Misuse_of_the_Internet

USE AND MISUSE OF INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET Table of Contents Page Development of the Internet 3 Internet Use Graph 3 Using the Internet for Research 4 References and Bibliography 6 USE AND MISUSE OF INFORMATION ON THE INTERNET Development of the Internet J.C.R. Licklider is often referred to as the father of the Internet; he is credited with the initial idea of an interactive computing and “Galactic Network”. His initial concepts were developed through DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) in 1962. During the 1990’s Tim Berners-Lee is considered by most people as the person who opened up the potential of the Internet as a global communication tool. The first mainstream Web Browser was released in 1993. Within five years there was a staggering 50 million users worldwide communicating and sharing information. (ref 1) Today the WWW (World Wide Web) is the largest single source of information available in the world. People use the Internet to obtain information, to pay bills, for shopping, make appointments, search for old friends, the list is endless. As the desire to redress the work-life balance ever increases so does the popularity of the Internet. People can now go online to buy music, clothing, concert tickets, and even do the grocery shopping, all saving precious time and often money. This table shows the current level of use of the WWW throughout the world. The number of users has increased to a staggering 1.4 billion users since 1998. (ref 2) [pic] The rapid growth of the Internet has not been without problems, in particular security and fraud. During the 1990’s these risks were relatively low being limited to plagiarism or defamation, because the Internet was only used for communication and information gathering. Now that people are using the Internet for personal banking, shopping, and bill paying, the opportunity for fraud and identity theft is immense. Computer viruses were once the biggest threat to Internet users created to crash millions of machines for effect. Now criminals are much more sophisticated and are able to create ‘spyware’ to target and infiltrate selected users, to reproduce and use their personal details. Using the Internet for Research Students traditionally carry out research and study through published materials at a library. Before any book or journal is made available it has usually gone through a number of checks to make sure the information is reliable. Students are faced with new issues when carrying out research on the Internet. There is no regulating body that monitors the reliability of what is on the Internet. The problem is that on the Internet there is no way of telling the difference between what seems like a reliable source, from which you can obtain useful information, and questionable information from politically motivated groups, sponsored sites or simply eccentric individuals. There are five points to consider when judging the reliability of information on the Internet: Accuracy Anyone can publish material on the Internet, and to date there is no standard for checking the accuracy of this information. If a web page lists the author and institution that published the page, and provides a way of contacting them, it is likely to be a reliable source of information. Authority Publishing on the Internet is so easy, checking the author’s credentials are important to determine that his/her expertise is relevant to the subject covered. Objectivity Any published source, print or non-print, is rarely 100% objective, this is particularly true of web sites which often have advertising or sponsorship attached to them. Determining the author's point of view or bias as well as checking the accuracy of the information is very important. Currency For research purposes it is important to validate the information and to ensure that the information is current and up to date. A good example of this is http://www.honeybet.com/faq.htm, stumbled across whilst researching facts for this assignment; it was last updated in 2000. Coverage Information exists in large quantities on the internet and is continuously being created and revised. This information exists in a large variety of forms - facts, opinions, stories, interpretations, statistics, and is created for many purposes - to inform, to persuade, to sell, to present a viewpoint, and to create or change an attitude or belief. Many web sites require specialist software to view part or all of a document, and sometimes require a registration fee, how much relevant information are you missing without these' Can this information be sourced elsewhere' You probably can, Google’s index alone now stands at 8 billion pages. (ref 3) To summarize, any information gathered can be used as background research, helping to form a platform on which to base an opinion, but no information gathered from the Internet should be taken at face value, wherever possible, it should be cross referenced with an authorized publication if it is to be used as a factual source of information.   References: Ref 1) http://ezinearticles.com/'21-Facts-About-The-Internet-You Should-Know!&id=12727 accessed 26/02/08 Ref 2) http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm accessed 26/02/08 Ref 3) http://ezinearticles.com/'21-Facts-About-The-Internet-You Should- Know!&id=12727 accessed 26/02/08 Bibliography: http://www.lib.purdue.edu/ugrl/staff/sharkey/interneteval/index.html accessed 27/02/08 www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/research/webcrit.html accessed 27/02/08