NP Troubling Implications of Internet's Ubiquity (WORMS!)

[Jill Adams]

Monday, July 5, 1999

DIGITAL NATION

Troubling Implications of Internet's Ubiquity

By Gary Chapman

Copyright 1999, The Los Angeles Times

Early last month, institutions around the world were crippled for 
several days by a new computer virus called the ExploreZip Trojan 
horse. A Trojan horse, in computer jargon, is a nasty software 
program that hides inside a file a user is likely to want to see or 
open.

The ExploreZip virus -- more accurately, a computer "worm," which 
spreads more automatically than a virus -- affected machines running 
Microsoft's Windows operating system and Windows application 
software. Computers throughout the world were shut down, including 
some at Microsoft and other large corporations as well as the 
Pentagon.

The ExploreZip worm was a more debilitating version of the Melissa 
virus that struck Windows machines earlier this year. Because of the 
apparent vulnerability of Windows-based machines, some computer 
experts have started to use the metaphor of a "monoculture" to 
describe our current computing predicament.

The word "monoculture" comes from ecology and biology, another 
example of the merging of biological terms with computer jargon, like 
"virus" and "worm." In ecology, monoculture refers to the dominance 
or exclusive prevalence of a single species or genetic type in an 
ecological system -- a state typically regarded as pathological and 
dangerous. Agricultural monocultures, for example, are highly 
susceptible to blight, soil depletion, disease and other disasters.

In computing, the recent use of the term has referred to the 
widespread dominance of Microsoft products. But we may want to extend 
the metaphor further and contemplate whether we're developing a 
universal digital monoculture, one with a troubling potential for 
negative side effects. Think of it as the perils of digital 
convergence.

By now, nearly everyone assumes that almost everything we do will be 
absorbed into the digital "infosphere" -- as in IBM's advertising 
phrase "Connecting everything to everything." It's only a matter of 
time before television, radio, music, games, commerce and politics 
are assimilated into the Internet.

This phenomenon is growing every day. We're about to step into the 
so-called "post-PC" era, when networked computing will permeate our 
homes and everyday objects such as refrigerators, telephones, cars 
and stereos. This model is known as "ubiquitous" or "pervasive" 
computing, when the Internet will be present in everything and 
everywhere.

But few people stop to think of the vulnerabilities this might entail.

Recently there's been a controversy on the Internet over a new 
product called Third Voice (http://www.thirdvoice.com), from a 
company of the same name based in Redwood City, Calif. Third Voice is 
a free browser plug-in (currently it only works with Windows and 
Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0) that allows users to create and see 
notes or messages attached to Web pages by other, independent users.

The messages attached to pages are listed in a small menu bar on the 
left of the browser screen. When the list is clicked, the messages 
pop up over the Web page like digital Post-It notes. Third Voice 
advertises its product as a way for users to have their own say about 
Web content. Others have called it, pejoratively, "Web graffiti."

The controversy was generated by Web masters and Web designers who 
don't like having their pages "defaced" by this product -- it puts 
the appearance of their pages beyond their control, and, some of them 
argue, it may be a copyright violation.

The interesting thing about Third Voice, however, is how it works. 
The content of the Web page it modifies is not altered on the 
originating server. The messages are simply stored on Third Voice's 
own computers and merged with the Web page when a Third Voice user 
requests the page. The messages then become a kind of "overlay" on 
the original content, which is otherwise unaltered and available for 
viewing by other users in its original form.

It will be interesting to see if this product provokes litigation and 
if so, how that unfolds. But the real impact of Third Voice, along 
with the recent viruses we've seen, is their demonstration of the 
malleability of digital data, especially given their common format on 
the Internet.

As we embed the Internet into everything we do and use, it's as if 
we're building a global nervous system that can be tweaked or 
twitched in infinite, unexpected and perhaps unpleasant ways by 
anyone clever enough and using the right tools.

One could use the examples of Third Voice, viruses and the hundreds 
of automated network "agents," or "bots" -- software programs that 
roam the Internet and perform tasks specified by their users -- to 
speculate on mind-boggling scenarios for the future.

Financial data, for example, could be manipulated in truly scary ways 
that might not be detectable before serious damage is done. Digital 
products might alter the appearance of videos or images or the 
content of sound recordings. Companies could use digital copyright 
management schemes that would allow automated network searches for 
and prosecution of people holding unauthorized material. "Smart" 
electrical power grids could be tempting targets for hackers and 
virus programmers.

There was a case involving a pair of Armenian activists who 
programmed a bot to replace the word "Turkey" with the word 
"genocide" in all Usenet newsgroup postings (unwittingly producing 
some odd online recipes for genocide). When two Arizona attorneys 
introduced the first case of commercial spam by broadcasting e-mail 
that advertised their firm, one programmer threatened to retaliate by 
whipping up a "kill bot" that would seek out and delete any future 
e-mail from the firm.

In other words, a digital monoculture makes us vulnerable to all 
sorts of manipulations that have not been possible before. The more 
ubiquitous this monoculture becomes, the more vulnerable we will be. 
The year 2000 bug is probably the best example, but it's only the tip 
of the proverbial iceberg.

The real problem is our unreflective rush into a digital monoculture, 
a new kind of ecological hazard, using systems so complex, malleable 
and unpredictable that almost no one understands the danger looming.

Gary Chapman is director of the 21st Century Project at the 
University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at 
gary.chapman at mail.utexas.edu.

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