Myths that hinder Internet expansion

"It only takes a whirlwind tour of official surveillance operations around the world to make one feel that the lowliest and most innocuous computer user is not merely a foot-soldier in the field of information Warfare, but fair game for anyone, approved or otherwise, with the right equipment and a mission to accomplish"

The above quote does not come from some conspiracy-theorist's overtaxed imagination. It was published in The Irish Times under the headline: "Prepare for screen warfare" a few months ago.

A far more accurate portrayal of the people who use the Internet comes from Mayoman John Naughton, author of A Brief History of the Future - The Origins of the Internet: "Most Internet users now are `ordinary' folk, who lack both the talent and the motivation to cock a snook at authority. They access the net through Internet service providers, companies run by accountants who carry no torches for liberty or anarchy," he wrote in the Observer newspaper. His admirably commonsense approach to technology is, unfortunately, all too rare.

In a British poll for the Microsoft Network (MSN) late last year 21 per cent of people said they were weary of Internet hype, particularly stories of how the Internet would change people's lives. A question the survey did not ask, but should have, is: "How bored are you with all the stories on how `the man' is trying to read your e-mails/ destroy your hard-drive/make your tech life no fun at all?"

A spokeswoman for MSN said the company is not surprised with the results. According to them, people no longer want to hear hype about the Internet because it has already become a part of everyday life. While this is not yet strictly true, progress is hindered by the sheer volume of newsprint devoted to making people feel insecure about buying a computer, hooking up a modem and joining the modern world.

Returning to "Prepare for screen warfare", it seems that one doesn't even have to be tooled into the machine age to feel the icy chill of dread techno fear: "Shunning all network and Internet connections . . . will not protect you if somebody is determined to see the contents of your computer. "Unless you work in a windowless, copper-lined cavern, surveillance equipment can tune in to what is on your monitor from a nearby office in the same building, or even from across a street . . . it can literally be done through the air . . ." Saying that a computer's security can be breached, which is basically what that article boils down to, is as obvious as saying that guns can kill. Everyone knows this. And what's more, you are as likely to have your hard-drive hacked as you are to get whacked in a drive-by shooting.

Of course breaches of our computers are possible. But why would anyone who leads a normal life untroubled by incursions of the law, a person who maybe uses the Internet to check football scores, need to fear having their home PC hacked? It is ludicrous to suggest we need waste our time worrying about this.

Telephone tapping and mail-reading are a far more insidious and pervasive use of investigatory powers, but how often do you see articles about these activities? Once a year each maybe? Yet hardly a week goes by without seeing some scare story about how hard-drive bandits could randomly choose to pick us off.

The vast majority of us have no fear of either phone-tapping or having our post read because it is so unlikely to happen. Having your e-mails read is even less likely, not least because there are billions of them sent every day. If you are not up to illegal activity it is reasonable to assume that you will not be subjected to having your phone tapped, mail read, emails intercepted or hard-drive destroyed.