Impact of the Internet on Society

In this paper, the impact that the Internet has had upon society will be deeply explored, analyzed and discussed. This paper will look at the history of the Internet’s development. From its humble beginnings in the 1960’s; being developed by the United States government, to the limited usage by only the so-called “Computer Nerd” and computer professional, till the eventual massive technological explosion and integration of technology within the fabric of society.

This paper shall discuss the emergence of Electronic Commerce (or e-commerce as it is commonly called) and how this new part of the Free-Market has influenced how consumers purchase goods and services. In addition, the impact that Electronic Commerce has had upon how small businesses and large corporations will be explored. How they have either expanded immensely or have completely gone under due to not riding the technological wave; and/or not anticipating on a new competitor who has utilized this new and powerful marketing tool to its fullest potential shall be made apparent.

The complete globalization of society due to being “linked” together via a computer terminal and the positive and negative impacts that this has played in inter-human relations will be examined. How even though we can communicate with someone across the country or the world even, we will often not even talk to the person sitting right next to us on the neighboring terminal. The escapism of the Internet has made some people withdraw away from interacting with others within society completely. However, this anonymity has also allowed those with fear of talking in front of people to be able to express themselves even more freely.

Lastly, with the expansion of the Internet, new forms of crime have emerged; in addition to more high-tech means for much older crimes. New tactics and safeguards have now been implemented in order to combat and apprehend these criminals who can now strike from anywhere with a connection to the Internet. This negative facet of technology will be looked at.
Keywords: Electronic Commerce, Internet, Hacking, Communication and Isolation

1. Introduction
The Internet, since its early inception within the confines of the government, began to slowly expand into other branches of the nation (academic usage, computer professional and integration within business organizations). Eventually this new piece of technology exploded onto a more massive scale with the “Information Superhighway” gaining massive popularity in the early 1990’s(Scott pg.1. 1994).

Upon this initial wave, a multitude of events occurred, nearly all resulting in the wake of this technological phenomenon that is the Internet. Whole new companies emerged and changed the landscape on which most traditional businesses have conducted their affairs. This new landscape caused the new businesses to flourish and become giants within their perspective markets. This new landscape also caused some corporations and small businesses that were unwilling or unable to adapt to the changes, to become weaker and eventually go under and disappear.

These new e-stores (electronic-stores), which provided the everyday consumer with the means to shop and purchase whatever goods or services they may need, revolutionized the whole marketing system and how retailers could reach target consumers. This new form of commercialism spawned the term: Electronic Commerce, or in short, E-Commerce.

In addition to Electronic Commerce, sociological ramifications resulted from this new technology. The whole world over became connected and information could be transferred across the globe in a matter of seconds. This allowed for people to be able to reach out to others that they otherwise would not be able to meet. Societies became enlarged into one great Global Community.

This has caused both positive and negative ramifications. These shall be further explored within the confines of this paper; along with in-depth analysis of other Internet-related aftershocks.

2. History
To fully begin to comprehend the sheer magnitude of how the concept of the Internet has evolved into its current, massive state; one must gaze upon its humble beginnings.

The Internet’s humble beginnings began with “a research project of the United States' Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and progressing through the interconnection of the ARPAnet and the MILnet to the foundation of the NSFnet and the current backbone architecture.”(Hefley pg.1. 1995) It was primarily created to provide a means for the government to be able to communicate with its various branches and sub-branches.

Eventually this technology was in steady usage. “The first national network which resulted from this project was called, not surprisingly, ARPANET. For most of the 1970's and 1980's ARPANET served as the primary network backbone in use for interconnecting LANs (Local Area Networks) for both the research community and the U.S. Government.

“At least two factors considerably advanced the interest in the ARPANET project. First, and foremost, it was an "open" architecture: its underlying technological requirements, and software specifications were available for anyone to see. As a result, it became an attractive alternative to developers who bristled at the notion of developing software which would run on only a certain subset of available platforms.

Second, ARPANET was built upon a robust, highly versatile and enormously popular protocol suite: TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol). The success and stability of TCP/IP elevated it to the status as the de facto standard for inter-networking. The U.S. military began using ARPANET in earnest in the early 1980's, with the research community following suit. Since TCP/IP software was in essence in the public domain, a frenzy of activity in deploying TCP/IP soon resulted in both government and academe. One outgrowth was the NSF-sponsored CSNET which linked computer science departments together. By the end of the 1980's, virtually every one who wanted to be inter-networked could gain access through government of academic institutions. ARPANET gradually evolved into the Internet (Berghel 1998)”
Thus what was a mere inter-departmental communications tool later branched out into the realms of the Academic and Professional. Businesses began using this tool within their own infrastructures. Universities saw this as a new frontier and used its resources to explore into further detail the range and possibilities of this new technology.

However, with any technology, it eventually was unable to meet the demand of network traffic and had to be reworked via the private industries. These computer companies worked and strengthened this technology.

The Internet’s usage was still not commonplace among the average person; strictly for the computer professionals and those who have already invested in this technology. A new medium within the Internet had to be created. Something to spark an interest in this and thus allow for even more development and expansion. This led to the creation of the World Wide Web.
Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN created the World Wide Web, in its early stages, back in 1989 “to be used as a shared information space which would support collaborative work (Berghel 1998).” During these developmental stages, he defined what would later be known as the Hypertext Transfer Protocol and Hypertext Markup Language, HTTP and HTML, respectively. He soon came up with the first Web-client navigator and browser in 1990.
Over time, a man by the name of Marc Andreessen developed another form of web browser called Mosaic. He later went on to co-found Netscape Communications in 1994. That company’s own web browser, called Netscape Navigator, became an industry standard and greatly shaped the way in which users back then and even today navigate their way through Cyberspace.
As the Internet began to expand, it became more versatile and as more people began using it, the larger it grew. Here are a few of the uses people have found for the Internet for their own personal and or professional needs/wants:
• individual and organizational homepages
• sales prospecting via interactive forms-based surveys
• advertising and the distribution of product promotional material
• new product information, product updates, product recall notices
• product support - manuals, technical support, frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• corporate record-keeping - usually via local area networks (LANs) and intranets
• electronic commerce made possible with the advent of several secure HTTP transmission protocols and electronic banking which can handle small charges (perhaps at the level of millicents)
• religious proselytizing
• propagandizing
• digital politics (Berghel 1998)

3. Technology Used
Now, how are web sites able to get their addresses on the Internet and thus allowing people to access those particular sites you may ask. This is done by the Domain Name System, or better known as DNS. It is one of the largest name services in existence today and helps provide names for a multitude of users, host servers and other networks across the globe.

The development of this technology began around 1982 with the HOST.TXT system “for publishing the mapping between host names and addresses (Mockapetris pg. 123.1988)”. This basic file is stored at the SRI-Network Information Center (SRI-NIC) and is then relayed to all existing hosts on the Internet by way of file transfers (Mockapetris pg. 123. 1988).

This system worked rather well until the Internet began to expand, costs increased and the notion of less-centralized control began to enter into effect. The more people that used the workstations and networks to access the Internet caused a need for better distribution and management of the DNS system. Also, as organizations began using more localized networks, the only logical course of action was to allow a more distributed system of managing all the addresses, networks, etc.; thus separating themselves from the other hosts and making the system much more manageable.

There were several basic design specifications within the design of the Domain Name System (DNS). There are as follows:
1. Provide at least all of the same information as HOSTS.TXT
2. Allow the database to be maintained in a distributed manner.
3. Have no obvious size limits for names, name components, data associated with a name, etc.
4. Interoperate across the DARPA Internet and in as many other environments as possible.
5. Provide tolerable performance. (Mockapetris pg. 124. 1988)

The Domain Name System must abide by these parameters as best as possible in order for it to work efficiently and correctly.

There are two main components within the architecture of the DNS. They are the name servers and resolvers. Name Servers store information and answer any inquiries by using whatever information it has stored. Resolvers link-up with client programs and possess the necessary algorithms to find a name server that someone is searching for (Mockapetris pg. 124. 1988).

Currently, there exists about 30 domain levels, used for the multitude of categorizing and subcategorizing of host names. Entire nations have their own DNS entry. Then there are the sub-categories for various functions. There is “.com” for commercial and general use for most users. There is “.gov” for government agencies who have web sites. There is also “.edu” for all colleges and universities. This is just the beginning, with more and more classifications being developed. Who is to know what sub-category will be next and what shall fall under its heading?

4. Electronic Commerce
With the vast amounts of people constantly online, some businesses have found this whole concept of customers purchasing goods and services via a computer terminal as the opportunity of a lifetime. Many of them have created web-sites so as to draw in even more customers and make even larger profits. Some businesses are exclusively on the Internet with no physical store. Such examples would be Amazon.com and eBay. They are able to reach across all over the world to those who are interested in their assortment of products.

With an increase in using credit and debit cards as payment for various goods and services; this new medium of the Free-Market does not cause any major inconvenience when attempting to purchase items from a selected online store. The order is placed and process within a short period of time. There is no hassle of waiting for a check to arrive at the company, having to wait even longer for the check to clear and then for the item to be shipped and arrive at its point of destination.

This convenient payment method has helped increase the sales of existing companies who wisely invested in the designing and creating of a functional web site. Thus, helping to gain a foothold and even an edge in their chosen market.

For companies who can afford to spend the money to develop a site, or have the expertise to do it, the whole idea of Electronic Commerce is fantastic and the companies are moving forward.

However, for the smaller companies with fewer resources, building a site is sometimes unfeasible or impractical. If you own a small business, without the resources to actually be able to meet the demand of a global community, there really is no point for you to have a website. With very little overhead, these virtual stores can undersell most physical stores; thus causing a decrease in the amount of sales for the competition.

This use of digital payment has also risen concerns on the security of these sites. As to whether or not the consumer’s credit card number is properly encrypted; so as to prevent others from stealing that information. A multitude of supposed purchases over the Internet have been flagged as fraudulent, often with a fake number or a stolen number. Visa International, Inc. issued a report that stated how “half of Visa's transactions from online sales are disputed or full-fledged frauds (Dekleva pg. 44)”

The rates at which fraud occurs when a transaction takes place, falls anywhere between 8 and 20 percent. One would assume that when a credit card number is stolen, used and a huge amount was spent, that the main victim of this crime is the actual cardholder. In actuality, the ones who feel the after effects the most are the owners of the stores that the item was purchased, and the company that issued the card (Dekleva pg. 45). Where a consumer can dispute a charge on their card and get a fraud protection plan on their card, retailers and credit card companies can not easily dispute a charge that was made. For how can they dispute the claim of a charge when they did not physically inspect the card and customer for validity prior to the transaction?

With Internet Fraud on the rise, more security measures are being implemented to try to assure the consumers that they are safe in purchasing over the Internet. Also, to insure businesses that it is safe to sell their respective goods and services without the fear of losing substantial profits due to fraudulent purchases. Encryption technology, digital signatures and other authorizations are just a few examples of what type of countermeasures are being undertaken by everyone who uses Electronic Commerce.

This whole idea of a web-based business poses an interesting question, “would electronic commerce, as illustrated by Amazon.com and eBay, erode the markets for physical stores? (Infosociety, vol.16 pg.2)” Will there be a time at which there will be no actual stores to actually go to, but just a place where you can view the products and order electronically?

5. Internet Banking
Aside from shopping over the Internet, there is also a new technological advancement on a very old established system; electronic banking. Now people can access their bank accounts long after the actual branch of the bank has closed for the day. They can view past transactions, balance their account, even transfer money, all with a few clicks. There are even Internet Banks, with no physical branches to go to, simply all digital. An example of this would be the Security First National Bank (Tan pg. 3).

Internet banking has increased the level of competition among banks. By adding this convenience to their already existing services, being able to retain their current customers and drawing new ones is not as difficult; as opposed to a bank that does not carry these services. People need to be able to access their accounts. They don’t have to go to a physical, tangible building to have to use their account, simply an access code that will allow them to conduct the necessary transactions. The tangible structure may one day become a thing of the past. “Banking is essential to a modern economy, banks are not (Tan pg. 3).” Perhaps one day there won’t be a physical bank to go to, but rather a web site to log into.

6.Ethical Issues
A conflict with using the Internet, is how to use it with sound moral judgment and not indulge in the more “base” tendencies. Within colleges and universities across the country, students and professors are faced with making strong ethical decisions when using the Internet.

Students are accessible to a fountain of knowledge and what will that particular information be used for will often depend upon the moral center of the student. If the student has to write a research paper for a particular class, whether he or she chooses to simply “cut and paste” information out of sites and into their paper will depend on the person. Taking the easy way out or actually do in-depth research that is your own work is a decision that many students are faced with. Often the correct decision is made and the sites are used as mere research tools that help build their paper. Then there are times when the easier road is taken. Though initially this road is easier, it has a very rough ending. Copying someone else’s work and resubmitting it as your own is called Plagiarism and is often grounds for expulsion from nearly all colleges and universities.

Cheating has even gone one step further. Instead of copying segments of already published work and resubmitting it, a cheater’s life just got made even easier. There are actual sites where whole papers are posted online for people to use as their own. Some are free of charge and others charge a slight fee. Cheating knows no technological boundaries; it just becomes even easier.
By having a “Master Key” if you will to all the records of the people on campus, Network Administrators are often faced with the choice of what to do. When doing routine sweeps through the system, checking for possible ethics violations on the part of students, monitoring their activities; who watches the watcher? What is to stop one of them from investigating deeper, for something that isn’t even supposed to be viewed by anyone without the proper authorization codes? It could be a letter to some family member or a report for a class. What is to prevent the watcher from scanning through those files and just do passive reading? This is why having too much access can be bad access.

7. Privacy Issues
Within the databases of the college or university, there is very important and personal information about all students, staff and faculty members. A select few only have access to that particular information only when such information needs to be recalled. Now, should an unauthorized individual or group be able to gain access to such information; some very negative results could come into effect. Most people do not desire for many people to know their Social Security Number or medical history. Those are just some of the pieces of information that could be divulged from one’s personal files.

E-mail from one person to another can and often is monitored by a central body at colleges and businesses across the world. Since a person is using a company or school computer terminal, any item transmitted from that terminal becomes the property of the company or college. Thus, monitoring their property is perfectly legal. Often a stray e-mail has been used in the dismissal of someone from a job or a joke taken out of context has led to lawsuits.

When people are browsing through the Internet, tiny files called “cookies” capture pieces of information about the users. This information often is used to track which virtual stores are visited, thus junk e-mail (spam) is sent to the user offering them a chance to win a free vacation or buy a product that they most likely would not be buying. The cookie captured your basic user information and was thus able to send you useless e-mail. These cookies can be very dangerous in a lot of people’s minds. With these monitoring files out on the Internet, various people and agencies can be able to monitor the day to day Internet browsing of someone. Most people feel very uncomfortable at having an eye on them at all times. Some may feel that even further information could be gathered by cookies; credit card information for example.

A person’s privacy is something that is guarded very closely by that individual. The more they feel they are being watched, often the more nervous and angry they can become. Most people enjoy being anonymous when browsing the Internet. To be able to just be another random individual among millions is appealing to some and they would not want some complete stranger becoming privy to some of the more private information that could become contained on a cookie.

8. Social Ramifications
There are some drawbacks to the Internet however. The Human Race is an impatient lot and demand everything right now as soon as they want it. The Internet can sometimes accommodate this personality flaw, but when the Internet is slowed down or the connection is severed, there is a rise in frustration and often a feeling of loss.

Some people begin to feel lost without their connection to the Internet. This is where the “cyber-fix” comes into play. People become so involved with the Internet, this whole other realm of possibilities, that they begin to see this as a better substitute for reality. Once they are sucked into it, they find it very hard to come back.

The addiction to the Internet is very visible. People often can not wait to go and check their e-mail or enter a chat room for hours on end. Even when people leave their homes, there are cyber-cafes that allow you to eat and go online at the same time. Now the Internet is seen as a basic necessity such as food is.
Anti-social behavior begins to manifest itself among the populace, especially with the children. Some children today no longer want to go and play with their friends, they would rather go online and chat with them or others. This lack of physical interaction can hurt the development of social skills that are often a necessity at jobs and overall human development.

Adults are no better. Often people will go in search of something that they feel is not attainable to them in reality. Chat rooms are seen as the only source of contact one will ever have, in some minds that is. What would be considered an extreme case of this lack of real human interaction is that some people would rather chat or have cyber-sex with someone a hundred miles away, yet they will not talk to the person sitting right next to them.

This may be a dark thought, but what if technology evolves to a point where we no longer can or wish to interact with the outside world? Some colleges and universities today are using distance learning as a way to provide an education to those who are unable to receive an education in person for whatever reason. What if it comes to the point where widespread distance education becomes so common, that the need to go to an actual college or university loses appeal or necessity? (Infosociety, vol.16 pg.2) Digital libraries may take the place of the actual library. All shopping may be done electronically. Now there are sites to do grocery shopping online, so even that may become the norm in the future.
On a more social level, some people communicate more through Instant Messenger and e-mail. The actual physical contact with another human being is replaced with a way that some feel is better. These forms of communication technology should be an alternative form of communication; allowing people to communicate with friends that were otherwise incommunicable due to distance. It should not however replace the actual interaction in reality. Some turn to the chat rooms as a way to find friends and relationships due to a lack of hope in finding someone in real life. There is nothing wrong with having an electronic “pen-pal”, but to just have them as your only source of contact with other human beings is unfortunate and a tragic loss to the rest of the global community.

9. Computer Crime
With all these new advances in technology has also come a new form of crime. One where the perpetrator can strike from afar without concern for capture. This is computer crime. People called Hackers will break into a company’s database in order to find out inside secrets that they can either sell to a competitor or it is the competitor themselves who are committing the crime in order to surpass their competition.

Countermeasures are being installed and constantly updated within personal, business and academic networks to ensure that all possible information is secure. Such measures are encryption, authentication, digital signatures and firewalls.

Each can provide a useful means of security. “Encryption can provide secrecy, authentication can provide assurance of the source, digital signatures can provide integrity verification, firewalls can filter out dangerous transmissions, and so on (Li pg.112 1999)”

These companies install encryption software and various other protections in the hope of increased security. With every advance in security, there is a way to break it. Data can become decrypted and codes can be broken with the right know-how and resources.

There are also sick crimes going on. With younger and younger people going online, there are predators there as well, hoping to get to these young people and do horrible things. This is why the family filters and blocks on chat rooms are placed on systems.

Now instead of the crime happening in the real world, it is occurring in cyberspace. Now law enforcement officers have to use new methods of crime prevention and in a sense, start from scratch as far as the methods that must be taken to apprehend the perpetrator. Incorporating existing methods along with new approaches can be used in fighting this type of crime.

10. Conclusion
With all the various pieces placed together to form the complex puzzle that is the Internet, one has to wonder if any pieces are missing? As a whole, it looks quite nice. The framework is there, and most of the essentials are there; but is everything needed to make it run efficiently present? Of course not, because the Internet is always changing, always evolving. It provides so many uses to so many people all over the world. Its full potential has yet to be utilized. New and even better uses and features are added at an exponential rate. As to what the final evolution shall be, we may never know, nor may want to know. The Internet is a powerful tool for humanity and if it cannot keep up with Human evolution, will it become obsolete and discarded? Or will the reverse occur and we may not be able to keep up with the technology and we become obsolete.

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