Thursday, February 21, 2008

convenience and effort

Prior to reading Galloway's article, I hadn't really thought much about the actual structure of the internet, so learning about protocol and the hierarchy of servers, etc. was rather illuminating. One of my first reactions to this reading was to reflect upon the ways in which I use the internet, apparently giving away my personal information a little too freely in buying things online and even with my e-mail. I realized however, that when I really think about it, the convenience factor of the activities through which this information is distributed weighs more for me than would the piece of mind I might achieve by avoiding them. I do this same sort of thing when I go to the grocery store or to the pharmacy. I have a Safeway Club card and a CVS card and I guess I don't really care if they are adding to their profile on me every time I buy anything, as long as I can save a few bucks in doing so. As Mr. Wingtips mentioned in his post, convenience and patience play a major role in our interactions with the internet, and of course in many other aspects of our everyday lives.

Similarly, if we are willing to put forth a little more effort, it isn't too hard to get around some of the controls and protocols set upon us. In a few sections of the article by Galloway and in several of the posts on this blog, I found hope that loopholes can be found within the systems that structure our lives and that we might still enter the back door even when the front has been locked. This also reminded me of finding one such loophole myself, in downloading music from iTunes. Even though some songs downloaded from the standard iTunes still have locks against sharing and editing, these can be bypassed by burning the songs to a cd and then importing the songs from the cd. So again, I suppose it comes down to a matter of weighing convenience and effort when using the internet and other technologies to do what we want to do. I think that most people who really want to do something will find a way to do it.

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