Internet is the most important scientific and technological discovery since mankind conquered the Moon in 1969. No discovery over the last years had such a great influence on our civilization. Since the 90’s a new step in human evolution was written, the new “Homo digitalis” makes room for a new era, driven by technological and scientific development, filling it furthermore with an essence of life.

All the main discoveries in the post Internet period were helped by it due to its capability of showing everyone, everything at anytime. For instance, the human genome was decrypted more easily and faster because of the possibility of changing information almost instantly between scientists situated all over the world.

It was the perfect situation that revealed to all people from all over the world that without communication and collaboration (which is the same as without Internet) the great discoveries would have remained still hidden. From this point of view the Internet is not only a discovery, it is a catalyst for changing and finding information or why not for a better life.

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This article doesn’t fulfill the purpose of another tutorial on how to design, nor gives it explanations on how to became a better designer, developer or freelancer but I hope to give you an inside over the power of the www. No one appreciated at its beginning the power on all aspects (economical, cultural, social, entertainment, informative); it was only a good way to communicate between scientific men at CERN…now it is a way of life.

The worst thing is to deny its importance and power of manipulation. Nowadays a single day without Internet is a complete disaster for many of us. Some of us hate it because of its importance, “it is impossible that something invisible and untouchable can be more important that a human being”. This is the most common reason to ignore the Internet. Another reason that makes people skeptics about it is that many people are manipulated by the Internet, and it is happening more often that people are fooled in their online business.

Pros and Cons

Like all the great discoveries, the Internet has many friends and at the same times many enemies, so we should compare the positive and negative points to establish and to determine the character of the Internet. In my personal opinion is that in this world no object, thing, instrument is negative or positive; the way of how you use it is the defining element in this classification. Let’s compare the pros and cons:

Problem: Healthy (mental and physical)

Many people believe that the Internet has a negative influence, because it captures the free time of all users (especially the young ones became addicted to it). Spending so many hours in front of the PC can cause multiple diseases, some of them with severe effects.

On the other hand, spending every minute of your life surfing on www can transform you in a person who has no connection with reality, a stranger in your own life. In these conditions unfortunately human being is not a natural creature; he becomes a digital addicted one.

Replay:

All of us forget a crucial piece of information (some on purpose, some by mistakes): the Internet is only an instrument, not a creature, a diabolic entity or something like that. It is simple to realize: if you shut down your PC, there is no Internet. Being addicted to the Internet is not the guilty of it; only the addicted person is guilty. I am seeing this problem so clear that I do not have any doubts: it is the same situation as a criminal shooting his victim and defending himself by saying that the bullet was killing the victim; he only triggered the gun… so the trial should punish the bullet. The same situation is happening with the consumption of alcohol; shouldn’t we produce alcohol to not drink in an abusive manner or just punish the people who drink in excess (and of course interact in a negative way with other people)? Thinking in this wrong mentality we should travel with horses and camels because cars have greater speed and if you have an accident the injuries are more severe compared to the ones resulting from an accident with a horse.

Regarding the problem of socialization the answer is the same: a moderate use of the Internet is the best solution. A new kind of making friends and socialization was born after a few years of the Internet development: the socialization networks increase constantly their number and their application; I can’t imagine a normal user of Internet without an account on Facebook, Twitter or Hi5.

It is true that ten years old children spent many hours in front of the PC and parents are somehow worried about it. Another very important point in this problem is the modality of how Internet is used: you can use it for entertainment, to find news, listen to music, watch videos and so on and so forth. As a parent you should guide your children for appropriate websites. Once again, Internet is a very powerful instrument and in few years probably a person without knowledge in surfing on the www will be considered an analphabet. Your children can use Internet as a modality to find out who was Albert Einstein and that is very good, but it can be also used it to get access to xxx websites. I am not a parent yet and my advices are superficial but surely good: protect your family from these websites, but consider the Internet as an object of study. I bet you: in ten years in all societies the use of Internet will be considered something as compared to writing (I know that in some country this level was already reached but I mentioned all societies, including the poor regions of the Earth).

In conclusion to this cons: shut down your PC and you will see that it can’t do anything to come back. Addiction is the problem of the addicted one not of the source of addiction, the key of this situation is moderation.

Conclusion:

Internet is a great instrument but you should know how to use it, otherwise it can be sometimes a dangerous enemy.

Problem: Hackers

According to Wikipedia, a hacker “is a person who breaks into computers and computer networks, either for profit or motivated by the challenge”. Many business and enormous amounts of money are being moved from one party to another on the Internet and this is a great come-on for users with experience; simply break a password and get access to many accounts and obviously you take some money from these. I totally agree, the Internet needs more security, it is vital for future; much more if we look at statistics we will see that the online trade and financial transfers are increasing in a manner that could scary some elderly people.

Replay:

This is only my opinion (if you subscribe to it, it’s perfect or if you do not agree with me let me know your opinion in a comment) but hackers should be divide in two categories: Larceners and Specialists

• Larceners: The larceners are the people who deserve to be put in prison because they steal. Even if the account which was broken by him is owned by a corrupt person it is not his right to take money…in this case he is also a scoundrel. I really hate people who use the Internet to make robberies; indeed for these persons an online police is needed.

• Specialists: I see hacking as a good thing and I am conscious about what I wrote. The real hacking is very good, once again. A true hacker never takes money or produces negative effects for users from his work, he wants only to show that some financial algorithms are very weak and somebody with bad intentions can profit very easy. The hackers find a very good way to show their ideas and problems: break the main websites and put their message to be read by all potential surfers. It is a controversial problem with a group of hackers from Romania called Romanian National Security that broke the online editions of Daily Telegraph, Corriere de la Serra, La Stampa, RAI, Le Monde. It truly produced significant loss of traffic and that means a decrease of profit, but the message posted was more important than money. The idea of the messages was to not offence Romanian people and to not categorize them as gypsies or beggars; I want to emphasize their message “Romanian are not gypsies” and detail it, no one in Romania hates or discriminates a person because he is gipsy, we as Romanian (I come from Romania) do not like to be put equal to a person who kills, robs, rapes etc. in Western Europe or elsewhere. In this situation an attack of this team is a bad thing but the purpose is good, they try to show the truth.

  All the attacked agencies recognized that the attack was one of the most efficient ones and done in a very professional way- it really shows that the hackers are very intelligent.

  Another important attack of hackers was committed by a Greek team who broke all the passwords and security codes at the most important scientific experiment ever seen called “The experiment of century” which was hold last year/this year in Switzerland. Breaking all the passwords gave full access to the hackers and if they intervened in this project the effects would have been unbelievable and the word “catastrophe” probably wouldn’t be enough. The good part of this attack was that the Greek team wanted only to highlight that the security measures weren’t barricades for them. They posted that they weren’t following a financial motivation; the main idea was that such an important and dangerous project needed more security and attention. I believe that it was a very interesting point of view: the authorities confirmed that all the measures are unbreakable but it wasn’t true. The team raises an important idea: what could have happened if a group of hackers with bad intentions would have broken the codes and passwords? I really do not know…

Conclusion:

hackers are very intelligent so we should pay attention to their ideas sometimes; only the ones who want to profit from their activities by e.g. stealing should be punished and forced to stay in prison.

Problem: Everything Will be Online

The entire population of the Earth is moving towards an online life, to a world where www applications will be the new laws and everything depends only on two clicks. A failure of this huge network won’t be as a nuclear bomb? The authorities of USA recognized that even if they spend uncountable amounts of money for safety of their information a very powerful and successful hackers’ attack would have apocalyptical effects.

Replay:

It can’t be exactly predicted how the future will look like, surely the Internet has its role but we should be prepared for the next level: how will the world behave with the invention or discovery of a new internet network? I am sure that some companies prepare in secret a new internet network…sounds like a little bit of conspiracy, but this is my point of view. Anyway the men behind the Internet are smart enough to solve all the potential problems and the tendency of being online can’t be removed.

Conclusion:

We are still the leader of our life and even if the Internet is super powerful, it can’t conquer us. Who is afraid about it is afraid about evolution.

Image Credits

• Article Main Image Credits | Katane and keyboards
• His Gun is His Pencil
• Macro Computer Screen Shot
• Keyboard with Security Button