Control of Technology
Description:
As we have seen in the past, technology and power are tightly related. Just think of the technological advances made in WWII, the atom bomb, and supercomputing. Therefore it is not strange to see that the drive to control technology is reflected in our society today i.e. United Nations, treaties (non-proliferation), and export regulations.
Enablers:
Terrorism
If terrorists have access to certain technologies they are able to spread more chaos, therefore controlling these technologies is becoming more important.
Oppurtunities of new technologies
When new technologies are discovered in most cases they have positive and negative appliances. If these appliances could have major economical or political implications, controlling these technologies is important.
Globalization
Because of globalization people know more about what is going on in the world, thus aware of possibilities of new technologies and ways of obtaining them. This increases the need for countries to control technology. For instance, if people living in the U.S. in 1920s are not aware Russia has made a time machine there is less need to control this technology.
Inhibitors:
- Internet security issues: its vulnerabilities to cybercrime
Paradigms:
Emerging paradigm associated with the advance of internet:
- e-government
- e-commerce
- e-business
- e-learning (Distance learning)
- Semantic web
Experts:
- Marshal McLuhan
- GVU's WWW survey
- IDC
- Nua Ltd.
Timing:
In a www survey conducted by GUV in 1995, internet connection speed at 14 kb/s had the highest percentage with 33.7%, 32.72%, 22.95% in general part of the world, U.S, and europe respectively. In other words, the most common connection speed is 14 Kb/sec (33.70%) followed by 28 Kb/sec (26.63%). In year 1998, the same survey resulted in 31.4% for connection speed at 56 Kb/sec. This fact however has shown how internet technology has grown rapidly within three years.
In terms of internet usage, internet user has grown from 16 million (0.39% of world population) in December 1995 to 580.78 million (9.75% of world population) in May 2002. Those data are based upon research from Nua Ltd. and IDC respectively. This means internet user had grown 35.3% in seven years from 1995 to 2002.