Thank you all! The previous article on cyber incidents met with some public success, much higher than I imagined (link).
Among the messages received from friends there are some that I think deserve to be shared for their implications in everyday life. Several have asked me to explain what is a network. I will try to do it in a simple way. Someone instead wondered because on his smartphone he sees advertisements different from those of his son. Let's try to answer this too.
So let's start from the networks.
Once upon a time, when I was a student on the other side of the chair, I remember that the lesson on computer networks began with a whole series of definitions that aimed to introduce the concepts of LAN, MAN and WAN. Then it made sense, today it remains of interest to technicians, much less to the common man. We are so used to traveling while staying connected that we no longer care to know what we are connected to and how.
If we take an average work day we realize that we move from home to work, go shopping, maybe take the train or plane to go to another city, in all, most of the times , without losing a single second to configure our smartphone to have internet access.
Yet in the path that takes us from home to the workplace we pass from the local network of our home to the cellular network of the mobile operator, to the wi-fi of the train or the airport, to the mobile network of another operator or our employer work.
We don't usually worry about it at all, because it has become normal.
The most that can happen to us is to be forced to set the "airplane mode" when on board the plane they deprive us of our "freedom of connection" which we then recover as soon as possible upon landing.
The answer to the question "what is a network" is intuitive: the network, today, is the internet, with everything that involves the technician to keep us connected but also with our person, we are in fact an integral part of the internet as users of countless services (required or not). The Internet is the network that connects the world and all its human beings (or almost all) into one large digital society!
And here we come to the second question ...
Personalized advertising.
I think it is no mystery that advertising is "the soul of commerce", who knows how many times we have heard it said. It is clear that if you want to sell a product you have to make it known, this rule is the basis of most social exchanges, in fact it does not apply only to "material" products but also and above all to intangible products such as knowledge for example.
Advertising has always existed, with different forms, perhaps, but faithful to its purpose.
Speaking of purpose of advertising it is necessary to introduce a word that many do not like: influence.
Advertising aims to "influence", that is to say direct potential buyers to a specific product or to a fashion.
I say that the term "influence" is not welcome as it is a term that evokes the dark side. Influencing is always understood as something negative that pushes us to do something that we normally would not want to do. In principle this is so, influencing tends to push us to do things that we would not otherwise do.
The mistake is to consider it as a negative term only: there is no doubt that since we come into the world we have been under the influence benign of our parents, grandparents, friends and relatives, teachers as a classmate and TV ...
Yet associating the term "influence" with advertising is considered dangerous. So dangerous that years ago when in the pages of Mickey Mouse a beautiful story about the advertising world appeared, in which Mickey decided to shoot short films that led him to fight once again with his most arch enemy Wooden leg, it is said that the story came considered "dangerous" and unlike usual it was no longer published for a long time. Will it be true? I think so ... (be careful, I'm influencing you!).
Advertising has the greatest effect when its mode of operation is not explained, the influence must be subtle and continuous but must remain below the guard threshold.
With modern tools available to the industrial world, advertising has become pervasive, often annoying but also dangerous as it is "targeted".
The habit we have of resorting to the smartphone for any need, from checking the title of the film of our favorite actor to information on the prices of the planes to go to Sardinia, passing through the online purchase of filters for the vacuum cleaner, combined with the immoderate use of social networks, ensures that those who manage the network and the services that are above it accumulate on us an unthinkable amount of data and information on our tastes and preferences. Information that is used to "make us a service" or to put ourselves under the eyes whenever the object of our desires is possible through advertisements aimed at our person.
That's why our son finds himself with the advertisement of the moped or the latest video game just released while you find yourself advertising a dream vacation in the Caribbean, an excellent starred restaurant or the most fascinating shoes worn by Hollywood stars.
Advertising influences… and we are continually its predesigned victims!
Solution: What if we try to turn off the phone for a few minutes a day? To begin with ...
Image: Arnoldo Mondadori
