than the current crowing over the success of internet campaigners in getting Apple Inc to do something about the deplorable state of their sub-contracted factories in China. The internet has failed on such a massive scale in this case that it defies belief that anybody could assume that there was any success. The payout from the efforts, according to the parties involved, will be improved conditions for workers- that is the headline. In the fine-print, however, is the provision that the Apple and it sub-contractors have agreed to a set of standards that are about the average in China. Given that the average in China has been repeatedly criticised by even the Chinese government, this is aiming low with a vengeance. Of course the ‘success’ of the whole campaign for the internet purists was largely fictional; while they managed to generate a bit of publicity it failed to dent Apple’s reputation or its revenues. But perhaps the biggest indictment of the whole concept of internet effectiveness is that the second most powerful computer hardware company in the world, a company that should, theoretically, live and breathe the whole internet purity concept, failed so dismally to uphold those standards from the outset. It would be like one of the auto companies was caught out funding another company to put potholes in the roads. The internet purists claim success in Egypt and Tunisia when the internet had precious little to do with it- Egypt shut down its internet within hours of the protests starting. It was because brave men and women went out onto the streets of Egypt at the risk of death for themselves and their families. As can be seen in the failure of Assad of Syria to buckle, the Libyan revolution owes its success entirely to the backing of the West. The regimes in Syria, Bahrain and Iran look as strong as ever. Perhaps the biggest indication of the powerlessness of the internet came this week when those trendy radicals over at Anonymous claimed to have brought down the British Home Office website. A majority of people will, no doubt, interpret this as a demonstration of the power of the internet. However, it will most assuredly not stop the extradition of the three men at the centre of the ‘protest’. Moreover, if the trendoids at Anonymous are so all-powerful, why are they not turning their online rage against China and Russia for their support of the regimes in Syria, Iran and North Korea? Or, better yet, why are they not going after those three nations directly? What is disturbing, however, is that this group can be activated so easily to support a known arms-trader and a known copyright pirate. Perhaps it is because the really effective hacking attacks originate in China and Russia, and the last thing that Anonymous want is for their access to the internet to be blocked- or for the assassination teams to find out where they live. So they make do with their puissant attacks on Western targets in favour of dubious victories; real heroic stuff. The Chinese threat, in particular, is behind the Australian government’s decision to block the Chinese IT company, Huawei, from participating in the national broadband network (NBN). Unlike most governments, Australia has had some rather disturbing evidence that what is supposed to be private in China is not as private as it should be. As Stern Hu languishes in prison for stealing state secrets on behalf of employer Rio Tinto, we need to remind ourselves that the ‘state secrets’ came from a private company; that private companies and associations collaborated with the Chinese Government to put him there; and that the ‘importance’ of the Australian relationship with China was not so important as to see leniency for Hu or his Chinese colleagues. To suggest that Huawei, which the Chinese government has designated a strategically important company in a designated strategically important industry, is anything other than the long finger of the Chinese Government is to be blind to reality- and to the dangers of having Chinese hackers so close to the heart of our national computer network. To argue that we have nothing to fear from China is to forget the 500 or so attacks that originated in China against the Department of Defence or the 200+ against each of our major iron ore producers, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. Indeed, the Chinese attacks against the miners, amongst other businesses, is all the proof anybody should need that the Chinese government is not above involving itself in what should be straight-forward deals between businesses. As an aside; While most people remember his Inaugural Address (Ask not what your country can do for you…), my favourite Kennedy speech is the Moon Speech. We will go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard. Kennedy committed the United States to an ambitious agenda- to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade (the 1960s). We all know that the drive and determination of the United States government was to get there before the Russians did; we all know that the Space Race was a small part of the Cold War. But the inspiration that drove so many of its participants was not beating the Russians or winning the Cold War. Our imaginations were not captured because it was an American flag that hung on the moon or that the Russians never made it. We love space exploration because we came out of the caves and walked to the horizon. We crossed the oceans and took to the heavens. It is what is next. We are, by nature, probers and delvers and dreamers and explorers. Without the stimulus of the Space Race, the United States has judged the burden of its space program to be too great to sustain. Many have criticised this decision, pointing to the funds spent on this or that could be used to finance space exploration for however many years. Perhaps the better question should be- should any one country ultimately have to bear the burden of the dreams of humanity? For far too long, we in the West have explored space through the agency of the Americans. As the richest country it may be fair that they carry the greatest burden- but the whole burden? It may be time that the West came together to find new ways forward. If we are to share in the adventure of space, perhaps we need to be more honest about the contributions we make to the burden of running a space program. We have treaties for defence and trade and climate change; perhaps it is time to have a treaty for the exploration of space.  In truth is there no beauty? I am not in love; but i am open to persuasion. |
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