February 5, 2005
Tech Review waves the terrorism flag
Technology Review recently declared they are trying to get back to being more science & analysis, less breathless hype. Let's hope David Talbot's Terror's Server in the February '05 issue was just still in the pipeline before they made that decision. Here's the letter to the editor I just sent:
David Talbot's "Terror's Server" was the kind of rambling, analysis-free hand-wringing we came to expect from the mainstream press in the mid 90s, not from Technology Review in 2005. Talbot's main point that terrorists are (gasp) using the Internet is obvious and trivial. Terrorists are also using telephones, SUVs, credit cards, textbooks and mail-order catalogs to plan their attacks. Why is there no call for the automobile industry to "fix" their terrorist SUV problem?
The Net amplifies individual voices, be they the voices of civil rights activists, cancer survivors or terrorists. The real issue is not whether terrorists use the Net (just like everyone else does these days), but whether society is better off allowing individual voices to be so easily heard. This is an important debate with historic undertones; Gutenberg's press amplified Luther's 95 theses and led to hundreds of years of war and bloodshed — and to the Protestant Reformation and Renaissance. Please, next time address the issue directly instead of simply hiding behind the terrorism flag.
Bradley Rhodes
Posted by bug to Media Technology at February 5, 2005 10:21 AM | TrackBack
PhD, MIT Media Lab (2000)
The Tech Review has gone from an interesting magazine that discusses technology to a piece of garbage that is full of hype. We actually cancelled our subscription because of the Terror's Server & prior Why Microsoft Will win articles. If I want tripe, I'll go on the internet. I read Tech Review because of its focus on technology. It seems to have lost that, with its new spiffed-up look & lack of editing. I'm quite snarky about it... it was one of only three magazines I read cover to cover on a regular basis.
Posted by: at February 5, 2005 10:43 AM