Abstract

The Internet enables us to send and receive opinions freely, speedily, and cheaply. But at the same time it has great influence on our privacy. By using the Internet, anyone can invade our privacy. This is because there are technical and consciousness gaps among the Internet users. Therefore, we must not control and watch the Internet.

Introduction

Human beings have developed communication and information skill. There are three stages in its history: communication between one person and one person, between one and many, and between many and many. In the first stage, in primeval ages, human beings spoke directly or wrote a letter to communicate with each other. These communications were slow, and the area where it could communicate was limited. In the second stage, since the invention of the printing press, people have come to communicate with more people quicker in a larger area than in the first stage. This trend was accelerated by electrical technology such as radio and TV. However in this stage the sender of information was usually one specific person or group ,and most people were not able to send information, they only received information. In the third stage, in which now we are, we all can send and receive information freely and speedily all over the world if we log in to the Internet.

The Internet is revolutionary. It has made our communication freer, cheaper, speedier, and larger. Through the Internet we can send information or our ideas to other people and receive any information which we are interested in without national limitations. Though it is necessary to have computers in order to log in to the Internet, computers are much cheaper than printing machines etc. By using the Internet we can send and receive information more speedily. For example when I send an e-mail and a mail at the same time, you will get the e-mail earlier than the mail. With the Internet we are able to refer to various information sources on the web such as the IPL(www.ipl.org) and get in touch with foreign people without passports. In fact, I talk with Korean people , American people, or Chinese people about Japanese culture , politics and so on with ICQ( a tool to communicate through the Internet) That is to say, the Internet has made our communication greater.

But this is only one aspect of the Internet impact. The Internet has other aspects. What are they ? One of them is that by using the Internet anyone could invade one's privacy or get exposed to dangers to his/her privacy. For example, you might write a secret of your friend on the BBS. Even if you do it not on purpose, you will infringe his/her privacy. On the other hand, someone may read your e-mail without your permission. In short, the Internet is attacking our privacy.

Therefore, there are some people who assert that some organizations such as a nation should control and watch the Internet. On the other hand, some declare that doing so might invade our freedom of speech ,the press, and other expressions. This conflict includes an important problem : a dilemma of human rights.

In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you can find two articles about information : articles 12 and 19. Article 12 says ,"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy , family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks." On the other hand, article 19 says "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." These two articles result in a dilemma. When you leave the Internet alone to guarantee the right to freedom of opinion and expression, it means you let some invade your privacy. On the other hand ,when you control and watch the Internet to protect your privacy, it means you restrict the right to freedom of opinion and expression. That is to say, when you get article 12, you lose article 19; when you get article 19, you lose article 12. In the case of the Internet, which article should we think much of ? In this paper , after reporting the present conditions on the Internet and finding out causes of problems, I determine whether we should have an organization control and watch the Internet. This paper may lead to a better use for the Internet.

Research

As I say above, the Internet is a new media. Then how much power does the Internet have as a media in Japan ? In fact, it already has very strong power. White paper - communications in Japan 2000 - estimated the number of the Internet users in Japan is 27,060,000 at the end of 1999 , which is nearly equal to one fifth of the Japanese population. As the circulation of newspapers (morning edition) in Japan is 33,381,465 in 1999, we can say the Internet has the same power as the newspaper. Moreover, although the circulation of newspapers has had little tendency to change for last 10 years, the number of the Internet users , the white paper predicted, will reach 76,700,000 in 2005. ISICS (Institute of Socio-Information and Communication Studies, University of Tokyo, 2000) reported that since having begun to use the Internet, 33.9% of the users came to watch TV more rarely. These reports show the Internet has and will have a great influence on our life.

In fact, the Internet has already influenced Japanese society. For example, I'll tell you about the "Toshiba affair." On June 3, 1999 Akky, who complained about the support of VTR made by Toshiba, built up his own home page "About Toshiba's Support" and blamed Toshiba for reacting to him badly. Then, on July 19, 1999 Toshiba announced they would apologize to him directly. This affair showed that by using the Internet even the public can criticize big organizations, such as companies and nations. Without the Internet the public would only be ignored by big organizations and other mass media.

The great power of the Internet has a bad influence on your privacy, too. I'll show some examples. There are some people who abuse and slander a specific person on the Internet without any reason. If you e-mail to your friends about your private information, enter a prize competition or fill in a questionnaire on the Internet, or tell your private information in a chat room, that means you make your private information known to anyone using the Internet. (Private information is your name, sex, address, telephone number, credit card number, ID and password for logging in, and so on.) In fact, there were some accidents in which telling someone's private information on the Internet resulted in stalking, in which direct mails was delivered suddenly, or in which someone's ID and password were stolen. If you visit some sites, it means your private information, such as the place where you log in into the Internet, has been given to an owner of the site as the form of a cookie. A cookie is not food but a text file made by Netscape to improve your net-surf, but often a cookie can be used to research your taste. On the other hand, if you write other people's private information on the BBS, build a home page where you show other people's private information, this means you invade other people's privacy, whether on purpose or by accident. It is true that the Internet is a free system. But "free" doesn't mean you are free of any danger, but anyone is free to invade your privacy.

What have this invasion resulted from? From the Internet itself ? I think NO. I think these invasion has resulted from two gaps of the Internet users : a technical gap and a consciousness gap. The technical gap is a difference between crackers' knowledge of the computer and Internet and first-step users'. First-step users often know little about techniques not only to invade their privacy in the Internet, but also to protect their privacy such as SSL (Secure Socket Layer) and PGR (Pretty Good Privacy). It is natural that thieves should slip into a house whose door is not locked. The consciousness gap is a difference in consciousness about your privacy. Look at figures 1, 2, and 3. This is research done by RSA Security JAPAN Co. about Japanese people's security consciousness. This shows their security consciousness is very low. Look at figure 1. In figure 1, 21.8% people answered they were not conscious of e-mail security. Although 78.2 answered they were conscious of e-mail security to some extent, look at figure 2, 83.8% have never sent their e-mail encoding them. Moreover, look at figure 3, 56% answered they were not concerned about their contents of e-mail, 39% didn't know the technique about coding e-mail (this is a technical gap.), and 11% feel encoding e-mail troublesome. That is to say, Japanese people are not conscious of their privacy in actual fact, on both a technical level and a consciousness level. This is a cause of the Internet problems, I think.

Discussion

At the end of the introduction, I asked if we should have an organization control and watch the Internet. It is time for me to answer this question. My answer is NO. As I say in the research section, the Internet problems don't result from the Internet itself but the Internet user. Therefore controlling and watching the Internet won't resolve the problems. Moreover it will bring about new problems : new invasion and less advantage. If some organizations control and watch the Internet, they control and watch the Internet users too. Probably users may be exposed to more danger to their privacy. If some organizations control and watch the Internet, the Internet will lose its advantages ,especially its freedom. The Internet which would needs a permission to log in will not let the public express their ideas freely. Is such an Internet valuable ? No. We need a free Internet.

Then, what should we do to protect our privacy. Our privacy is as important as our free Internet. I will suggest an alternative idea : education of the Internet and raising of our consciousness. It is very easy and effective. The reason of the problems is users' gap. Therefore if we study the Internet , how important our privacy is , how dangerous telling our privacy carelessly in the Internet is, and so on, we can stop the invasion of our privacy to some extent. In fact since I have studied about the Internet to some extent, I have not experienced any Internet problem. Of course, some people will still wiretap e-mail, or abuse someone. But the Internet is not responsible to such people. In general, there are such people in a society. We cannot help resorting to laws, ignoring or giving up them.

The Internet is very valuable. We should use it properly and enjoy it.

references

United Nations. (1948). Universal Declaration of Human Rights [WWW document]. URL http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

Ministry of posts and telecommunications. (2000). White paper -communication in Japan 2000- [WWW document]. URL http://www.mpt.go.jp/eng

Nihon Shinbun Kyokai. (1999). Circulation and Households [WWW document]. URL http://www.pressnet.or.jp

ICICS. (2000). [WWW document]. URL http://www.isics.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Masaki, K. (1999). About Toshiba affair [WWW document]. URL http://www.homepage1.nifty.com/kito/

Toshiyuki, T. (2000). Internet Security. Yahoo! Japan Internet Guide, 154-171.

Stein, L. (1998). Web security: a step-by-step reference guide. Ascii.

RSA Security JAPAN Co. (1999) A research about Japanese people's security consciousness [WWW document]. URL http://www.rsasecurity.co.jp