Let’s close our eyes for a second and imagine a food court in a shopping mall during peak hours. It would not be that difficult in our imaginations to place some toddlers holding tablets or teenagers checking social media feeds. While such a narrative directly cautions our protective behaviours against those technologies, we are also aware of the reality that without those technological advancements younger generations would not be able to continue their education during the pandemic, or in general, access valuable information and socialize instantly within a couple of clicks. According to UNICEF, children and teens represent one-third of all internet users and experience the digital world very early stage of their lives [1]. However, as children spend more time online than ever before they also deserve protection so that they can interact, learn, and play online safely.

The Internet does not know if a user is a minor or not unless there is input data that enables service providers to make a determination about a user’s age. As with adults, a child’s ability to participate online requires the collection, processing, and use of personal data. While such processing of personal data makes the online experience optimized and personalized, and content moderation appropriate to minors, it also raises concerns about children’s privacy and potential manipulation of children’s vulnerabilities. Parents are also worried about the creation of their children’s profiles that will attach and follow them into their adult years. To that end, the reconciliation of both ends of the spectrum, i.e., benefits and risks of technologies available to children, requires effective regulation and policy-making to contextualize the “best interest of the child” online. As UNICEF envisioned, this could be achievable through empowering children to exercise their rights online, including privacy and freedom of expression and information rights [2]. This article focuses on underlying privacy considerations that are discussed in academic literature aiming to strengthen children’s digital safety.

Most data protection legal frameworks require organizations to obtain consent from minors,  parents, or responsible adults on their behalf for the lawful processing of children’s data. However, the age of consent differs significantly across countries and is mostly reflected by cultural differences. For instance, in the United States, children can provide valid consent for the collection and processing of their data at 13, while this number becomes 16 in the European Union, or 14 in South Korea and Argentina – any processing under those prescribed ages would be subject to parental consent. Setting a threshold for valid consent is not a problem-free solution. First, it is difficult to determine the maturity of a child’s understanding of the meaning of his or her consent and categorize it with a certain age threshold. This creates significant compliance challenges for organizations which eventually results in inconsistent protection for children. Besides, while certain content or experiences would be inappropriate for a four-year-old, it may not be the case for a ten-year-old although both would be restricted without parental consent.

On the other hand, parents (or responsible adults) may not necessarily understand the technologies used by their children or how parental consent works. Such a mechanism may also lead to unwanted consequences such as discrimination against children not living with their parents. Also, seeking parental consent results in further data collection about a child and a parent, for instance, to authenticate the relationship between them. Thus, those practical challenges and the reality should be reflected while considering how to address issues surrounding children’s privacy. For instance, some jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom and the European Union, allow organizations to rely on an alternative legal basis in lieu of consent for lawful data collection and processing, e.g., when there is a legitimate business interest. This decreases the level of burdens imposed on companies, children, and parents because companies would not need to reiterate consent requests for each type of processing. Importantly, such an alternative legal base does not immunize companies from ensuring a sufficient level of safeguards as regulations still hold them accountable in absence of the desired level of protection. In doing so, this risk-based approach potentially creates effective governance for children’s privacy by shifting the burden of protecting children’s data away from parents (via consent) to companies that will engage in risk and impact assessments, and accordingly mitigate potential harms that may arise from the collection and processing of children’s data [3].

Another consideration is the profiling of children through data collection and processing. Creating a profile is inevitable and enhances the online experience through personalization. For instance, companies must use profiling to make sure children are exposed to content, activities, and products appropriate for their age. However, there are legitimate concerns about the secondary use of collected data by third parties, e.g., in the form of targeted advertising, that may attach to children and follow them into adulthood. Indeed, children may not have the cognitive capacity to understand the nature or purpose of advertisements, particularly those deceitful or manipulative advertisements. In practice, some companies have already embedded in privacy enhancing technologies using age verification in real-time and on a one-time-only basis and subsequently disposing of collected data without storing it in their data repositories. Besides, it is important for companies to provide transparency that is understandable by children and families such as which personal information is used for which purpose, by whom, which safeguards are taken in place, and what individual rights can be invoked. Beyond self-regulation by companies, while some jurisdictions require organizations not to engage in targeted advertising for users below 18 unless they opt-in for such a feature, [4] others take a more radical approach with a blanket prohibition of targeted advertising to minors [5].

In conclusion, discussions around children’s privacy protection will continue to take their place on regulatory agendas in the following years. However, a risk-based approach is perceived as being one of the promising data governance models to protect children’s privacy by holding companies, rather than parents, accountable. It requires companies to carry out impact assessments and mitigate risks to rights and freedoms arising from data processing while preserving the benefits of data processing. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of this approach is dependent on clear regulatory guidance on how to implement measures necessary for children’s privacy protection and ongoing oversight by regulators. Finally, any harmonization between regulators or mutual recognition would enable companies to streamline their global compliance.

References and Notes

1. UNICEF, The State of the World’s Children 2017: Children in a Digital World, December 2017, available at https://www.unicef.org/media/48601/file
2. UNICEF, Industry Toolkit: Children’s Online Privacy and Freedom of Expression, May 2018, available at https://sites.unicef.org/csr/files/UNICEF_Childrens_Online_Privacy_and_Freedom_of_Expression(1).pdf
3. This approach is, partially or in entirety, followed by several jurisdictions such as the European Union’s general Data Protection Regulation, proposed American Data Privacy and Protection Act, Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Privacy Framework, Canadian Consumer Privacy Protection Act.
4. United Kingdom Information Commissioner Office’s Age-Appropriate Design Code and California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act
5. European Union Digital Services Act.

We perceive several problems related to the functions in many situations in life and develop solutions accordingly. The function shows the effect of one (or more) variable(s) on another variable. In simple terms, one factor can be called the transformation of another factor. When you send a piece of mail by cargo, you pay according to the weight of your cargo. Or imagine using an hourly Internet service in a library or airplane; the more hours you use the Internet, the more you pay.

A group of people want to rent a bus. The number of people does not affect the cost of rent for a bus. However, the cost per person could change depending on of the number of people. The more passengers, the less fee they pay for each passenger. Conversely, if the number of passengers is less, the cost of the bus fee could be more.

The examples are given above help to understand the mathematical function more easily. We perceive several problems related to the functions in many situations in life and develop solutions accordingly. The function shows the effect of one (or more) variable(s) on another variable. In simple terms, one factor can be called the transformation of another factor.

Consider shipping by mail. There are actually two situations here; the weight of the cargo sent and the amount of money paid based upon the cargo’s weight. This gives us a hint for the payable amount. For example, we may know how many pounds of cargo can be sent for $10. We also may calculate how much money is needed to ship 5 pounds of cargo. We can formulate this shipping problem:  Let x be the weight of the cargo and let y be the amount to be paid. In addition, for each parcel sent, including taxes, let us assume that it costs $3. In this case, we get an equation such as y = 2x + 3. Here, the number 2 given in front of the variable x is the money paid per pound. We calculate how many dollars we will pay for a 4-pound cargo: (2×4) + 3 = $11. If 2 dollars per pound is received, a 4-pound package shipping fee is 11 dollars.

Another example would be the use of the Internet. If 40 cents is requested per hour, $1.2 will be given for 3 hours of internet usage. Thus, the equation can be written as y=40x, where x is internet usage time per hour, y is amount to be paid.

The bus rental example is slightly different from the above two examples. Although this example specifies the function, this time there is a reverse situation. In the first two examples, like (x or) input increases, (y or) output will increase. In the case of bus rental, the bus rental fee is fixed and as the number of passengers increases, the payment per person will decrease. Let’s say $400 is required for the daily rental of a bus. 40 people pay $10 per person while 8 people pay $50 per each person.  This equation would be; y=400/x, where x is the number of people, y is the amount of money paid per person. Functions are important in understanding the relationship between two variables.

Life is a function. In mathematics first, what is the function in its simplest form? Let us give the known definition in schools.

Function: Let A and B be two sets different from the empty set and there is a relation f from set A to set B. If the relation f associates each element of the set A to one and only one element of the set B, this relation is called the function from set A to set B. It is shown as f: A→B or A→B. A is called the definition set of the function and B is called the set of values. A set of elements that match the elements of set A in set B is called the set of images of the function and is denoted by f (A).

In this case, if we clarify the definition a little, a relationship from A to B to be defined in order to function f; the following conditions must be met:

1. There should be no elements in the definition set that do not have an image. However, the element can remain exposed in the value set.
2. Each element in the definition set must not have more than one image.

Let us try to find the reflections of the definition in our lives. We assume that A is the world in which we live. If we say “World” for Set A (Definition Set), we would call Group B “the Afterlife” (Value Set). Because there is a connection from this world to the other world. We will see our values in the afterlife against what we do in this world. As someone who fits the definition of a “good” person will be of high value, the definition of a “bad” person will consequently result in a lower value. So, set A considers the world and its elements as ‘living people’. We can think of all the people in the world and include them in this group since life is finite for all of us. The mathematical meaning of this reality is the following:  all elements will be moved from set A to set B (Let A and B be two sets different from an empty set and a relation f from set A to set B.). There is such a connection (or relation) that one who leaves the world cannot go to two places at the same time. Destinations are clear: abode of reward or abode of punishment. We will all be eventually placed into one of these two groups. In some cases, the last stop of the people will be paradise, even if there are those who go to hell first and purify their sins. Consequently, in the last case, no one will be in two places at the same time (If the relation f associates each element of the set A to one and only one of the set B, this relation is called the function from the set A to the set B).

Just because everyone has one final destination does not mean that that destination can only hold one person. If the levels of Heaven and Hell are considered correctly, it is possible that there is more than one person for each level or that no one has come to that level. It is possible that there are those who have sinners at the same level. We can speculate that there may even be such a level that is inaccessible to all people. The Creator creates such places in order to show His grace, mercy, and power. (In the definition set, there should not be any elements without an image. But in the value set, there may be exposed elements.)

Life itself is a function. God created life according to certain rules. We should do our best to explore, find, and use these rules. Seeing the beauties of life and being amazed by the astonishment and capturing happiness in both worlds is achieved by seeing the manifestations of God everywhere.

However, in just 20 years, the “soul” of the Web has changed: what began as the ultimate democratic tool, the Web is increasingly turning into a “global village” and a limitless market where the consumer is the commodity.

In this essay we will examine how these changes affect our online and real lives, and whether we can glimpse at the future of staying connected.

The Web: 20 years ago and now

In a BBC documentary series, “The Virtual Revolution,” Dr. Aleks Krotoski analyzes the development of the Web and its all-encompassing impact on our lives. She speaks with the prominent and important online social strata: the founders of Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft, and the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who acknowledges the discrepancy between the intended purpose of the Web and what it represents today.

At its beginnings, the Web was the epitome of democratization: its defiance against authority and tendency to uphold horizontal allegiances, and the fact that it gave voice to everyone and censored no one. Even now these characteristics are closely tied to the definition of the Web; however, we are also witnesses that these democratic hopes are being challenged by the growing influences of giant web companies, such as Google and Amazon, and some governments’ interests at controlling the content their citizens have access to.

It is difficult to state that Google has a monopoly over the Web, because essentially, no one has and no one can have a monopoly over the Web. However, Google’s way of making money, through the so-called Google AdWords, shows what happens when the Web meets the profit-making sector. One of the factors in the efficiency of these AdWords is the consumer profile^[1]. Google collects data about us based on the words we look up and it uses it to offer us a “more personalized experience,” i.e. showing us user-profiled ads.^[2] It seems that the consumer is becoming the consumed, as Dr. Krotoski observes. Despite this, in the words of Seth Goldstein, we are “perfectly dumb and happy” about the amount of data or “digital fingerprints” we leave behind.

Governments are also very actively involved in using the internet as the “fifth dimension of warfare.” One of Dr. Krotoski’s interviewees said that wherever there was a conflict in the real world, there was a conflict on the Web. In recent years a cyberwar has been going on between China and the U.S. and both countries have been accusing each other of running an “army of hackers.”^[3] And increasingly, there are allegations that the Russian government used the Web in its efforts to influence the recent U.S. Presidential election.

Certain conservative governments, such as the Iranian and the Chinese, employ censorship of web content on a daily basis. However, the latest attempts to pass the SOPA and PIPA acts, which have ignited massive protests in the U.S. and Europe, prove that even supposedly “democratic” governments try to cripple the “free-for-all” spirit of the Web.

What has the Web done to us?

The Web has distorted and transformed our notions of privacy. Our online habits are a gold mine for advertisers. They use recommendation engines to learn patterns of our behavior as consumers and shower us with ads for things we did not even know we needed; this process is called behavioral targeting. We are still significantly unaware to what extent and in what way this huge amount of “digital-fingerprint” data could be utilized.

However, we also willingly share some very important information about ourselves with the rest of the world through social networks and blogs, such as Facebook. Many of us give away our real names, dates of birth, locations, personal relationship status, etc., without even realizing the consequences of such openness.

The Web has also changed the way we think. We now tend to think more associatively than linearly, because of the enormous amount of data we are exposed to, which also makes us less attentive and less able to concentrate on one topic for long.

It has also become impossible to lead a political campaign without focusing on online communication between the candidate and their voters. The Arab Spring and the Occupy protests were fueled by group activity and information sharing on the Web.

The fact that 1/4 of the planet today is connected shows that the Web is increasingly penetrating every sphere of our modern lives. We are turning into Homo Interneticus, a name Dr. Krotski used to describe the new wired human, and our prototype can be found in South Korea, the most connected nation in the world. Internet addiction has long been recognized as a problem by the South Korean government; there were even some cases of addicts who neglected themselves – or their children – to the point of death^[4]. However, finding the most efficient way of treating internet addiction is still disputed.

To end with the words of Emily Bell, the Guardian News & Media director of digital content, “Forecasting the future of the internet is a horrible business, even in the short term. Those who can do it most successfully are among the richest people on the planet. Being asked what the internet will look like in four years’ time is a stretch. Being asked what it will look like in 40 years is bewildering.”^[5]

References

“Web Users Disapprove of Search Engines Collecting Personal Data for Advertising Purposes.” Buzzom. March 19, 2012. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.buzzom.com/2012/03/web-users-disapprove-of-search-engines-collecting-personal-data-for-advertising-purposes/.

Bell, Emily. “What Will the Internet Look like 40 Years in the Future?” Tech. October 23, 2009. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2009/oct/23/internet-future-websites.

Tusler, Nick. “What Does Google’s New Privacy Policy Mean for Marketers?” What Does Google’s New Privacy Policy Mean for Marketers? March 21, 2012. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.tmwunlimited.com/news-and-blog/posts/2012/03/21/what-does-google’s-new-privacy-policy-mean-for-marketers.

Williamson, Lucy. “South Korean Clinic Treats Web Addicts.” BBC News. August 1, 2011. Accessed December 10, 2015. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14361420#page.

In this issue of The Fountain, Bruce Parker expounds on the “math wars” among parents, students, and educators. Questioning the necessity of math has been going on for many decades and the range of counter arguments against math have varied from “harmful to thinking for ordinary living” and “nonfunctional and nearly valueless”. So, Parker asks, do we really need to have math in middle and high school, as well as college, curriculums? His answer is an emphatic yes.

Supporting Parker in the need for math, Guvenalp writes that “mathematics can make enormous contributions to other disciplines,” and that “an understanding of the universe is intricately linked to mathematics.” Many people think that a scientific viewpoint and a religious viewpoint are incompatible. Mesut Sahin argues that a scientific mind can be deeply complementary to a religious soul – and vice-versa. “Scientific pursuit demands a personality with a strong dedication and faith in a cause. Those are the traits that are well developed in a person with religious experience,” says Sahin, whose essay is a substantive contribution to the age-old debate on whether science and religion can be reconciled.

Who are Sufis? How different from, or similar to, Muslims are they? The Western experience of Islam has historically been more confrontational than peaceful. Sufism, however, has been welcomed rather warmly despite its origins being deeply rooted in Islam. In his “A History of Sufism for Western Readers” Sait Yavuz explains how Sufi orders came into being and systematized their practices over time. Western sympathy towards Sufism seems to arise from the latter’s emphasis on genuine love rather than the prescriptions of legalistic scholars. Sufism, according to Yavuz, is, “setting aside everything in this temporary world to reach purity, and achieve a state of direct experience of God, in which one can even annihilate himself in God’s Divine being.”

Not much different than Sufis, we all seem to have annihilated ourselves in something these days, but this thing is not as holy as the Divine, unfortunately: the internet. Onyeagolu Tochukwu writes that the virtual world in which we have immersed ourselves has created an illusion of greater connection, yet “a great majority of human relationships have been transferred from the world of reality, where they involve personal encounters between humans, to the virtual world of the internet and other online platforms where personal encounters between humans are either ruled out or vastly different.”

Fethullah Gülen, the author of our lead article, was the 2015 recipient of the prestigious Gandhi King Ikeda Award for Peace. The award ceremony took place at the Martin Luther King Int’l Chapel Crown Nave at Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Gülen was awarded due to his “interfaith and cross-cultural dialogue about science, democracy and spirituality and opposition to violence and the misuses of religion as political ideology [which] made [him] the humanizing face of Islam.” The keynote speech delivered during the ceremony by Dr. Scott C. Alexander is in print for the first time in this issue of The Fountain. This piece is a must read for those who research both Mr. Gülen’s ideas, and Hizmet, the global movement of education and dialogue inspired from these ideas.

Centuries ago, Shakespeare saw this coming. Macbeth, one of his most renowned creations, lampooned his sick wife’s physician with the terse phrase, “throw the physician to the dogs,” because the doctor could not cure his wife of her strange mental malaise. If the world is not yet ready with their own retorts to our physicians, they should prepare quickly, for surely this emerging disease will render our physicians impotent. And our psychologists should begin preparing for what will be one of their greatest challenges.

The world is undergoing a most unfortunate paradigm shift. The area that is worst hit by this trend is the very area that is central to our sense of human existence. It is the world of reality, the native home of man; the very real world where personal encounters between humans are made possible without any form of mediation, be it from the internet or other online portals. Mankind is hastily vacating this world of reality and all of its meanings for the virtual world of the internet, mediated by all forms of codes and mechanisms. Today, a great majority of human relationships have been transferred from the world of reality, where they involve personal encounters between humans, to the virtual world of the internet and other online platforms where personal encounters between humans are either ruled out or vastly different.

What this means is that there is hardly any human activity that cannot be accomplished with or without the physical presence of the parties involved. Do you want commerce or other business transactions? Online shops are there to take care of that. We have online dating, just like we have e-banking. Colleges now offer many courses online; whole degrees can be earned without ever stepping foot into a classroom. Facebook pages, 2go, Twitter, Badoo, and many other sites have created an entirely new cultural paradigm by transforming the nature of human relationships. Heck, even church activities can be observed through online fellowship.

Whether this transformation is for better or for worse is not so much the issue as is the fact that we have built a world we can no longer do without. There is a kind of surrogate culture settling in to take the place of traditional human forms of communication, a culture where technology acts as an improviso for man. Man now relates more with technical equipment than with his fellow human. In fact, there are so many proxies and technical bureaucracies making real life encounters between humans very difficult. And this is where the problem lies.

The real world is fast losing its appeal as the virtual world seems all the more handy for every human venture. Many people now find it hard to live in the real world. Consider the following incident. I began dating a woman I met over Facebook. For over six months or so, we were in contact with each other through chatting, calling, and sending emails or text messages, but never once set eyes on each other.

Then one day, something funny happened. My internet girlfriend of six months made a startling statement: she told me that she wanted to know me. My reaction was to say, “What do you mean? Do you mean that you don’t know me after six months of friendship?”

What happened when we finally met in person was an eye opener for me about the greatest problem facing mankind. Over the 20 minutes or so that our meeting lasted, the once enchanting, intelligent, and romantic girl of my virtual world became shy, timid, and uninteresting in the real world. I doubt if our eyes ever caught each other, since she could not bear to look me straight in the eye. She was shy in the most painful way and kept blushing like one brought out of darkness and thrust into the light.

I don’t mean to claim that I was completely relaxed with the whole thing. In fact, both of us were so uncomfortable that no sooner had we met than we started longing for our virtual world, where our friendship is mediated by software, hardware, codes, and other mechanisms. The irony of the whole thing is that we were most at home and ready to spend hours with each other in the virtual world.

It would not be difficult to refute this experience with a contrary story, as many friendships that begin on the internet also work out in person. But there are plenty that don’t, and many of these are because of the fact that the internet provides mediums where people can portray themselves differently than they actually are. It’s easier to lie about one’s achievements or physical capabilities on the internet than in person.

The internet can also, unfortunately, be a place for predators to stalk their victims. The late Cynthia Osokogu, of Lagos Nigeria, is an unfortunate example of someone who sought refuge in an internet relationship, only to end up the victim of violence when that relationship was brought into the real world. The virtual world provides cover for people looking to “be somebody else”. Unfortunately, beneath that cover, sometimes the “real” person is completely different – or even worse. .

Whether we like it or not, the virtual world has come to stay. In fact, it has become so indispensible that the world can no longer do without it. It has enlarged our sense of human possibilities; human life has become something of a seamless continuum, stretching from the limitations of the natural world of reality to the limitless world of the internet.

Yet some believe that we are losing our ability to live and thrive in that real world – the one of actual limits. And this is where psychologists must watch out. The greatest challenge that will face psychologists in the near future is that of getting man to accept and feel comfortable in the world of reality. Giving the immediacy of cyber-communication and its breathtaking speed, how many people are willing to travel the long distance necessary to visit a friend? All we ever need is to just dial some digits or sign on to Skype and we are connected with the person immediately. Though we are immediately “connected” with people through technology, no moment in human history has been so disconnected.

I often remember what happened the last time I went home from school to see my mother. After the initial embrace and greeting, she still held me tight and was unwilling to let me go. Though we’d been in touch with each other via phone calls, it was that moment of embrace that helped me to understand how much I missed her. Such intimacy was not possible during our online communications.

Not only are we missing this kind of physical intimacy online – but the virtual world is causing us to miss out on new connections in the real world. Maybe your neighbour on the bus would like to chat with you about the book you’re reading, but he’s too busy chatting with a distant friend on his phone. We’re becoming more isolated and estranged due to our reliance on our technical devices.

This situation brings many dangers. Not only are we more likely to feel lonely, but we’re less likely to look at our fellow men and women with empathy and altruism. We’ve become hardened to violence because it’s easy to be exposed to it online. When was the last time you shed tears for the tragedy and misfortune that befell a friend – or has the world become destitute of tragedy? Of course not! Tragedy is still feeding fat on humanity. We’re just more removed from it due to our technology. Tragedy has lost its human element.

The thrust of this whole article is to call attention to what mankind is losing. I hope to possibly challenge one and all to reclaim our basic human elements. I want seeing your mother, father, brother, sister, wife, husband or friend to suddenly jump to the top of your to-do-list. And I don’t mean phoning or sending messages, but seeing them – so you can hug, kiss, or embrace them. You’ve to go the long distance; to come out of your utopian world of online connection; to see things as they are and not as they appear (apologies to Kant).

We’re human beings. We need to be able to look into the eyes of those we love. We need to feel the rhythm of their heart so we can savour its unexpressed music. We need to see the lines on their face and their smile when they see us again. Though we’ve filled our mind with information we’ve found online, we’ve forgotten about this information – the information we learn from another human body. Don’t wait until death begins to knock at their door. Just get up and be on your way. Don’t wait any longer to get back to this old way of life.

Environmental destruction is wreaking havoc on treasured resources, like the Ganges River, but it’s also striking closer to home, in our local communities.

The Ganges River flows majestically through the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. It is ancient, sacred to the millions of Hindus who rely on it for daily sustenance, and unfortunately, becoming increasingly polluted. The causes of this pollution are plentiful; however, one of the most obvious is the wave of industrialization that has swept through the country in recent years and has left factories near the river, most notably tanning factories, whose runoff mixes with the water of the Ganges and contributes to the various health problems of those who live near, drink from, and bathe in the river. The case of Ganges River pollution is one of the many highly visible examples of the effects of modern industry on the environment. Today, industry supplies much of the world with items that are essential to everyday life, but the “footprints” that industrial pollution leaves behind are harmful to the environment and to the lives of many.

The effects that industrial pollution has on health are numerous, well researched, and in many cases frightening. Chromium, a chemical that is emitted by tanneries that operate along the Ganges, is a likely carcinogen. The toxic fumes that many different types of factories emit can cause suffocation, and even contain particles that burrow into and damage the lungs.

As previously mentioned, those who live near the Ganges often suffer from adverse health that is the result of the river’s pollution. However, the adverse effects of industrial pollution are also present in a land that many often erroneously associate with universal equality and prosperity, and the freedom to live in a safe, sheltered environment. In the book Sacrifice Zones, environmental writer Steve Lerner catalogs the struggles of communities of poor and marginalized peoples in the United States living with the physical and emotional effects of industrial pollution. One story of a communal victory against the forces that dispense pollution is that of several neighborhoods in Ocala, Florida, that lay in the shadows of Royal Oak, a charcoal plant. The plant emitted dark soot that coated and would even sneak inside of homes, cars, gardens, and children’s toys, and wreaked havoc on the health of those who were forced to live near it. Despite this, Royal Oak continued to operate, until community activist Ruth Reed galvanized the formation of a grassroots organization that contacted local government leaders, collected evidence of pollution in the area, obtained a lawyer, and eventually, with enough lobbying, was able to have Royal Oak shut down.

The struggles of the communities in Ocala began after the Royal Oak plant was built in the late 1960s, and continued well into the earliest years of the twenty-first century. To spread the news about the pollution that was impairing their lives, citizens contacted the local news, both newspapers and television stations. They did not have the luxury of utilizing today’s internet to reach out for assistance beyond their communities, as is often done today when social justice is the issue. The way people use the internet to communicate with each other today is much more sophisticated than it was only a few years ago. The average user of one of today’s popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter sees a myriad of posts written by individuals and organizations encouraging the public to donate money to a worthy cause, vote yes or no on a certain political issue, or to even keep an eye out for a missing loved one, and these posts are very effective. The internet and social media are dominated by young people, and because of this, young people today have an unprecedented amount of societal and political influence, influence that can be used to help quell pollution. If industrial pollution is to be combated, and if the destructive human footprint that is being left on the environment is to be reduced, children, who wield the power of using the internet to share information about their environment and the injustices done to it, must receive a much more comprehensive environmental education.

What constitutes a comprehensive environmental education is sure to vary wildly. However, one thing is certain – it must involve the development of communication and leadership skills among young people, skills that enable them to come together, collaborate, and develop new ideas to lessen the human footprint on the environment, and make the world a safer place to live in the future.

References

Basu, Arin. “The Health Effects of Industrial Pollution: A Primer.” www.infochangeindia.org. N.p., Nov. 2004. Web. Feb. 1.

G., Jasmine. “Problems and Solutions for the Ganges River.” Care2. N.p., 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 09 Feb. 2013.

“Ganges River – Problems.” Problems of the Ganges River. Bryant University, n.d. Web. 09 Feb. 2013. <http://web.bryant.edu/~langlois/ecology/gangesproblems.htm>.

Lerner, Steve. “Ocala, Florida: Community Blanketed by “Black Snow” from Neighboring Charcoal Factory.” Sacrifice Zones: The Front Lines of Toxic Chemical Exposure in the United States. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2010. 19-40. Print.

There are many examples of inspirations in history. Sometimes it comes with a dream, as it happened to famous chemist, Friedrich Kekule (1829-1896), helping him to make one of the most amazing discoveries of his time. He saw atoms in his dream whirling, dancing and reassembling themselves in a snake-like motion, and the snake snapping its own tail. This dream provided him with the inspiration to discover the benzene ring. Benzene, a colorless and highly flammable liquid, is an important industrial solvent in the production of drugs, plastics, and dyes. Kekule is not the only person who found inspiration to an important question in his dream. For example, Otto Loewi, a famous German scientist, was inspired by a dream about an experiment that became the foundation for the theory of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse and led to a Nobel Prize. Once you contemplate on a question long enough, it becomes an important part of your life. You start seeing things in a different way, and everything becomes related to that question.

Ten years ago, a close friend of mine asked me a very interesting question. He said, “Did you ever read or witness any inspiration from Holy Scriptures, like the Qur’an, pointing to the Internet? After this question, I started to think deeply about the texts I had read, or the things I saw in my environment, and selected my readings more carefully. This helped me to capture more inspirations from my life.

It did not take long for me to relate many verses from scriptures to the question posed by my friend. It was an easy process to go backwards from the result to the possible starting ideas (verses). The hard thing about inspiration is that both the starting point and the result are unknown. Once we know the result that we wanted to achieve, it is easy to relate many things and find similarities around us that might get us to the same point. This can be either a scientific fact or a religious belief.

The relationship between science and religion, and inspirations from scriptures are the two most common controversial topics. Science and religion are the two strongest forces influencing humans. Some people use science to justify religious claims, while others start from religious information to reach unknown scientific points. Both approaches have many challenges, and may lead to consequences that conflict with one’s belief. Scriptures can help us think outside of the box, and provide many inspirations for science. However, it is important to keep the balance between both worlds, while working hard on understanding science and building our faith on a solid ground.

So, how did I find the verses that pointed to the idea of the Internet in the Scriptures? I started to think of the core properties that make up the Internet. What will be my first words if I wanted to define the Internet? Some of the key definitions or features of the Internet that came to my mind was “a world-wide network of computers,” “connecting people to each other,” “storing or accessing world of information,” “removing physical boundaries,” “easy and cheap communication,” or “freedom of speech.”

Which feature of the Internet would sound too intricate to ever exist a thousand years ago? Probably, the possibility of storing and accessing all the information available throughout the history of mankind would be the most challenging feature. We haven’t reached that point with the Internet yet, but so much ground has been covered towards this goal. Let’s see how much progress is made on this road of storage and retrieval.

Wikipedia, a free web-based multilingual encyclopedia project, has over 22 million articles (over four million in the English Wikipedia). There are roughly 40 million books in US libraries. Google is building the largest online library in the history of the world, and already scanned over 20 million books. ISI Web of Knowledge, an online scientific database, is a source for thousands of journals with millions of articles published from 1900s to present. Everything published in the last couple of centuries becoming available online from handwritten books to newspaper archives, magazines, and journals.

Chemistry databases list information (e.g. structures, spectra, reactions, syntheses, and thermo-physical data) for tens of millions of organic and inorganic compounds known to man that are used in various industries. Biological databases provide information (e.g. gene sequences, textual descriptions, attributes and ontology classifications, citations, and tabular data) for living and even extinct organisms.

Besides the published information, other types of data from various types of arts, music and picture libraries are becoming an important part of the Internet. More and more museums provide virtual galleries that make all paintings, sculptures and other art pieces accessible to remote users. E-government projects make personal records, health and financial data of all citizens available to related parties. More personal information is available online through personal blogs, image galleries, video sharing, and discussion forums.

Could you make a person, fifty years or even fourteen hundred years ago, believe that one day all the information would be available in a book, a box or a device? This was my starting point to find clues about the Internet in the scriptures. This journey led to many interesting ideas and understanding of my environment. In the middle of the search, the Holy Qur’an provided an important message to summarize this journey:

“With clear arguments and scriptures; and We have revealed to you the Reminder, that you may explain clearly to men what is sent for them, and that they may think and reflect.” (Qur’an 16:44)

As an explanation to this verse, Ibn Mas`ud, the sixth person to embrace Islam, said “[Allah] made it clear that in this Qur’an there is complete knowledge of and about everything.” The Holy Qur’an contains many verses about events in the past and future, what is lawful and unlawful, and information about the religion, our life in this world, and our destiny in the afterlife. Divinely inspired Scriptures, Prophets, and laws were sent successively, in part as an assurance of the true knowledge.

Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Muslim scholar, lists the types of knowledge and understanding as follows; “… that is based on beholding or actively seeing something, inner (comprehensive knowledge) or outer (description and measurement), implementation of the lesser understanding (technology) or of the spiritual understanding (contemplation and worship, which yield wisdom), learning and teaching, self-based or other-based, the learner’s or teacher’s belief in independence of action or being, and of the believer’s surrender and trust to the Creator …” [1]. We need to learn how to “read” the universe and scriptures consciously to acquire true understanding and wisdom.

My search for the inspiration for an idea of the Internet led me to find many verses from the Holy Qur’an. Here are some of the verses that I personally think is a starting point to inspire the idea of storing all the information known to mankind.

“… there is not a grain in the darkness (or depths) of the earth, nor anything fresh or dry (green or withered), but is (inscribed) in a clear record (to those who can read)” (Qur’an 6:59)

“… nor is hidden from the Lord (so much as) the weight of an atom on the earth or in heaven. And not the smallest and not the greatest of these things but are recorded in a clear record” (Qur’an 10:61)

“… and there is nothing hidden, in heaven or earth, but is (recorded) in a clear record” (Quran 27:75)

These verses can be interpreted in different ways. Some scholars refer these verses to the knowledge of the All-Knowing God, or a book called Lawh al-Mahfuz that stores the information on the destiny of mankind. Actually relating these verses with the Internet, and the traditional interpretations have a very interesting connection. With ever-growing capacity and capabilities, the Internet is like a small book of destiny that stores our everyday life. However, it is far from storing every single event in the universe. This helps us to realize how mighty and vast the knowledge of the God is, and the capacity of Lawh al-Mahfuz.

When I recited the verses from Qur’an that related to the idea of the Internet, my friend was surprised. As in this example, scientific discoveries and inspirations can be connected with the verses from the Qur’an in many ways. It is important to make this connection for the greater good. Gülen says, “… Recent scientific discoveries have clarified certain Qur’anic verses. Such advances in knowledge occur successively, as the universe proceeds upon its decreed course and in the measure of understanding appointed for us. We must acknowledge and praise the efforts and achievements of researchers and scientists, but they should not lead us to ingratitude and insolence (the roots of unbelief). Rather, we should reaffirm our dependence upon the Creator for guidance both in our quest for and application of knowledge…” [1]. There is no doubt that the Qur’an drives us to deep thoughts, creativity, inspirations and great ideas.

Our further discussion raised another important question, “What is the purpose of reading scriptures?” To know why we read scriptures is as important as reading itself. The Qur’an explains the meaning of reading and draws attention to creation [2] by saying: “Read, in the name of your Lord, Who created” [Qur’an 96:1]. The Qur’an suggests us to observe the universe and learn from its laws and processes so we do not repeat the mistakes of the previous generations, and instead, build a better future.

Acknowledgment: This article was produced at MERGEOUS [3], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

Halil I. Demir is an internet entrepreneur and freelance writer.

References

1. Gülen, Fethullah. Questions and Answers about Islam, NJ: The Light, Inc.
2. Gülen. Fethullah Religious Education of the Child, NJ: The Light, Inc.
3. Mergeous, http://www.mergeous.com

Every human being asks the question “why,” though at different levels, to explain the unexplained. It follows a pattern of questions, like “Why did the financial crisis in the U.S. happen in August 2008?” “Why did the space shuttle Challenger explode?” “Why did the terrorists commit the September 11 attacks?” In statistical terms, such unexpected events are named “outliers,” however, they are part of the system and among the components constituting the overall system’s complex behavior. Thus, they need to be part of the explanation in order for the explanation to be complete. We are naturally tempted to come up with universal explanations of the complexity behind these major events so that we can be ready when a similar thing happens again. Though simple mathematical equations or relationships relate to us better and provide a universal explanation, they are typically practical only when the outliers are excluded from the system behavior. Statistics help us greatly in quantifying and characterizing the outliers, especially in the form of probabilistic expressions, such as “there is a 30% chance of a hurricane next week.”

Understanding the complexity around us involves the development of a model that is simple enough for us to comprehend but yet universal enough to capture most of the dynamics of the complexity. The simpler and the more universal the model, the more powerful it is. The universality of a model, however, is hindered by the potential inability to capture something unexpected. The tradeoff between simplicity and universality exists in all modeling efforts; and the models finding the delicate balance in this tradeoff are the most effective ones. A simple mathematical relationship known as “the power law” has been used extensively to characterize and model various natural and social phenomena.

What is the Power Law?

The “power law” does not refer to a misconception that “whoever has power will rule,” but rather it refers to a particular way of characterizing dependency between two quantities. When the number or frequency of an object or event varies as a power of some attribute of that object (e.g., its size), the number or frequency is said to follow a power law. In more general terms, there exists a power law relationship between x and y if y is growing or reducing polynomially when x is growing linearly (y _͌ x^–α). Mathematically speaking, this means that the relationship between y and x is mainly characterized by the exponent -a. An exponent is simply shorthand for multiplying that number of identical factors. So, 4³ is the same as 4x4x4; that is three identical factors of 4. As shown in Figure 1, a quantity with an exponent has three components: the base, the exponent, and the coefficient. So, for 4³, the base is 4, the exponent is 3, and the coefficient is an implicit 1.

Figure 1: Description of an exponent in a power law relationship.

Figure 2: Sample power law relationships between x and y, where y = x^–α.

The power law relationships are traditionally expressed with a negative exponent, which simply means the inverse of the quantity. That is, y _͌ x^–α is equivalent to y _͌ 1/x^α. For example, when a is 2, y will reduce from 1/4 (i.e. 0.25) to 1/9 (i.e. ~0.11) if x grows from 2 to 3. Likewise, when a is 0.5, y will reduce from 1/2 (i.e. 0.5) to 1/3 (i.e. 0.33) if x grows from 4 to 9. For those who enjoy graphs, Figure 2 illustrates these mathematical relationships in linear and logarithmic scales.

Power law on different scales: Atoms to planets

To start with, gravitation, acoustics, electrostatics, and light and electromagnetic radiation, all exhibit a form of power law in that physical quantity or strength that is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, which corresponds to a power exponent of 2. [1] Gravitational force between two particles, the electrostatic force of attraction between two electrically charged particles, the intensity of sound signals coming from a source, and finally the intensity of light or electromagnetic field coming from a source all follow a power law with respect to the distance.

What makes the power law relationships more interesting is their independence from scale or size of the measures being related to each other. This is why we sometimes call power law relationships as “scale-free” relationships or “scale-invariance.” For example, the gravitational force between two spherical particles decays with a power exponent of 2 regardless of the sizes of the particles though the actual force is certainly dependent on the particle sizes. So, the particles can be at nano scales (e.g. a group of atoms) or macro scales (e.g. a planet), but the relationship stays the same!

Power law in frequency: Wealth, terror, and earthquakes

A common usage of power law relationships has been to model and understand frequency of a varying measure. A power law typically very well represents the distribution of wealth in a society. [2] According to a recent study, the distribution of wealth in China during the years 2003–2005 follows a power law with an exponent ranging from 1.758 to 2.285. If we consider an average exponent of 2 for Chinese wealth distribution, this means that if there are 1 million Chinese people who owned $1000 there were 1000 that owned $1M. Thus, the power law essentially expresses how skewed the distribution of a frequency is (see Figure 2). The larger the power exponent, the more skewed the distribution. In this case, a larger power exponent means a more imbalanced wealth distribution while a power exponent of 1 refers to an evenly distributed wealth.

Many other social patterns exhibit power law. A recent study showed that it exists even in terror events! The number of casualties per insurgent event and the number of insurgent events per day follow a power law. [3] Historical data for the last two centuries show further that the number of casualties per war or a terror attack follows a power law distribution. What is even more interesting is that the number of casualties and the number of attacks within an insurgent conflict both follow power law. That is, when only a particular conflict between two countries or ethnic groups is considered, the number of casualties per insurgent event and the number of insurgent events per day follow the power law. This suggests a “self-similar” pattern. Likewise, traffic measurements for many systems show power law distributions of size. For instance, if one observes the data traffic on an Internet connection and counts the number of bytes being transmitted per hour over that connection, a power law distribution of the count of bytes will emerge. Further, if this counting is done per minute instead of per hour, a similar distribution will still emerge – again showing a self-similar pattern. [4]

The power law has been observed in several natural phenomena as well. The frequency of earthquake magnitudes follows a power law. [5] This refers to the intuitive notion that the number of earthquakes with small magnitudes (which humans do not even feel) is much larger than the number of earthquakes with large magnitudes, (which can kill many humans). Small earthquakes are the norm while large ones the outliers. However, without the outliers, there is no power law distribution! Thus, the power law distribution of a quantity comes with an interesting observation: If a quantity is indeed following a power law distribution, then the likelihood of an outlier event increases as the time goes by without an outlier event. This is why geoscientists would make comments like “The region X is due for a major earthquake!” indicating that the region X has not been receiving a major earthquake (i.e. an outlier) for several years. The issue, though, is determining the threshold for an outlier is typically ambiguous and may require many years of measurements and data, which may be impractical.

Power law in growth: Rich get richer

Growth of systems also exhibit power law in various ways. Social growth follows power law due to the well-known “rich get richer” rule, which refers to the intuition that “important” people in the society attract more of the attention of newcomers. This dynamic situation is observed, for example, in the growth of the Internet. Several studies [6] showed that the connections between Internet Service Providers (ISPs) (e.g., AOL, Yahoo!, AT&T, Sprint) follow a power law distribution in that the number of connections per ISP (which shows how well an ISP is connected to the rest of the world) is represented by power law. In other words, there are few ISPs with many connections to other ISPs while most ISPs have a few connections to the others. This is believed to be due to the “rich get richer” rule since an existing ISP with many connections is more likely to gain the business of a new ISP who is joining to the Internet. So, it is somewhat an economic pattern too.

If economics (or the money) is taken out of the picture, social growth still exhibits power law. Online social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr are clearly following a power law distribution. It is found that the power exponents are in the range of 2.5 to 3.7, indicating a highly imbalanced social growth pattern where few people are at the “center” of the social network with hundreds or thousands of friends, and many people have only one or two friends. [7] Again, the typical explanation for this growth pattern has been the “rich get richer” rule, but “richness” refers to the number of existing friends in this context rather than money.

Physical growth shows power law too in many ways. For instance, roughness of a growing surface as time goes by follows a power law distribution with an exponent ranging between 0 and 1 where an exponent of 0 refers to a smooth growth and 1 refers to a stiff growth. The surface roughness is measured by the variance of heights of surface locations. [8]

Does it really exist? Why does it exist?

Verifying existence of a power law distribution is not easy and requires enough number of samples to show the “tail” of the distribution. The tail of the distribution refers to the samples with large (or rare) values. For example, for the power law distributions in Figure 2, the portion of the distribution when x is greater than 10 (i.e. x>10) roughly corresponds to the “tail.” The tail corresponds to the rare samples. Though statistical theory calls those rare samples “outliers,” the distribution will not be a power law distribution without them. They are strictly parts of pieces that constitute a power law relationship, and observing them typically requires long periods or large numbers of measurements. Due to this difficulty, the existence of the power law is questioned for many real systems. Most of the time, claims of the existence of the power law typically come with an error factor indicating the confidence of the claim. The bottom-line is to observe trends in the samples and thus establish sufficient confidence (e.g., more than 95%) that the power law distribution does exist in the samples.

For those systems with clear exhibition of power law, the root causes of it have been of high interest. The “rich get richer” rule is intuitively one of the root causes, and it is intuitively a natural dynamic to get attracted by a rich member rather than a poor one. Growth certainly naturally follows the “rich get richer” rule, but we have system components slowing their growth, flattening, and then deteriorating. So, not everything is growing, and actually, we have as many things deteriorating as growing. For instance, participants join or leave the Internet or the social networks, and likewise, people join (i.e. birth) or leave (i.e. death) society. How does the power law stay in such systems then?

Due to the “rich get richer” intuition, the power law is considered to be the signature of “self-organization.” The fact that so many natural or synthetic systems are exhibiting this signature deserves the question: “Is it really self-organization?” Maintaining a global power law distribution for a system requires either (i) every member joining or leaving the system according to the “rich get richer” rule and having global knowledge of the whole system or (ii) somebody who knows everything about the system and gives explicit direct orders to each member when they are joining or leaving. Which one is more likely?

Murat Yuksel is an Assistant Professor at the CSE Department of The University of Nevada – Reno (UNR), Reno, NV.

References

[1] Wikipedia, “Inverse-square law,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverse-square_law

[2] M. A. Santos, R. Coelho, G. Hegyi, Z. Néda, and J. Ramasco. 2007. “Wealth distribution in modern and medieval societies,” The European Physical Journal, Volume 143, Number 1, pages 81-85.

[3] J. C. Bohorquez, S. Gourley, A. R. Dixon, M. Spagat, and N. F. Johnson. 2009. “Common ecology quantifies human insurgency,” Nature, Volume 462, December, pages 911-914.

[4] T. Karagiannis, M. Molle, and M. Faloutsos. 2004. “Long-Range Dependence: Ten Years of Internet Traffic Modeling,” IEEE Internet Computing, September/October, pages 57-64.

[5] T. Lay and T. Wallace. 1995. Modern Global Seismology, Academic Press, San Diego, CA.

[6] M. Faloutsos, P. Faloutsos, and C. Faloutsos. 1999. “On power-law relationships of the Internet topology,” ACM Computer Communication Review, Volume 29, Issue 4.

[7] R. Kumar, J. Novak, and A. Tomkins. 2006. “Structure and evolution of online social networks,” Proceedings of ACM SIGKDD, pages 611-617.

[8] A. L. Barabasi and H. E. Stanley. 1995. Fractal Concepts in Surface Growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England.

However, the issue of privacy versus freedom of information has been with us forever. In world history, the recognition of privacy has deep roots.(2) The Qur’an (3) and the Bible (4) contain numerous references to privacy. Jewish law has long recognized the concept of freedom from being watched.(5) There also were protections in classical Greece and ancient China.

Privacy defined

Privacy is the interest that individuals have in sustaining a personal space free from interference by other people and organizations. It is a balancing act between the needs of individuals and society’s demands. There is a fine balance between the need for individuals to protect their privacy and the contending pressures of business, government, and the exigencies of modern life.

There are three main issues and areas of concern: How much other people may access our personal information, how much access should we have to our private information that is held by others, and how much access we should have to public information. Privacy, a topic of special concern to social scientists, is a complicated issue that cannot be discussed fully within this short article.

Even with the adoption of legal and other protections, privacy violations remain a concern. Beyond these obvious aspects of privacy, several important trends are contributing to privacy invasion, such as globalization (removing limitations to the flow of data), convergence (leading to the elimination of technological barriers between systems), and multimedia.

Types of privacy

Intuitively, privacy can be categorized into four separate but related concepts.

Privacy of communications or interception, which involves individuals desiring to communicate with other individuals and organizations through secure and private communications, whether these be mail, telephone, e-mail, or otherwise.

Privacy of the person, which is concerned with the integrity of one’s physical body and protection of one’s physical self against such invasive procedures as compulsory immunization, blood transfusion without consent, genetic tests, compulsory provision of bodily fluids and tissue samples, and drug testing.

Territorial privacy, which involves setting limits on intrusion and all aspects of behavior into the domestic and other environments, but especially with regard to various sensitive matters in both private and in public places (e.g., searches, sexual preferences and habits, political activities, religious practices, video surveillance, and ID checks).

Information privacy or privacy of personal data, meaning the establishment of rules governing personal data collection and handling. People claim that personal data on credit history, as well as medical and government records, should not be available automatically to other individuals and organizations.

The volume of instantly recorded information based on credit card usage, Internet visits, hospital or pharmacy visits, filing tax returns renting video tapes and so on’all of which can be accessed by authorized and unauthorized persons’has changed the speed and ease with which others can survey much of one’s personal life and activities.(6)

Types of surveillance

Identification. With the advent of microprocessor technology, such a card’s type, function, and integrity vary enormously. ID cards could embed biometric information, defined as the process of collecting, processing, and storing details of a person’s physical characteristics in order to identify and authenticate.

In recent years, the underlying technology interests governments and companies because, unlike other forms of ID, they now can include such new information as digital fingerprinting, handprint scans, hand geometry, thumb scans, facial recognition technologies, voice authentication devices, electronic retinal scans, and such other biological markers as DNA identification.

Thus security personnel also will be able to identify more accurately those people accessing buildings, computers, or national borders.

Communications. All companies that develop digital telephone switches, cellular and satellite phones, and other developing communication technologies build in surveillance capabilities.(7) Nearly every country has some form of eavesdropping capability as regards telephone, fax, and telex communications for the use of law enforcement or intelligence agencies. 

Internet and black boxes. Internet surveillance is a revolutionary new technology that allows remote monitoring of an e-mail address and the contents of an e-mail message.(7)

A related effort for enhancing government control of the Internet and promoting surveillance is being conducted in the name of preventing ‘cyber-crime,’ ‘information warfare,’ or ‘protecting critical infrastructures.’ A number of countries are demanding that ISPs install ‘black boxes’ that can monitor system traffic.

In short, black boxes contain specialized software programs that run in a computer hooked into the network at a location where it can monitor system traffic. These sniffers can monitor the entire data stream by searching for such key words, phrases, or strings as net addresses or e-mail accounts. Network administrators can take screen shots in real time or on a schedule, by time and day or user, and store them for future review; run any program installed on a remote PC; shut down or restart any remote workstation; and view a list of applications stored on all network PCs, the frequency of Internet usage, and more.

Electronic Commerce. As consumers surf and engage in routine online transactions, they leave behind a trail of personal details, often without any idea that they are doing so. Corporations monitor the huge amount of personal information (e.g., e-mail address linked to messages posted on mailing lists, from newsgroups or domain name registration data, individual surfing habits, deciphering how individual work, and building detailed profiles of where they shop and what they like to buy).

The perceived value of this kind of information is behind the stock-market valuations of many dotcom companies. Marketers and advertisers use cookies to track personal preferences as the most pervasive tracking technology. The cookie is a very small text file containing an ID number downloaded from a Web site by your browser and placed on a user’s hard drive.

Television and T-commerce

The new field of interactive digital television has a huge potential. Users can send and receive e-mail, browse the Internet, buy goods and services, and play games through their television. The industry anticipates that such T-commerce (television commerce) will enable viewers to make impulsive purchases based on what their favorite star is wearing or on individually tailored ads appearing between the plots of their favorite shows or sporting events.

Audio. Audio surveillance allows people to eavesdrop (and/or record) conversations taking place at a particular location or on a particular telephone line. Advances in technology are making it easier and cheaper to conduct covert audio surveillance. These devices come in many shapes and sizes: from micro-engineered transmitters the size of an office staple to devices no bigger than a cigarette packet that can transmit video and sound signals for miles. A magic item of modern ingenuity, each audio stream is captured and analyzed on the fly, allowing intelligence agents to perform voice-pattern matches during an intercept. It also provides the names of speakers and access to their dossiers.

Video. By now, the use of video surveillance cameras, known as closed circuit television (CCTV), to monitor public and private spaces has grown to unprecedented levels. Most towns and cities are moving to CCTV surveillance of public areas. This technology enables the observation of individuals without their knowledge at the ATM, in stores, elevators, restaurants, school hallways, housing estates, car parks, and when stopped by police in patrol cars.

In addition to the obvious security applications, video surveillance technology is being used to measure traffic flow, detect accidents on highways, monitor pedestrian congestion in public spaces, compile consumer demographics in shopping malls and amusement parks, log routine maintenance tasks at nuclear facilities, and count endangered species. The numerous military applications include patrolling national borders, measuring refugee flows in troubled areas, monitoring peace treaties, and providing secure perimeters around bases and embassies. Their use on private property is also becoming popular.(8) 

The point of this article is not who hates who. Rather, we want to learn why people become angry with others who have different skin colors,

religions, or thoughts. This nightmare, known as racism, has been the source of great and frequent violence throughout history.

Who Was the First Racist?

The first racist was Satan, for he hated Adam. According to Qur’an 17:61: All angels prostrated [before Adam], except Iblis [Satan]. He asked: Shall I prostrate to one whom You made from clay? What was Satan’s biggest mistake? Instead of accepting the reality of diversity in creation, he sought to justify his rejection of Adam. He assumed and asserted that he was nobler than Adam. He did not ponder who decides everyone’s color, nation, and social environment, but justified his racist superiority: [God] asked: Why did you not prostrate when I commanded you? [Satan] replied: I am nobler than him. You created me from fire, but You created him from clay (7:12).

Since this early racist dialectic, all racist groups and their followers have used similar arguments to justify their beliefs and prove that they are the best. The result of such an effort has been a very bloody history.

We are living in a period of rapid change. Due to the global media, these changes affect everyone. Hate organizations use the media to expand their reach in totally new ways. Of course, this is not new: In Italy, in 1922, Benito Mussolini understood the power of the brand-new medium, radio, and he began to use it as soon as it was electronically possible in his country. Some years later he was quoted as saying, ˜If it weren’t for radio, I wouldn’t have the power over the Italian people that I have.(2)

In recent years, the Internet has become a major tool for extremist propaganda. Time columnist John Cloud makes a significant point:

He is absolutely right, for creating hate-filled Web sites is easier and cheaper than taking risks, such as public demonstrations and protests. Don Black, founder of a famous racist Web site, learned in jail how to use the Internet to spread his message. He started a Web site, which at last count had been visited by over 3 million people. It even has sections for women and children.

How Do Such Sites Affect People?

A recent race crime horrified the nation. On June 7, 1998, William King and his friends kidnapped James Byrd, an African-American, tied him to their truck, and dragged him to his death. How can a person become a racist murder? While covering the story, the American media found several reasons, among them that a hate group had agitated King while he was in jail. The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Clara Byrd-Taylor, Byrd’s sister, to get insight into King’s personality: After the dragging death of Texan James Byrd, his sister decided that he would not die in vain. She set out to discover what could have nurtured the hate that killed her brother. She found it on the Internet. ˜Prior to the death of my brother,’ Clara Byrd-Taylor says, ˜I had very little knowledge about the hate sites and what was happening with the hate groups around the world. I had heard isolated incidents, but I had not put all those things together.'(4) There are now over 600 hate Web sites, most of them targeted specifically at young people. The Internet and rock music are two key attractions for youth. CD and Web sites have presented young people with music mixed with advocacy of violence and racial separation Resistance Records, in Detroit, identified as a neo-Nazi music label, sells about 50,000 albums a year through its Web site.(5) Why are youths chosen as targets? Nowadays, more people feel lonely even though they live and interact with people all the time, such as in the workplace. But sharing social and moral values with some communities, like family, has been forgotten. People are losing themselves and, as a result, seeking a new identity that might solve their individual and social crises. Many young people feel isolated by the social structure, and so face an identity crisis. They feel alone, insecure, and abandoned. Music about violence offers messages that highlight the importance of rebelling against social discipline and authority. Being a part of the group and against others is a way to obtain a new social identity for many young people, who see everything in black and white. This is a very complicated problem without a clear solution. Many academic researchers and human rights groups are trying to learn how to overcome hate propaganda on the media. For instance, the Southern Poverty Law Center declared 10 ways to fight racism. They are as follows(6):

Act. Apathy is interpreted as acceptance.

Unite. Join those who oppose hate and work to eliminate it.

Support the Victims. Let victims know that you care, and report any hate directed toward you or people you know.

Do Your Homework. Learn how to identify hate groups and spread this knowledge to others.

Create an Alternative. Find another outlet for anger and frustration, and capitalize on people’s desire to do something

Speak Up. Expose and denounce hate wherever and whenever you can.

Lobby Leaders. Persuade political, business, and community leaders to take a stand against hate in the interest of their reputations and businesses.

Look Long Range.Create a bias response team and celebrate your community’s diversity and harmony.

Teach Tolerance. Bias is learned early, usually at home. Sponsor an I have a dream contest. Target youths who may be tempted by skinheads or other hate groups.

Dig Deeper. Study divisive issues so that you can determine your own prejudices, and then work to eliminate social prejudice.

Defining Censorship

One of the most contentious media-related issues is defining censorship. Governments are responsible for protecting their citizens from racist groups and propaganda. For instance, Canada and Germany are trying to catch people who use the media, including personal Web sites, to spread hate. But there is still one vital question that must be answered: Who defines protecting the people, especially the young, and protecting the freedom of speech? Prohibiting such speech is not the answer, because governments have abused this authority throughout history. Besides, modern technology and its products almost have eliminated the importance of physical borders as tools for governmental control.

What You Can Do

If you are involved in education or business, work to get your employers to focus on cultural diversity as a valuable human resource. Schools are many children’s first direct exposure to different cultures and peoples. The business sector often brings people who otherwise would not meet each other into close contact, thereby dispelling stereotypes. If handled correctly, deep biases can be destroyed in both children and adults. In addition, the importance of peace must be taught and reinforced in the home, school, workplace, and everywhere else. Create your own anti-hate Web site. Spread the information provided by such anti-hate organization Web sites as:

www.angelfire.com/on2/EvasGarden/AntiHate.html

http://earnestman.tripod.com/forewarned.htm,www.kcmetro.cc.mo.us/multicultural/pages/anti.htm,

and

http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/hatred1_frame.html.

Subscribe to their publications, donate money or time, and participate in their activities whenever possible. Protest all radio programs and music that encourage this nightmare of modern times. Explain to your children why you oppose their listening to such programs or music. Sponsors and producers are not immune to public outcry and negative publicity. Remind the mainstream media that it has the vital responsibility of showing its audience how to live together without hate. If religious or racial discrimination are tolerated or even encouraged, the media only reinforces negative or distorted images and racism. Establish or join coalitions devoted to fighting hate messages. Explain to others that you do so in order to create a better future for everyone by trying to prevent the racist nightmare from destroying our good dreams for the future.

Footnotes

1. The Southern Poverty Law Center, Ten Ways to Fight Hate: A Community Response Guide. Online at: www.splcenter.org.
2. Robert L. Hilliard and Michael C. Keith, Waves of Rancor: Turning in the Radical Right (M. E. Sharpe: 1999), 20.
3. John Cloud, Trading White Sheets for Pinstripes, Time Magazine (8 March 1999).
4. Gloria Goodale, HBO Exposes Hate Groups in Cyberspace, The Christian Science Monitor (20 October 2000), 20.
5. Hilliard and Keith, Waves of Rancor, 55.
6. The full text is available online at: www.splcenter.org/intelligenceproject/ip-index.html.