Responsibility coincides with online freedom
Let me be clear in saying this, then: The Internet is growing up, and we should follow suit.
The next big shake-up in cyberspace: the Commotion wireless project. This project — still in the development stage — would essentially allow for uncontrolled Internet networks. No wires, no cords, no satellites. No centralized hub of any kind. A path toward true digital freedom.
Network freedom is not just an issue for those in the code writer's ivory tower. It's an issue for all of us. In a time when we constantly question our politicians, media experts and business tycoons, we somehow fail to question the very entities that provide us with Internet: telecommunication companies and government regulators. Every post, every email, every text leaves its mark, and this fact is something we — as students — tend to ignore.
Think this is a little too paranoid? Turn to Egypt. An entire country of 83 million people lost Internet access — both within the country and without — within a matter of days, and rioters were forced to basically smuggle Internet service into the country from France. Though we invest so much of ourselves online, the Internet does not belong to us; like so many other things of life — our homes, our health, etc. — someone else holds the strings.
With projects like Commotion — and the now embattled WikiLeaks — those strings could soon be cut. Though Commotion is an isolated project from private developers, it could soon become a technology that makes it in our hands. And though its primary function is for so-called "techactivists" — those men and women who have very idealized visions of "cyberdemocracy" — the possibilities truly are infinite.
Think of how much we could do as an educated, active generation with a form of communication that is instant, easily available and secure from outside influence. Thought censorship was an issue for the Middle Ages or the 1950s?
It could be extinct forever. Worried about how records of your online activity may unfairly affect your professional life? Your searches could be unrecorded. "Cyberdemocracy" might be too weighty a term to take seriously, but "cyberfreedom" is not. The security from scrutiny we demand in physical life should be ours online. Even if the former is denied to us, the latter is finally within reach.
As mildly proficient digital-age students, your role might be more than you think. We can't all be software developers; some days, I still think shaking my computer and yelling at the desktop will make my IP address magically renew itself. But awareness is key, and even more than awareness, we need a small amount of healthy distrust. The Internet is not a perfect tool; we are not its masters. There are those in power and those who operate under that power. This power might soon belong only to us.
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