Beware of the Internet
by Lindsey Vereen
Ever since Dr. Frankenstein's
mishap with his embedded systems project, technology has been getting a bad rap. Technofear is easy to generate among the villagers--even global villagers. Look at the way the definition of "hacker" has migrated from "programmer" to "programmer-in-league-with-the-devil.
The latest chapter in the story of the evils of technology centers on the Internet. Over the past several months, the Internet has been getting trashed in the media with the same regularity that it has been lauded. On the one hand,
the Internet is characterized as the savior of mankind. On the other hand, it has been labeled as a tool for the seduction of the innocent, evidenced by (largely untrue) horror stories. If people's uneasiness with technology weren't bad enough to begin with, Congress is exacerbating the problem. Implicit in the Decency Amendment of the 1996 Telecommunications Act is the message that the populace must be protected from the Internet--today's chief manifestation of arcane technology. Congress and the President
seem willing to abrogate the Bill of Rights to protect us from this perceived danger. If the government is concerned about net naughtiness, there are software tools to keep the prurient eyes of our nation's youth off taboo Internet sites. Other agendas, though, are likely in play.
Some of you may remember that in the mid 1960s, school administrators tried to limit the length of male students' hair. Boys were forbidden to wear their hair below their collar, for the reason that to do so would "disrupt
the classroom." Perhaps schools react the same way today against clothes that are 12 sizes too large, tattoos, or any of the other creative aesthetic statements adolescents contrive to drive their elders batty. School administrators fear that loss of control will lead to anarchy.
Governments suffer from the same anxiety. They like to control the flow of information and fear anarchy when they are unable to do so. Consider the efforts of the Chinese government to direct the flow of Internet traffic
into and out of China through official government channels. Consider also that some governments are reluctant to let people introduce fax machines into their countries because of the appliance's potential for transmitting forbidden information.
While Luddites stir up technofear, embedded systems developers are tasked with taking the fear out of technology. It's one thing if desktop computers are difficult to use. Despite their penetration into the home environment, desktop units still represent only a
small fraction of the computing power available to consumers. The microwave oven, the cruise control, the automatic coffee maker, and of course the traditional consumer programming nemesis, the VCR, exemplify the myriad computers that consumers encounter each day. Embedded systems developers camouflage the computers in these everyday products.
As new generation set-top boxes and network appliances begin to appear on the market, the acceptance of tools that will offer additional power and connectivity
to a large number of consumers may hinge on overcoming the fear factor. While embedded systems developers may not have a lot of influence on the government's control of the Internet, they do have the opportunity to mitigate the public's fear of technology. In a sense, that's the job of embedded developers.
