Nowadays we can hear talking about the net almost everywhere, newspapers, magazines, when we (rarely) go out for shopping, in a market, cinema, almost every place is literally bombed by ads and info (can we really define informations what many says about da ‘net?!). It looks like the net is becoming part of our RL society. Yes, maybe it is but, what’s the price of such a mutation? And, overall, why did that mutation happened? And why right now?

Nice questions that, I think, many ppl asked. But lets try to find an answer.

I think the 1st point is that the biz, the same monopolistic biz which owns and controls information’s flood, has found with the net a new market, virtually unlimited, and almost completely unexplored. They know they can earn millions, billions of dollars (or whatever is the currency of the country u live in) if only they can drive the masses over those so-spoken-of information’s highways.

Right now their tactic has two different points. Point 1, find as many possible customers and, point 2, make those customers grown the right way. This last point is harder to achieve than with more "standard" media like TV or magazines. When u are in front of ur TV u can choose ur channel, but the flood is always from the TV to ur (sleeping) brain, u can choose the magazine u read but this time also u cannot choose to receive smtg not already chosen by others for u.

With the Internet things are different enough to make many ppl concerned, and to make ‘em thinking about a way to build a path for their customers. That’s the reason why we can listen to two different styles of blabbering about the net. "The net can give u whatever u need!" and "The net is a dangerous place, criminals every where" so, the only logic follow up is: "Let us drive ur steps, we’ll tell u what u need and where to find it".

That’s the reason why of those illogical (if judged using smart eyes) freedom-killer campaigns. What they want is to make new users looking at the net as an ideal hideout for criminals, sexual maniacs, pedophiles, killers and thiefs.

That way they are trying to cut off all those independent Internet Service Providers, "because they give access to dangerous material", that’s why government from all around the world are approving, more or less quickly, new rules for the Internet. United States and Europe are not so different from China and other east countries which hardly control accesses to the Internet. The main difference is that there, in China, they just don’t have still seen the blinking of net’s gold. Many sites have been ban’ed by occidental gov’s because of their contents. "Radikal" (autonomous left wing’s magazine) by the german’s academic net, some "green pages" by canadian’s establishment, China did almost the same and almost because of the same reason: avoid free access to, politically, hot and dangerous stuff.

Hackers are another hot-spot in this situation. Official spokemen refer to them as criminals, ppl who really need specialized help by psychology. Ppl who can’t build interpersonal relationships. How could they say thata hacker is some1 who fights for freedom of speech and free access to all informations?

So, the landscape who someone that’s aproaching the net right now would have is criminals, hackers, pedophiles, on a side and a few good defenders on the other: them!

What can we do against this? Talk to new users ad show ‘em what the ‘net really is, not a place for comfortable shopping w/o leaving their houses, but a great place where to find an incredible quantity of informations. Mainly those same infos they try to hide on "official media" (mainly TV a newspapers). Show ‘em how and where to freely access to those sources on the net.

One of the points of ICATA ‘89 wuz "free access to the information", that has to be our main aim. That’s what we HAVE to achieve if we really want the net to be free and not controlled by those majors wich are already controlling our physical world! INFOS WANT TO BE FREE!