25 MAY 2022 WorldWide Drilling Resource® The Consequences of Connectivity by Britt Storkson Owner, P2FlowLLC The Internet is a great tool and, among other things, is a valuable portal to an almost infinite amount of information on nearly any subject. Some may have issues with “misinformation” being spread via the Internet, but I don’t. It’s up to the user to research and decide what information is useful or truthful, and act accordingly. While this “connectivity” has advantages, like many things in life, there is a dark side as well. We accept automatic, routine Internet “updates” as a way to prevent computer viruses from causing problems, which is a legitimate activity, but with it can come with all sorts of unwanted material ranging from advertisements to some really problematic “information” I won’t describe here. Not only can your computer accept and store bad or problematic information coming from the web, it can deliver information stored in your computer - like your bank account information - to the web without your knowledge. While this is very unethical, it is not illegal. This is a case where the problem is not what’s in the law dealing with this sort of thing, but what’s not in the law. This could be called the “cost of doing business” in a modern economy or subjecting ourselves to this sort of surveillance because the benefits outweigh the risks. It’s like driving a car instead of riding a horse. Driving a car at 60 miles per hour certainly has its risks, but riding a horse has other risks and one almost always has to be able to drive a car to function normally in this modern world we live in. There’s another wrinkle in the connectivity conundrum - the automotive connection. According to The Drive magazine, quite a number of cars are connected to the web using 3G (wireless) technology, but 3G technology is being abandoned in favor of the newer (and maybe better) 5G Storkson continued on page 26.
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