About Technology

By Jesse Miller

Net

Networks are very efficient method of processing where the amount of processing needed increases faster than the amount of data to be transferred, and where a common specialized resouce is shared among geographically desperesed end users. Some programs focus on networking or programming. However, they are part of the larger group of ""network and computer systems administrators.

THE CONCEPT OF "THE NET

In recent years, as communication technology began to catch up with advanced computer technology, a trend toward distributed computation has occured in systems design. Instead of a massive central computer linked to many unitelligent terminals, this new method links a number of central processing units into a network in which tasks can be distributed to different locations for maximum efficiency in processing. Minicomputers linked into centralized computers, and they can be linked in such a manner that individual minicomputers can fail without affecting the operational status of the network. The term "The Net" will be used to refer to such a potential structure. Those who are suspicious of the advent of The Net for whatever reason, and those who doubt that such a broadly-based and widely linked national system wil become an operational reality in the near future will no doubt be suprised and dismayed to learn that two private information utilities which demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of the Net concept are already on line and available to minicomputer users today. These services are accessed through telephone lines, which will be the primary method of Net linkage until new technology make satellite- based or fiber optic linkage economically competitive with ordinary landline. As the Net incorporates more data-handling subunits into itself and becomes more ubiquitous in American life, it may strike users as unfair to discover that routing one's financial transactions through the Net is a necessary prerequisite to enjoying certain limited uses and benefites of The Net. In other words, anyone without identity in the presently existing credit are denied access to these new private Net components. As each new Net subunit goes online to the common Net, that subunit must determine, what it wants from the rest of the Net, and what it is willing to make available to those who can now access it as part of the net.

The net must be thought of as a vast and turbulent population of dicrete subunits whose only common characteristic is a need for the efficient communication and optimal use of technology provided by The Net's linkage. The Net will be far more than a group of computers exchanging data and software; widespread acceptance and utiliztion of Net linkage and effieciency concepts will probably eventually result in the routing of most non-current methods of information transfer through the present microcomputers. The Net has the potential of becoming America's primary avenue of business and even social interaction in the forseeable future. One troubling question occurs as we examin the social consequence of the Net ethic of efficiency as the ultimate justification for change: what happens to individuals who, for economic or personal reasons, cannot or will not participate in the net. Unless non-net modes of information handling are retained in all areas of Net, these individuals run the risk of becoming non-existing. One solution to this problem would be govermental maintenece of free public computer terminals, where those unfortunate enough to lack the cash or hardware necessary for net access could perform the necessary interactions with their electronic society.

But even if its user becomes a new norm, legal protection is necessary to ensure that no citizen suffers diadvantage as a result of failing to join The Net.