The Medium is the Message

This blog post is for the lecture on November 12^th, 2018.

We talked a fair amount about how the Cold War influenced a good deal of how the internet operates now-a-days. This is due to how the internet was so influential during the Cold War as a means to process data as well as share secret intel with others around the nation. Therefore, the Cold War instilled a very keen sense of “high security” and monitoring what occurs on these systems so that they were not infiltrated or falling into the wrong hands. This would explain why earlier in the semester we talked about how the first computer systems were spread around the entire world: to keep from having a central command that could destroy the entire system. Furthermore, this class discussed the juxtaposition between the freedom of information and the security of the contents. During the Cold War there was a need to keep the secrecy of the information within the computers private, however there was also a need to have the information on the computers free. This does summon the, obviously old, discussion of “How much do the people deserve to know?” Personally, I think the line is an obvious one, however the grey areas are not fully ignored by me. The line of “Who needs to know” depends on how much panic and destruction the information could cause. If there was a meteor coming to end the world, but could be stopped, then PLEASE don’t bother telling the general public. I can see it now, it would be titled “The accidental baby boom of 2012” and it would all be due to the mind-set that this was their last day on earth even though the announcer said the meteor would never even reach our atmosphere. On the other hand, if it really was the end of the world IN LESS THAN NINE MONTHS, then by all means share the news.