Our Earth spins on its axis constantly, and yet, even though we are all sideways, no one seems to notice or complain of an incessant disorientation. Yet the world spins on and its round robin orbit manifests many changes to the lay of the land and the more tangible ones. Leaves yellow, snow falls, temperatures change, rain falls. These small changes are more sonorous and reverberate more than initially though. With the metamorphosis of the leaves, children are drawn outside to observe the new pigments. As the snow begins to fall, the children run inside, change their comfortable summer clothes and don their thermal garb. They make a snowman and leave him outside, and before they know it, his carrot nose is in a mushy puddle at their feet. As the snow runs into the gutter, Jack Frost is quickly mourned and forgotten as they run outside in shorts and sandals to bathe in the summer sun. As the rain begins to fall, the unbreakable cycle starts again and the kids are inside again, hiding from the rain and muggy heat, longing for the idyllic changing of the leaves once more.

Scientists call this natural phenomenon the “Circadian Rhythm.” It is classified by not only a predictable cycle, but a steady progression. History has always exemplified this term to be true. Man has always slept an average of 8 to 9 hours a week, (Some of us are jealous of Man) ate 3 meals a day, and longed for companionship. Even though all is same in Man’s world, progress is being made. First, Man encountered and mastered fire. This acted as a strong catalyst, and soon enough, we have the combustion engine. Now we are researching hydrogen and water-powered automobiles. Once we had only beepers, then we adjusted to car phones, then came the brick cell-phone, and now even the paper thin Motorola RAZR is considered archaic. Man’s routines and rituals have remained the same, but technology has been skyrocketing ever since the caveman sparked a flame and put a stick in it.

With the advent of modern technology came comforts and luxuries we had never experienced before, but take for granted today.. While the caveman might have had to worry about hunting his next meal and whether he was going to eat it or vice versa, the most we worry about is gathering up enough spare change to get a soda at the McDonald’s drive-through. Our primal ancestors worried about sparking a strong flame and maintaining it for a whole night to provide warmth and protection from predators while modern humans worry if they forgot to pay their electric bill, and flip a switch to find out.

While this may seem true and a bit comedic, there are also things cavemen didn’t have to worry about. Caveman children could play in the road (or the closest they had to one) without fear of being run over by a gas-guzzling SUV, didn’t have to worry about an earthquake toppling monolithic skyscrapers and crushing them, or about layoffs at work due to budget cuts. Nor did they have to worry about the arguably most harrowing aspect of security in today’s society: online.

While online, the phrase “Ignorance is bliss” is definitely not the philosophy to abide by. Presently, a major demographic of business people work from their computers. Making a solid living online is becoming more and more realistic as the number of surfers and customers increase everyday. In order to have a supply, you must have a demand. These business people are marketing to everyone who has a computer and logs onto their site; how many people do you know without a computer? So many people access the Internet each day, that obviously criminals are attracted like flies to a luminescent light.

Every time you log onto a site, your IP address is logged into both the site and your ISP’s (Internet Service Provider‘s) databanks. While this is usually just for the respective organizations anonymous records, sometimes it can be used for malicious means. By finding sometimes IP address, a skilled hacker could browse their browsing history, locate their location, and track your tracks. Having access to one’s location could potentially be dangerous, knowing browsing history could be embarrassing, and tracking someone could be a bit creepy and unnerving. These are all chances though, but there is one thing that is not a chance. Knowing your location is one thing, but hacking your account and paying for an all-expense paid trip to Cancun is another. A famous song once spoke truly transcendent words: “There ain’t no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees. Got bills to pay, got mouths to feed; there ain’t nothing in this world for free. They can’t slow down, can’t hold back, though you know, they wish they could. Ain’t rest for the wicked, until they close their eyes for good.” The point is, people will do anything for money, and always will.

With the Internet such a dangerous place, government is stepping in to try and regulate it in some areas. They restrict access to and censor sites that could possibly be harmful to certain people; adult websites are blocked for children, websites advocating crime are blocked for everyone, etc. Although this seems noble, sometimes they have some ulterior motives. Oftentimes, these governments will block sites that are against their theologies or would hurt their morale. While this never occurs in the widely democratic United States, countries like China are quite guilty of this; people have even coined the meme “Great Firewall of China” just for them. China had blocked the rebellious spiritual movement of Falun Gong, and blocks any content that is anti-Communist in nature.

Although it seems predictable that a authoritarian dictatorship should have these blocks on personal freedoms, there is breaking news that has shocked the world. Australia, a democratic nation, has begun written preliminary plans to ban “unwanted content.” The problem is, while it is a good deed to block child pornography, it is a infringement on privacy laws to block any normal sites.

At this point in time, the world is at a turning point, a crux, a crossroads. One side of the road points to restriction, sterilization, and government control, ala the dystopian 1984. The other side points to complete freedom, and the inherent risks that come with it. Australia’s proposition-heard-round-the-world, if ramification is gained, will mark a step towards Orwell’s insidious prophesy.

While I’m in no way taking sides, the monitored and carefully audited world sounds quite unsettling. If it were to become a reality however, and the Internet were to become heavily censored and restricted, there would be hope for the proactive people to bypass the injustice. By using an anonymous change IP proxy, you can tunnel right through the block by accessing a site that isn’t blocked, (the proxy) and use it as a middleman. You request a website’s information through the proxy, and they go and retrieve it for you. This gives no record of you visiting the site, and not even your ISP could tell! Riffling through your history, all they would see is the proxy server over and over again. By changing your IP address, the government couldn’t track you because your IP address would be replaced with the proxy’s, therefore concealing your location.

Let’s hope the Internet doesn’t end up this way, because even the gentle Earth’s rotation might be upset. Technology has been on a positive increase ever since its heyday, during all of the changes of season, temperature, and anything else the progression of time could throw at us. We are at a turning point, and let’s hope that when Man awakens after 8-9 hours of sleep, and goes out to a McDonald’s drive-through ,technology’s increase will continue as steadily as the his thumping heartbeat, the changing of the seasons, and the Circadian Rhythm.

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