Internet: monitoring of content
See also topic guide under media: freedom,
censorship.
▶Jan van Dijk, The Network Society (Sage, 2nd
edition, 2005); Stephen Cole and Jay G. Blumler, Th e
Internet and Democratic Citizenship: Th eory, Practice
and Policy (Cambridge University Press, 2009).
Internet: wireless Internet Th e use of the Net
without cables or wires; transmission of Internet
messages by wireless technology. Developed in
the late 1990s, ‘wi-fi ’ (wireless fi delity) serves to
connect computers, smart phones and digital
audio to the Internet via access points (WAP,
wireless access points) or ‘hotspots’. Th ese can
be located over a few square miles or in a single
building, area, or even a garden shed.
Originally used in rural areas where cabling
proved too costly, wi-fi soon moved into cities.
Although it has liberated digital users from wires
and cables, wi-fi suff ers from interference and
sudden disconnection, and data transmission is
insecure. It is also subject to piggybacking where,
without the subscriber’s permission or knowl-
edge, wi-fi trespassers get their transmissions for
free. See mobilization.
Interpersonal communication Describes
any mode of communication, verbal or non-
verbal, between two or more people. While the
term medio communication has often been
used to specify interpersonal communication
at a greater than face-to-face distance, such as
when the communication is by letter, e-mail or
telephone, it is most useful to keep the defi nition
as wide and unprescriptive as possible.
Michele and Gail Myers in Th e Dynamics of
Human Communication (McGraw-Hill, 1985)
write, ‘Interpersonal communication can be
defi ned ... in relation to what you do with it. First,
you can use communication to have an eff ect on
your “environment”, a term which means not
only your immediate physical surroundings but
also the psychological climate you live in, the
people around you, the social interchanges you
have, the information you want to get or give in
order to control the questions and answers of
your living. Second, you use communication to
improve the predictability of your relations with
all environmental forces, which act on you and
on which you act to make things happen.’
A great many factors aff ect the sending and
receiving of messages within the process of
interpersonal communication, only some of
which can be mentioned here. In constructing a
message the sender may be infl uenced by his/her
self-concept and perception of the receiver(s)
and the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values,
assumptions and experiences on which they rest;to pay its bills. Th e action proved a risk for the
‘deniers’ as Net commanders quickly organized
an anti-denier campaign. Th is does not remove
the ongoing danger to Net users of denial, as the
defence of Wikileaks arose from its celebrity.
Internet: monitoring of content The ‘free-
dom’ of the Net has long been a matter of public
concern, on the one hand by those in authority
anxious about websites preaching political and
racial hatred or providing pornography, and
on the other hand by those fearful of ambitions
held chiefl y by governments, to censor network
exchange. Some commentators have argued that
the key to network systems is not freedom but
surveillance. As Darin Barney points out in
Prometheus Wired: Th e Hope for Democracy in
the Age of Network Technology (University of
Chicago Press, 2000), ‘networked computers
have emerged as surveillance technology par
excellence’.
In May 1999 it was reported that European
Commission ministers were planning to
require manufacturers and operators to build in
‘interception interfaces’ to the Internet and all
future digital communication systems. Details
are set out in Enfopol 19, a restricted document
leaked to the Foundation for Information Policy
Research, based in London. In an article entitled
‘Intercepting the Internet’ in the UK Guardian
(29 April 1999), freelance writer Duncan Camp-
bell reports on plans requiring ‘the installation of
a network of tapping centres throughout Europe,
operating almost instantly across all national
boundaries, providing access to every kind of
communications including the net and satellites’.
According to Campbell, the plans were formu-
lated by an organization founded in 1993 by the
American FBI, the International Law Enforce-
ment Telecommunications Seminar (ILETS),
made up of police and security agents from
some twenty countries. ILETS has had success in
persuading the European Community to adopt
its recommendations contained in a document
drawn up in Bonn in 1994, the International
Requirements for Interception. These have
become law in the US.
At meetings in subsequent years, ILETS has
tightened further its monitoring requirements.
So far, the major obstacle to the fulfi lment of the
demands listed in Enfopol 19 has been the cost
of enforcement. However, the ease with which
governments introduce laws of restriction, and
the determination of those governments to
spy on the Net, promises a serious reining-in
of Internet freedoms. See regulation of
investigatory powers act (ripa)(uk), 2000.