The United States invented the Internet, so it ranked number one
when the first file was transferred in 1969. Today it’s in 29th place.

A 1999 television commercial encapsulated the telephone industry’s promise of the future along the information superhighway. A grizzled salesman drops his bag in the sparse lobby of Roy’s Motel.

“You got room service?”

“Doughnuts and coffee,” replies the receptionist.

“Got entertainment?”

“All rooms have every movie in every language, anytime, day or night.”

Astonished, the man asks, “How is that possible?” As his words die away in voice-over, the actor Willem Dafoe answers the question. “Could your business use the bandwidth to change everything? Ride the light. Qwest.”

Qwest was just one of the telephone companies that shaped the promise of connecting us to the World Wide Web. To fulfill this promise, telephone companies said they needed money to upgrade the copper wires that had been used since the first commercial telephone call was placed in 1878. The best new technology now was fiber-optic cables. While the biggest copper cables carried 4,000 conversations, AT&T said its fiber-optic cables could handle more than a million calls simultaneously. Experts on telephone economics calculated that this new technology meant the cost of calls would fall by 99 percent or more.

There was just one problem: Who was going to pay for the creation of the new network? The obvious source of revenue was customers, and, in the two decades from 1992 to 2012, Bruce Kushnick, a former telephone industry consultant, estimates that $360 billion moved from the pockets of customers to AT&T, Verizon, and the runt of the Baby Bell family, Qwest, which in 2010 was acquired by CenturyLink.

When you do the long division, Kushnick’s estimate works out to a toll of $3,300 paid by every household in America to access the superfast electronic highway. Although that cash was enough to speed the development of two national cell telephone systems, owned by AT&T and Verizon, the industry now cautions journalists that the term “information superhighway” is best not used anymore. That they want us to regard the term as archaic is not surprising, because its use is a reminder of their unfulfilled promise. The high-speed data lanes in most of America are among the slowest electronic highways in the world; in many places in the United States, the promised highway has yet to materialize at all and, under current policies, never will.

The United States invented the Internet, so it ranked number one when the first file was transferred between distant computers in 1969. Taxpayers financed that project through DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the Department of Defense. But by 2011, America’s Internet leadership was strictly historical. Today, South Korea has taken the lead in average Internet speeds. In 2011 its average download rate was 18 megabits per second. Romania came in second at 15 Mbps, Bulgaria was next at 13 Mbps with Lithuania and Latvia tied at 11 Mbps. America has settled well back in the pack—in 29th place. And thanks to government policies that foster the status quo and discourage real competition we’re likely to be stuck in the slow lane for a very long time.

Instead of increased competition between the telephone and cable companies, a new cartel emerged in the first decade of this century. While telephone and cable companies posed in public as rivals, Verizon made a deal to sell its branded services over cable company Comcast’s lines, and vice versa. And Verizon said it anticipates similar deals with other cable providers to sell over their systems. This cross-marketing deal between Verizon and Comcast reinforces the economic interests of telephone and cable companies by not extending lines to rural areas or poor neighborhoods and not wiring apartment buildings where few people could afford the new services.

Cable companies jacked up prices, too. Since 1995, average cable prices have been rising 2.6 times faster than the cost of living, reaching an average of almost $53 a month for basic, no-frills service in 2009, Federal Communications Commission reports show. The strongest evidence that the cable companies exert monopoly power to raise prices comes from a survey of prices for basic service plus the most commonly purchased extra features such as handheld remotes and premium channels like HBO. In 2008, the worst economic year since the Great Depression, when the national economy shrank and millions lost their jobs, cable prices rose.

In the 21st century, economic growth requires the ability to move huge volumes of information instantly. The Internet is to economic growth in the digital age what highways and airports were to economic growth in the 20th century. America prospered in its first two centuries because of massive public investments in the common modes of transportation that business needed to carry its goods. As it proceeds into its third century, the United States suffers from massive overcharging for poor-quality telecommunications services that carry its information.

The average broadband download speed in the United States is just 5 Mbps. That means that a large file someone in Seoul could download in one minute would require closer to four minutes in the United States. For an extra fee, American companies like Time Warner do offer some urban and suburban customers souped-up service with speeds up to 50 Mbps. However, the qualifier “up to” remains a big caveat. When lots of people use the same connection point, speeds can slow to 15 Mbps.

So while the United States falls behind almost 30 other nations in service, we do consistently rank at or near the top in one category: price. The average American consumer pays 60 percent more than a South Korean user. Americans who buy a triple-play package (cable television, Internet, and telephone bundled together) typically pay four times what the French pay. The French get live television from around the world, not just domestic shows. The French Internet is 10 times faster downloading and 20 times faster uploading than what most Americans can buy. For all this the French pay a total of 29.99 euros (about $40) per month.

Millions of Americans pay $160 or more for a triple-play package. Taking into account the much more expansive and faster services the French get, Americans pay six to 10 times as much for triple-play packages. But more important is that in this digital age American jobs, and how well they pay, will be determined in good part by whether America climbs back from 29th place in Internet speed or continues to slip further behind countries with lower wage scales and superior Internet.

The few places in America where local government leaders recognized this years ago are now prospering because they are attracting digital businesses. Places like Chattanooga, Tennessee; Glasgow, Kentucky; Lafayette, Louisianna; and Scottsboro, Alabama, that have built their own municipal systems are attracting new industries and enjoying savings at the same time. But instead of emulating such successes, the cable monopolists seek rules that let them force their captive customers onto the slow digital lanes while charging heavy tolls.

So what has happened to that promise so brilliantly packaged in the Qwest ad from Roy’s Motel? Instead of universal service, we are getting a retrenchment made possible by companies selling the public on one idea and then getting laws written that let them serve only those customers who can afford high prices. Worse yet, the system as constructed is so behind the times that, while highly profitable for the telecommunications monopolists, it retards the growth of the American economy. It operates outside the reach of market forces that could discipline the market and punish companies that abuse customers.

In short, our Internet-telephone-cable cartel has left us with the worst possible outcome. The promise captured in that Qwest commercial of universal, high-speed Internet access has proved to be nothing more than a mirage.

Reprinted by arrangement with Portfolio, Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from The Fine Print © 2012 by David Cay Johnston; Photo: Shutterstock

Stuck in the Internet Slow Lane The Saturday Evening Post

I must have been 12 or 13 when my father suggested I go downtown with him to get some money from the bank. It was a Saturday afternoon, and, although he was a senior executive at the “Multibanco” in Chihuahua, I doubted he was going to be admitted on the weekend to help himself to some pesos. So I kept watching soccer on TV. My team, Atlético Español, was finding a new way to lose; that’s what they did.

But no, Dad was clearly up to something. “C’mon, I have a card that will get me cash,” he said, grinning. He did have a sense of humor and an adventurous streak, so I figured I should play along.

“OK,” I said. “Vamos.”

We got into our un-air-conditioned orange VW Caribe and headed downtown. The Multibanco was right across the street from the zócalo, in the shadows of Chihuahua’s 18th-century cathedral, the first and last baroque structure built in our otherwise unpretentious city.

Outside the bank, by the parking lot, was a small kiosk I had never noticed before, like a walk-in phone booth. We walked over to it, and my dad fumbled for a card that he reverentially slid out from a little envelope and into an opening that caused a buzz and click, and in we went to the booth, where he proceeded, before his wide-eyed, jaw-dragging son, to retrieve a few hundred pesos from a machine. I don’t think I could have been more astonished had he beamed us into the 23rd century.

Three decades later, I type down this memory on a plane as I listen to one of a few hundred albums on my iPad before settling in to read one of the dozens of books on the same nimble tablet with the interactive screen.

We live in an age when we can have nearly anything all the time, and my first inkling of that coming age came that languid Saturday afternoon in Chihuahua, when Dad pulled his act of magic at the city’s first ATM.

There were other milestones along the way, of course. The Walkman seemed like a huge leap forward, providing stereophonic mobility. So did having an AT&T long-distance calling card. When I first came to school in the States, I had to drag rolls and rolls of change to the payphone down the hallway to connect for a few minutes with Mexico to speak to my parents or to enjoy some awkward, static-filled small talk with a certain Margarita. Then came these calling cards that let you commandeer any payphone as if it were your own, without the need to have a piggy bank in tow (although those monthly bills were an invariable shocker).

Oddly enough, what should have been more obvious milestones on the road to “everything all the time” didn’t seem like such. My first desktop computer in college felt more like a spiffier typewriter than a potential conduit to all the world’s information, but then it wouldn’t be another decade until I “dialed” online after getting one of those AOL CDs in the mail (it was probably the 10th one I’d gotten). And even that didn’t feel so noteworthy, truth be told; I quickly grew bored of a couple of chat rooms and went back to the TV.

Amazon did feel epochal, this notion that you could be sitting in your PJs at midnight and order a book from your bedroom that would show up a few days later at your doorstep. The memory of those first orders in the late ’90s still gives me chills, even now when I can download two entire books onto my iPad in the time it takes to board a plane, as I just did.

Let’s get back to TV for a second. That’s been an entertainment constant throughout my life, but precisely because it has been a constant—at least the physical act of staring at a screen—it’s the starkest illustration of how we’ve moved from a life of fleeting moments to this everything-all-the-time age.

The World is Getting Better, Not Worse! The Saturday Evening Post

Illustration by James Yang

But, as consumers finally learned to be wary of out-of-the-blue offers of untold riches, clever Nigerian letter scammers found ways to adapt. These days, instead of just masquerading as monarchs, some also pose as wealthy foreign businessmen on dating websites, asking cyber sweethearts for money for a plane ticket to meet them or help them out of a jam. Others claim to be bank lenders who “approved” two percent loans in a tough economy—after the requested application fee is paid. Still others have been known to pose as FBI director Robert Mueller or even Hillary Clinton, threatening arrest or offering political help to get a hidden inheritance (depending on the letter) unless upfront fees are paid to keep you out of jail or put you on Easy Street.

The very latest spin on all of the above scams has been to abandon email (too common, too much competing spam) in favor of the old-fashioned fax. As with email, faxes also can be sent en masse, with “predictive dialers” that call thousands of random phone numbers per day; if a fax tone is reached, the transmission goes through.

Sigh! Just goes to show you, some old scams never die. Instead (and often after well-publicized warnings), they just get tweaked. So be aware—and beware—of these creatively sinister newly rewritten rip-offs, hustles, and cons:

Telephone Scams

Misleading telephone offers date back almost to Edison. Here are the most common and their newest incarnations:

1. Fake Lotteries. The classic approach is to say “you have already won” a lottery that, in fact, you never entered. (One tip-off: they’ll ask you to pay advance fees­—never part of legitimate winnings—in order to claim your prize.) Or, they call to ask for donations for phony charities (often in the wake of recent disaster) or to promise government grants, low-cost medication, or a “free” vacation (any of which they claim requires your personal information and credit card).

The New Twist. Now fraudsters who work the phone try to get you to call them. For example, you receive a mailed letter for any of the reasons above, or stating there’s a UPS package that cannot be delivered, or that you’re entitled to cash from a special (secret) government program. You’ll call what seems like an American area code, but is actually the number for a Caribbean country. Dialing that number may cost as much as $5 or more per minute. So, the scam is actually two-pronged: As an operator tries to weasel your personal or financial information for identity theft, you’re simultaneously running up sky-high phone bills—thanks to a series of transfers, long holds, and lengthy small talk to keep you on the line as long as possible.

2. Distress Calls. Another classic phone scam is the call to targeted grandparents. Scammers pretend to be a grandchild in need of money after being arrested or hospitalized while vacationing abroad. They often try a generic greeting such as “Hi, Grandma, it’s me, your favorite grandson!” with hopes you will reply, “Billy? Is that you?”

The New Twist. Now, scammers are increasingly identifying themselves with the specific names of grandchildren—as in “Hi, Grandma, it’s Billy, and I need your help!” They get grandkids’ names from Internet searches on ancestry websites, Facebook accounts, online telephone directories, or reading recent obituaries of the target’s spouse.

3. Timeshare Resale Agents. Timeshares have a tendency to lose value. For years, distraught timeshare owners have been barraged with offers to help unload their unwanted units by self-described “resellers.” These sleazy profiteers promise they already have an interested buyer. All they need is their fee—upfront, please—to make the transaction occur. (Of course, the buyer is nothing more than a figment of the scammer’s imagination.)

The New Twist. Timeshare owners who’ve been swindled of upfront fees by phony resellers are now being re-contacted by so-called “fraud recovery” specialists. Guess what they’re being offered? Help with recouping that lost money—for another upfront fee, of course. Sometimes, it’s the same “resellers” now calling as “recovery” specialists, according to FBI reports. At best, pay a “recoverer” and you’ll get little more than forms or instructions to file complaints with investigating government watchdogs—all of which you can get for free at websites for the Federal Trade Commission or your state Attorney General. At worst, you get nothing but a smaller checking account.

Protect Yourself from Phone Scams. Hang up on any unsolicited phone call seeking personal or financial information. To avoid the phone bill trap, be cautious about calling back anyone with an area code you don’t immediately recognize. The most commonly used Caribbean area codes are 876, 809, or 284 (Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the British Virgin Islands). Also be wary of Canadian area codes, which are also three digits long.

Illustration by James Yang

Debit Card Scams

The invention of the ATM machine has not just made banking a greater convenience: It’s been a source of unlimited inspiration to the criminal mind. Top scams include:

1. ATM Skimming. Portable “skimming” devices—sold online for as little as $100—are placed over or behind the card slot to record information encoded in the magnetic strip of debit cards. With miniature spy cameras placed nearby to record PIN numbers used to make cash withdrawals, crooks are able to make duplicate cards and score fast cash from multiple machines. Without a PIN, they can make fraudulent online purchases.

The New Twist. Automated card machines at gas pumps have become an even more desirable target. Reason: With only a couple of manufacturers of gas pumps, a single key—in the hands of a scammer who gains employment at one gas station—can open pumps at multiple stations to install the sinister skimmers.

2. Fake “Out of Order” Signs. In bank vestibules with several ATMs, crooks place “Out of Service” signs on non-tampered ATMs in order to get customers to use a neighboring ATM on which they already placed a skimmer. Such was one recent case that resulted in $390,000 in skimmed withdrawals—until the Secret Service nabbed the culprits.

The New Twist. In a newer spin, no skimmer is even needed. Instead, crooks apply adhesive to certain buttons—“enter,” “cancel,” and “clear”—to prevent keypad-using consumers from completing their cash withdrawals after they’ve already inserted their card and typed PIN codes. As frustrated customers leave the machine to report the problem (tin foil is sometimes used to prevent cards from being returned), lie-in-wait crooks use a screwdriver to release the keys to complete the transaction—and get cash.

Protect Yourself from Debit Card Scams. Before using an ATM, wiggle the card slot—if it’s loose, avoid that machine. Also ensure a light emits from the card slot; if obscured, that’s a sign of tampering. Inspect keypads to ensure buttons aren’t stuck and always cover the keypad as you enter your PIN. At gas pumps and checkout counters, a credit card is safer—federal laws limit your liability against credit card fraud to no more than $50 (it varies with debit cards, depending on when the fraud is reported). When using a debit card to buy gas or anything else, it’s safer to choose the “credit” screen prompt instead of “debit” so you don’t have to enter your PIN. The purchase amount will still be deducted directly from your bank account, but it’s processed through a credit-card network—providing greater protection in the event of fraud.

Sneakiest New Scams The Saturday Evening Post

Photo by Tyler Olson via Shutterstock.

Due to rapid advances in technology over the last few years, maintaining a broadband connection has become essential for many of us in our daily lives. Streaming more HD movies, downloading music, and using data-heavy video chat services like Skype and FaceTime can make basic broadband speeds seem a bit sluggish.

Luckily, you do have some options to choose from. We’ve taken a look at three of the larger broadband providers in the country—Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon—to show you some options if you would like to dramatically increase your internet speeds.

How fast is my broadband now?

The average speed that Americans get from their home internet service is 5.8 megabits per second (Mbps). Those numbers may seem decent, but those speeds place the United States in 13th place worldwide, behind countries like Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Romania. Even the city with the fastest internet service in America, Boston, Massachusetts, only averages 8.4Mbps—a speed that wouldn’t place it in the top 50 cities worldwide.

America’s slow broadband speeds aren’t due to lack of availability but a lack of knowledge among cable companies’ customers. Cable companies push low-end broadband packages, because they are usually cheaper—and much slower. For instance, most Verizon customers don’t have a clue that Verizon offers broadband with speeds of 300Mbps on June 17—the fastest broadband connection in the country, fast enough to download a two-hour HD movie in under two minutes.

What are my high-speed options?

Photo by Tyler Olson via Shutterstock.

Aside from Verizon’s world-class offering (which costs $204 a month), there are other extremely fast options from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Verizon.

Coming in right behind Verizon’s highest broadband package is a 150Mbps offering that costs $94 a month. Another option is an $84-a-month plan that will get you speeds of 75Mbps. Be aware of the hidden costs with Verizon; all of these prices are contingent upon a two-year contract (if you don’t sign, the price goes up $5 a month, plus you have to pay a $100 equipment fee) as well as Verizon’s home phone service (another $5-a-month surcharge if you don’t have it).

Time Warner Cable also has faster options for you, but they are nowhere near what Verizon is offering. Time Warner’s highest offering is $79 a month, which gets you speeds of 50Mbps for your home internet needs. For $49 and $39 a month, you can get speeds of 30Mbps and 20Mbps, respectively. All of these prices are promotional and will rise after the first year.

Comcast does offer higher speeds than Time Warner Cable, but it comes at a premium. At 105Mbps, Comcast’s fastest option comes in at $199 a month, $5 cheaper than Verizon’s highest option, which offers speeds nearly three times as fast. For $115 a month with Comcast, you will get speeds of 50Mbps, while $72 a month will bring you speeds of 30Mbps.

Is it worth it?

If you live by yourself and are not an avid internet user, you may not need this kind of speed. But if you live with techies or have teenagers who are constantly on the internet, it will definitely come in handy.

Even with all of the advances in technology, your broadband connection shares a trait with your water heater—if everyone uses the hot water at the same time, the water will lose heat more quickly than it would otherwise. The same is true with broadband. If you are streaming Netflix and surfing the web on your iPad, your 5Mbps internet connection will take much longer to download that large file than it usually does.

If you are experiencing slow speeds or just want a faster connection, a super-fast internet connection is definitely worth paying for. If you do choose to upgrade, you will miss out on all the fun of buffering Netflix shows, slow-loading YouTube clips, and long waits for file downloads—but we’re sure you’ll find something to do with all that free time.

Is It Worth Paying For Super-Fast Internet In Your Home? The Saturday Evening Post

In recent months, an increasing number of companies and organizations have been asking prospective employees not only for their Facebook usernames, but also for their passwords. What started as a seemingly isolated incident in North Carolina last year turned out to be a lot more common than we thought. Last Friday, Facebook addressed the situation for the first time, and the company has this to say: You have the right not to give employers your passwords if and when they ask.

In an update on the website, company Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan talked about how alarming the practice is, and how it compromises the privacy of everyone on your friend list, along with your own. According to Egan: “It is important that everyone on Facebook understands they have a right to keep their password to themselves.” In fact, if you take a look at Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, it’s a violation to share your password with anyone else. 

Meanwhile, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is currently writing a bill to prohibit any employer from ever practicing the unspeakable policy. The Senator told the website Politico that he is deeply troubled by this tactic, and that his bill would be ready very soon.

Facebook: You Have the Right Not to Give Employers Your Passwords The Saturday Evening Post

Photo by Thomas Euler.

As Facebook continues to take the world by storm, many scammers are also spending countless hours lurking around the network — and they’re not looking for their friends from college. Instead, there are nefarious types who are more than happy to use Mark Zuckerberg’s creation to their own ends: making money, stealing personal information, gaining access to bank accounts, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

Fortunately, there are some simple ways to keep the bad guys from getting hold of your information, time, and hard-earned cash. All you need is a little common sense and a little less haste when it comes to clicking links.

1. Ignore anybody asking you for money.

Unless it’s your little sister and she’d like you to spring a $50 so she can buy gas, most people asking you for money on Facebook are up to something.

The most common form of digital panhandling is advance fee fraud, also known as the 419 scam. It’s a variation on the scam from everybody’s favorite African royalty, the Nigerian prince. This time around, rather than spending money to receive your share of someone’s father’s inheritance, you’re asked to transfer cash to help a friend in danger.

If a chat window ever pops up from a friend claiming, “Help! I’ve been mugged in London!” (or Sydney, or Madrid, or Kansas), you should close it again — and contact your friend via another means to let them know their account has been hacked.

Similarly, keep an eye out for charity scammers, particularly around times of natural disasters or national holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving. To ensure your money gets where you want it to go, do not donate money to any organization that you do not completely trust. You’re much better off going directly to the charity’s website and using one of the listed payment options.

2. If it sounds too good to be true… guess what?

Has a friend of yours “won a new iPad 2 OMG”? Could you win one too, if you just go to a certain website and hand over a bunch of personal details? Chances are, probably not. Look at the person’s post carefully, and you’ll see a few telltale signs that all is not what it seems.

Are there spelling errors from a person with typically impeccable grammar? Are they the sort of person who would enter a competition for, win, or crow about a new piece of technology? How does the “via” indicate the post was sent? Particularly if it’s been sent from an app you don’t recognize, you should delete the post and let your friend know their account has been compromised.

3. Look before you log (in).

Photo by Johan Larsson.

Phishers are very good at making their fake websites look very similar to the real thing, in the hope that they can steal your username, password, and other personal details.

If you receive an email that looks like a Facebook notification, check the link that it takes you to. If it’s anything other than http://www.facebook.com, do not enter your login details. Simply close the window and take no further action.

4. Resist temptation.

If a private message pops up or a friend posts on your wall that you “won’t believe” what’s being written about you on a blog, take a deep breath and do not click the link. Delete the post and (you guessed it!) let them know that they’ve been hacked. These links, just like the ones about the video you just have to see or the photos of the girl at the party, are all ways of preying on human nature — you can’t help but want to know what’s behind the curtain.

We’ll spoil it for you: There’s probably nothing there. Perhaps a pile of advertising, perhaps a lengthy survey (and a pile of advertising), perhaps a form for you to enter all sorts of personal details (with a pile of advertising on the side). There’s definitely no scandalous blog, no terrifying photographs, and no information on who’s been looking at your profile. Sorry.

5. Use your common sense.

If a friend’s Facebook post seems not quite right, don’t follow the link. Instead, send them a quick message (or contact them using another method) to let them know their account may have been compromised.

The weakest link

Of course, sometimes you’ll slip up. Curiosity may get the better of you, and before you know it, you’ve installed an app that’s posting bizarre messages all over your friends’ Timelines.

Don’t worry, you can still recover from this. Head to Account > Privacy Settings > “Edit your settings” (under Apps and Websites) > Edit Settings (under “Apps you use”), and then click the X next to any apps you want to delete. Take a few moments to go through this list while you’re there, and remove any apps you do not still use or those that you didn’t mean to add in the first place.

Then delete any posts that the app has made in your name; they should be listed on your Timeline, too. If you want, you can make a post on your Timeline about what’s happened, but there’s no need to send everybody a private message.

Finally, change your Facebook account password — and next time, be more careful.

5 Tips to Avoid Facebook Fraud The Saturday Evening Post

So what is “the cloud,” exactly? And can you trust online storage providers with gigabytes (GB) of your personal contacts, health and financial records, and maybe even your collection of unfinished Elizabethan love sonnets?

To answer that question a little background is required. First, the cloud isn’t literally up in the sky. Instead, it consists of a massive farm of “servers,” or computers. The name derives from the fact that data and software are all delivered as a service over the Internet rather than as a product that sits in your hard drive. Cloud technology isn’t new. Businesses and governments have warehoused information on Internet-connected servers for years. The big shift taking place now is that consumers—you and me—are getting our heads in the clouds as well.

This change is possible because of the exponential increase in Internet speed. Thanks to high-speed broadband to the home via cable, DSL, and fiber optic services—as well as speedy 3G and 4G cellular for mobile phones and tablets—you no longer need files to be near you to access them.

The beauty of this technological advance is that you can get stuff down from the cloud from anywhere. Want to hear a song that’s not in your phone’s meager storage? Punch in your password and there it is. Same with your tax information, email, and those Elizabethan-style poems. Another benefit—your files are easy to recover, even if your phone, tablet, or laptop is lost or stolen. And some cloud services automatically transfer, or sync, files between your various digital devices including phones and PCs.

Take iCloud, for instance. Not only does it back up your files to Apple’s massive farm of servers, the service also directs digital media to other Apple devices you own, provided they’re running either OS X Lion (on a Mac) or iOS 5 (iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch) software. For example, let’s say you own an iPhone and an iPad. When you buy an ebook from Apple, iCloud automatically sends a copy of the book to each device.

As you would imagine, there’s a price tag for such benefits. Apple users start with five GB of free storage. That could fill up quickly. Extra capacity costs $20 for 10 GB, $40 for 20 GB, or $100 for 50 GB per year. Other cloud providers offer free storage, too. Online retailer Amazon provides 5 GB, and Microsoft’s SkyDrive offers a more generous 25 GB. Dropbox, a popular cloud service that automatically syncs files between digital devices—including Mac and Windows PCs as well as many smartphones and tablets—offers 2 GB. Box, a Dropbox competitor, gives you 5 GB. Of course, you can always buy more storage if you need it. And Carbonite, an online backup service, warehouses an unlimited amount of your data for a flat fee of $59 per year.

But can cloud providers prevent data-stealing hackers and other ne’er-do-wells from accessing your files?

All of these services use strong, industry-standard encryption to encode your data, a security measure that makes your files incomprehensible to any snoops trying to access them. Of course, your account is password-protected, too.

Cloud company workers can’t access your data. As you might expect (and hope), cloud vendors take privacy very seriously. If they suffer a major security breach, their customers will flee. The bottom line: Yes, cloud storage is safe, provided you warehouse your sensitive information with a reputable firm.

The future is indeed cloudy—and that’s good news.

Life in the Cloud The Saturday Evening Post

Hand in Hand for RA

Nearly 75 percent of people with RA are looking for ways to be more active and give back to their communities, according to a 2009 online survey of 501 men and women with the condition. In addition, about 30 percent of the respondents report volunteer work helps them better manage their RA symptoms.

Debbie McGrady, diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis about 10 years ago, knows from personal experience that helping others is good medicine for one’s own health challenges, too.

Having a serious illness prompted the Indiana resident to reassess her life goals and priorities. As a result of her personal “revolution,” the mother of two let go of self-imposed physical limitations and began to connect with others in new ways. Today she works part time, drives seniors to their doctor’s appointments, and remains committed to staying fit.

Click here http://www.handinhandforra.com/ to read more about McGrady and other inspiring volunteers who are living well with RA. The Web site, sponsored by advocacy group CreakyJoints http://www.creakyjoints.org/ and drug companies Genentech and Biogen Idec, also provides a list of suggested volunteer activities that are easy on the joints in addition to tips for managing the disease. 

New Way RA

Now in its second season, Deborah Norville’s online talk show, New Way RA, http://www.newwayra.com/ features panelists Amye Leong, RA advocate and spokesperson for the United Nations Bone and Joint Decade, and Sara Nash, author of the RA blog The Single Gal’s Guide to Rheumatoid Arthritis <http://singlegalsguidetora.typepad.com/>.  

Monthly episodes will offer information and advice about diagnosing RA, connecting with a rheumatologist, and easy-to-wear looks for everyday style. Registration is free, but required to view current and past episodes.

For more Post coverage on living with RA, including foods to reduce inflammation, click here.

Rheumatoid Arthritis The Saturday Evening Post

As a 20-something myself, I thought it would be interesting to profile the ways in which Facebook is changing how my generation communicates with friends and family.

I am part of the first generation that will never long for a high school reunion; Facebook has made it more difficult for me to lose track of old acquaintances. Whenever I go on Facebook, I see a stream of all the things my friends are currently doing. Even if I don’t speak to them for three months at a time, there’s still a “connection.”

In the past, this type of passive communication on a mass scale was impossible. If I wanted to stay connected to a group of 15 friends from long ago, I might have sent letters, but it would have been far from efficient. I would have written the same things to each of them. The personal content of these letters would have been small compared to the informational pieces that would be the same in the other 14 letters. Facebook makes your information a kind of boilerplate. It becomes a given, so conversations with old friends can be a lot more productive when I do see those people. In a way, I never really lose my connection.

That feeling of social ties is the magic of a service like Facebook. My family, like a lot of other modern families, is spread out across the Unites States, from Florida to California. I also have family members overseas. I’m lucky if I see my entire family once a year. Yet, with the assistance of Facebook, I can apply the the same efficiency of staying connected with high school friends as with my family. My sister, for example, recently had her first child. I have met my niece only a handful of times since then, but she is constantly in my thoughts thanks to a stream of pictures and updates about how she’s doing. It’s a lot like the old family Christmas cards except it’s happening every single day of the year.

The Internet has come a long way in the last couple of decades, and we’re seeing some noticeable generational trends. For instance, one of my friend’s aunts “friended me” on Facebook, and I noticed that she had three times the number of Facebook friends as her nephew, despite the fact that she has only recently started to spend more time on the Internet. She spends more time on Facebook than he does. Yet he is part of the younger generation that grew up using the Internet.

The beauty of Facebook is in the packaging of the service. Almost every facet of Facebook is technology that existed from years before: e-mail, instant messaging, photo galleries, personal Web pages, RSS, etc. Facebook has taken these function, which young people have been able to do for the past decade, and made them more user-friendly, more accessible—for young and older generations alike.

Facebook is the second act in the people’s Internet Revolution; the first being America Online, which spurred the adoption of the Internet in the homes of ordinary Americans. In a similar fashion, Facebook is spurring the adoption of Internet use in demographics that have been dismissed as the non-Internet users. It gives people a reason to be online in a way that simply checking e-mail, the 1996 equivalent, did not. Facebook is active in a way that the general population may find more rewarding.

Instead of waiting for items to roll in addressed to you personally, as in the case of e-mail, you can take the initiative to find out about your friends without having to speak to them directly.

The ability to communicate (or not communicate) with your friends in different ways also heightens the ‘stickiness’ of the service. For example, it tells you who else is using Facebook right now. You can then exchange instant messages with any of them. There’s always one more thing to check, see, or do on Facebook. It’s like a never-ending dinner party and all your friends and family are invited.

Whether or not Facebook is a festive Christmas card or more of a raucous dinner party is up to the user (or non-user). Suffice to say, even if the Facebook service goes offline tomorrow, services like Facebook have changed the way we communicate in our society.

The Facebook Generation The Saturday Evening Post

One reason we rely so heavily on computers for information is the search-engine company: Google, Inc., which turns 11 years old on September 15th.

To get a perspective on the changes wrought by computers, consider how J. R. Pierce described the operation of a computer in his 1961 Post article, “How Smart Are Computers?”

“The first requirement in using a computer is to put appropriate binary numbers into the core memory. This is usually done in a sequence of steps. The numbers are first written on a sheet of paper, punched into cards, and transcribed to magnetic tape, from which the computer reads them into its memory. At the end of a computation the results, having been stored in the computer’s memory, are printed out on magnetic tape.”

Other than the use of computer memory, every part of this process has changed. But Pierce was describing computers that had barely evolved from their origins as a calculator. He knew that computers were capable of far greater tasks, but scientists would first have to study humans.

“The study of human anatomy, physiology and psychology is fascinating and rewarding, but I can scarcely believe it will tell us directly and in detail how to make computers perform complicated tasks any more than a study of horses would tell us how to make an automobile. Indeed, it may be more plausible to assume that we will learn about human beings by programming the computers to do more complicated tasks.”

Seven years later, John Kobler’s article, “The Flip-Flop Machines,” observed that computers still existed on the margins of American life. “Comparatively few people have ever seen a computer,” he notes. “There are only about 40,000 in the country today (up from 100 since the 50s).” The computers of his time were still massive machines that bore a family resemblance to ENIAC—the first generation of general-use computers, which “weighed 30 tons, occupied 1,800 square feet of floor space and consumed huge amounts of power.”

But the computers of 1968 had advanced far from their calculator ancestors. They were now being used in military planning and surveillance, political campaigning, and education. More applications beckoned, but the fears of computerization were starting to rise among professionals. Kobler cites two views:

1. “Dr. Norbert Wiener, the late M.I.T. mathematical genius: ‘Automation [based on computers] will produce an unemployment situation in comparison to which the Depression of the 1930s will seem like a pleasant joke.’”

2. “Dr. Yale Brozen, economics professor at the University of Chicago: ‘Automation should be welcomed as the means for alleviating poverty and undoing the damage done by bad wage laws and improper union-employer agreements. It should not be feared as a job destroyer. It is a job creator.’”

Bringing Order to Digital Chaos

Certainly computers have proven their abilities to create wealth, though the past is liberally strewn with failed enterprises. Google is a shining exception. Until Google, Internet searches worked on the same principle as the phone book (that antiquated block of paper that reliably serves as a booster seat for children.) Search engines simply matched your query term to Web pages containing the same term in their titles. Editors had to hunt down Web pages for specific categories. All was well for a while. The Internet wasn’t that popular yet, and so it seemed reasonable to categorize and document every site on the Internet. How many Star Trek fan sites could there possibly be?

The answer was greater than anyone could have imagined. During the Internet gold rush of 1996, the population of the Internet increased by leaps and bounds, proliferated with Star Trek sites, bookstores, stock traders, and appliance dealers. The Internet exploded from a small set of pages in specialized areas to the fountain of knowledge we enjoy today. There was a problem, though. Nobody had the foggiest idea of how to actually make the ocean of data useable for an average human being. The search engines that existed at the time did an acceptable job, but the data was getting too great—and too complex—to be reviewed, categorized, and documented by a human programmer. Until Google …

Its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, solved the problem of navigating through the swelling ocean of digital information. Their idea was to display the list of Web sites—which could be immensely long—based on how many other Web sites linked to them.

They assumed that a Web site was more informative based on the number of Web sites that referred to it. It seems like an obvious idea for ranking information, but it was revolutionary at the time.

Making Money from Providing Directions

Today, Google is the king. It enjoys more than 50 percent market share of the Internet search industry, which nets them about $4 billion dollars annually in profits. Yahoo, their closest competitor, has only half of Google’s market share and makes only about $400 million annually.

The money doesn’t come from searches. Google really only has one business: advertising. Before Google, advertisements appeared on Web sites with little apparent pattern. Advertisers didn’t know how to reach the markets they wanted, so they put up ads wherever they could.

In contrast, Google knows what you want. You’ve told them by putting it in their search box. Google used your query to summon related advertising. Businesses gain an immediate connection to people who were most likely to be looking for their goods and services.

For example, search Google for “auto insurance,” and you’ll see links to GEICO, SafeAuto, Travelers, and Progressive alongside the Google-ranked results.

Not only does Google match businesses to users’ queries, but it performs this task without requiring human editors. It has also automated the process by which businesses bid against each other for premium positions on the Web page.

Consumers also benefit from this arrangement. Advertisement and business links are far less annoying when they’re relevant to what you want. And many pages offer no advertising at all.

Moreover, the income from advertisers allows Google to provide many free services, like Gmail and Google News. Free services get more people in the door and boost the population that advertisers reach. Google understands this, and it is why almost all of Google’s services are completely free to consumers.

Is Big Google Watching You?

Yet for all the goodwill Google has created through free services and its corporate philanthropy, it has still drawn detractors. Privacy advocates are worried about how much information Google can get from you. After all, Google has access to the information flowing through the services they sponsor. Gmail can give them your e-mail address. Google Voice can give them your voicemail, phone numbers, and phone records. Google Payments can give them access to data about your bank accounts and credit cards. And all of this can be tied to your main Google account. Now Google is trying to enter the business of managing digitized medical records. Many are concerned that Google could become an information monopoly, but to date, Google has shown sufficient respect for personal privacy.

What happens if the United States government steps in? Is that a good thing or a bad thing for consumers? How does that affect the Internet as a whole? The answers to these questions will determine the fate of Google over the next 11 years.

John Rozewicki contributed to this article.

Googling the Revolution The Saturday Evening Post

I use the computer, Internet, and cell phone; however, I’m not an expert.

I found the Kindle to be a wafer-thin, wireless, electronic device with a screen measuring about 3 ½ by 4 ¾ inches, smaller than the average book by about one-third.

After reading the brief, printed instruction booklet, I began fiddling with the controls. In 30 minutes, I was searching “Shop in Kindle Store” for a book I had started reading in its printed version: I thought comparing the two would be a good test. That didn’t work, however, because Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago was not among the 275,000 books available on the Kindle.

"The Kindle’s features go beyond what any book can do," says Dr. Earl Conn, "providing an Internet connection at your finger tips." Photo by Dale Pickett.

Then I noticed Philip Gulley’s The Christmas Scrapbook displayed on the Kindle informational screen. Getting the hang of moving the five-way controller button, I hit “buy” at $7.96, a savings of $4.99 from the bookstore price.

After downloading The Christmas Scrapbook, however, it wouldn’t open. I telephoned Amazon’s support line. A person there worked with me. In less than 30 seconds, Chapter One popped up on the screen.

Reading on the Kindle

Turning a page is as simple as pressing the “next page” button. I found reading on the device practically the same as reading a printed book. I checked among the six different available print sizes, but was quite pleased with the factory’s preset size of 10-point type. The Kindle offers six type sizes, the largest being 20-point, which has 12 lines to a page rather than the 20 lines on the preset size.

The Kindle 2 is built for portability. It is lightweight, weighing in at just over 10 ounces, and sports a slim profile measuring just over 1/3 inch. Photo courtesy Amazon.com.

After reading six chapters—65 percent of the book according to the statistic on the screen—I turned off the Kindle to determine if it would return the next day where I stopped—something I could do with a book. The next morning, turning on the machine immediately brought up the page from the night before. That was a plus.

I next tried a newspaper, The New York Times. I accessed it easily and went to sports where I found the top 19 stories, but no baseball box scores. That’s a minus.

Next I tried periodicals, in this case, The New Yorker magazine. I bought the current issue to compare against the one I had received in the mail. At first, I thought the Kindle version might not display all of The New Yorker’s material, including fiction and cartoons, but I was wrong. They followed last on the screen after the articles.

The colorless Kindle is designed to read “like real paper.” Text is sharp and images are viewable in 16 shades of gray. Photo courtesy Amazon.com.

Then I tried my hand at “Add a Note or Highlight.” It took three attempts, mostly because of my awkwardness scrolling copy. Finally it worked. Another feature allowed me to put material in “My Clippings” file, which I could, if desired, transfer to my computer.

I also tried “Start Text to Speech,” which reads the text aloud—in either a man’s or woman’s voice, regular (default), slow, or fast. It’s one of numerous Kindle features that my print books won’t do. And the Kindle plays music, too, either through two speakers or a provided headset.

In my case, as with my computer and cell phone, all I usually require are basic functions. But when needed, the Kindle’s versatility is a huge plus.

I charged the Kindle after receiving it in the mail. At the end of the week and after extensive use, the battery indicator showed about one-third of the charge remaining.

My Kindle conclusions: If I were on an airplane, it actually would be easier to read on a Kindle—no double page in a book to contend with, rather a single screen. The Kindle’s features go beyond what any book can do, providing an Internet connection at your finger tips, while you’re reading.

Dr. Earl Conn is retired dean of the College of Communication, Information, and Media at Ball State University.

Amazon Kindle 2 Review The Saturday Evening Post

Navigating the web for the first time is like visiting a new city, like Paris, for the first time. Everything is new and different, wonderful and amazing, and you’ll soon be asking yourself why you didn’t get here sooner.

I remember the first time my grandmother emailed me, back when I was in college. My father — computer engineer that he is — set her up with a laptop and email. A traditional woman who grew up in the “roaring ’20s,” she was skeptical and hesitant at first. Before long she was instant messaging my siblings, cousins, and me, trying to stay in touch with all of us scattered across the United States.

Whether this is your first time or the 1,000th on the Internet, here are some tips that will hopefully make it easier for you to navigate the web and use your computer more efficiently.

1. If unfamiliar with computers and the Internet, you can go to the library or borrow a friend’s computer. Today’s computers are so user-friendly that you’ll quickly discover how easy computers are to use and navigate. If you decide to purchase a computer, experts offer some simple advice before you buy. First, decide what you want to do on it. This can be challenging initially if you are new at it. Most computers are so advanced that you can do the basics on any model that starts at $500, says Matt Dworkin, a 32-year-old “Double Agent” for Best Buy’s Geek Squad who has installed and set up hundreds of customers in the Washington, D.C., metro area for more than four years. If unsure what you want, go to any of the various “big box” stores and test out several to figure out what you like best. Don’t hesitate to ask for help.

2. Once you have a computer, Dworkin recommends setting up bookmarks. You can hire someone for an hourly rate during your initial computer set-up, ask for help from a friend or relative, or do it yourself. Bookmarks (sometimes called favorites) are tabs, just like the name indicates, that “mark” places on the Internet that you frequently enjoy using. Depending on what type of computer you purchase (P.C., or personal computer, used more frequently by the business world, or an Apple brand Mac or Macintosh, used by “creative types” like graphic designers who enjoy editing lots of photos or creating home movies), you will have different web browsers that allow you to navigate the Internet. Most people use web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or Netscape. How to save a bookmark depends on your web browser, but once you know how, it will be easy to do again and again.

3. Secure your network. It’s very important to have several security features while on the Internet, including a firewall, says Jean Westcott, who coauthored with her husband, Sean, the book Digitally Daunted: The Consumer’s Guide to Taking Control of the Technology in Your Life. Buy, install, and use an antivirus program like McAfee and Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus. Just make sure that you don’t use both because the programs will cancel each other out, and you won’t be protected. Make sure you have the automatic updates turned on so your computer will automatically install the latest upgrades. Also install a Spyware program, such as Spybot, that will help prevent advertisers from tracking your movements on the web. Make sure you save all installation CDs and booklets, says Westcott, because you may need them in the future if you ever have trouble with your computer and need to re-install programs. If you need help, I strongly suggest using an A+ certified computer technician.

4. Set up an email account. An email is an electronic message sent from one computer to another that allows you to communicate extremely quickly with people around the world at any time. There are several email services. My favorite is gmail.com, which is Google’s version of email. Just be leery of anyone asking for money. Banks, the IRS, and other legitimate institutions won’t contact you over email or request your personal information or password. If you aren’t sure, don’t open the email. Again, a healthy dose of skepticism is important because, unfortunately, there are many “phishing” emails from people who are looking to get rich quick from the ignorance of others. Even if an email comes in from a friend, if the email doesn’t sound or look right, don’t believe it. Sometimes a virus can automatically send out emails from people you know.

5. Having trouble reading the Internet computer screen? Find the magnifying glass on your computer. On a PC, go to the start button, click on the control panel, and look for accessibility options. You can also enlarge text size. For more information on how to set it up on your PC or Mac, visit the website: www.aging.state.pa.us and click on “Enlarge Text.”

6. Struggle with typing? Both Macs and PCs with Microsoft Windows Vista programs have a text-to-speech program. This tool can work as a secretary and type what you say, read to you information from websites or simple word documents. You usually can change the automated voice to fit your comfort level. A speech recognition program will allow you to say things such as “open Internet Explorer,” or write down what you are speaking. This program helped a retired Navy man that Dworkin was assisting. “He stormed the beaches of Normandy and wanted to write a memoir but couldn’t because of his arthritis,” Dworkin says. “So he’d sit there and dictate to the computer. He had a friend edit it afterwards to make sure the word ‘meet’ wasn’t written as ‘meat’ or ‘mate.’ The program’s not flawless, but it can really help to minimize the amount of typing.”

7. Consider using Skype. Make calls from your computer to another computer for free, anywhere in the world. Even Oprah uses this now to interview some of her guests. You buy a special headset that typically costs $20 to $50 at any electronics store. You dial the phone number by pressing buttons on your computer and the other person picks up, so it’s just like a normal phone call. You can also call, unlimitedly, a landline or cell phone anywhere in the United States for $3 a month if you sign up for the service.

8. What is instant messaging (IM)? Imagine writing notes back and forth to someone — that’s what IM is like. It’s like writing one or two sentences or phrases on a Post-It type note that is instantly sent to someone else. There are a variety of free programs that do this, including: Google, AOL, MSN, and Yahoo

9. What’s a blog? Blog is short for web log. Most are free. People use them for various reasons — from keeping a public diary to writing about niche topics, such as politics, celebrities, sports, traveling, or dieting. Many people prefer WordPress.com or typepad.com.

10. Social networking. This buzzword became big in the past five to seven years. There are dozens of sites that fit various needs. Think of it as water cooler talk for the Internet. Linked-In.com is a business website where you can post your resume, credentials, and give or receive recommendations. It’s a great networking tool. Facebook.com can also be used for business networking or personal use. Many people use both, keeping one personal and one professional. MySpace.com is also used by many and was originally started as a way to promote bands on the Internet.

A Buyer’s Guide – Consider buying a laptop.

If you have problems, you can take a portable computer to someone else to have it fixed or call for home service. Plus, you can also go to places such as the library, many restaurants, and coffee shops that offer free Internet hookup. Most computers now come with Wi-Fi access that allows for a wireless connection to the Internet — I recommend it. Also, consider a built-in webcam that will allow you to see and talk to your children or grandchildren in real time. When buying a computer, ask yourself: do you enjoy music; want to edit photos; build a social network; create photo albums or home movies?

Noteworthy websites

Bookmark the following sites to make your Web use easier.

• saturdayeveningpost.com – Find fun features, health stories, favorite Rockwell art, blogs, humor, recipes, news that you can use, and much more.
• familysearch.org – Doing genealogy research? Start here.
• flickr.com – View some of the most interesting photographs from around the world.
• youtube.com – Watch Gene Kelly perform “Singing in the Rain” or Bono and Pavarotti perform Ave Maria on this video website.
• cnn.com – Just one of many great news sites. Google your favorite magazine or newspaper (New York Times is nytimes.com or try washingtonpost.com) and get even more information.
• bloomberg.com – Get financial news here.
• weather.com – Want the essentials? This site has been around for 12 years and frequently updates.
• mapquest.com – Type in an address and print out a map. Get driving directions, too.
• sidestep.com – This travel website, along with orbitz.com, travelocity.com and kayak.com will help you comparison-shop for flights and hotels.
• yelp.com – Find information on a restaurant, shop or business.
• overstock.com , eBay.com and amazon.com – Great places to shop.
• stubhub.com – Find tickets for concerts and sporting events.
• earth.google.com – View satellite images of anywhere in the world, even your home.
• craigslist.com – It’s the online version of the classified ad, only it’s free. Find everything from jobs to dating personals. Use it to sell or buy anything.
• freecycle.org – Trying to get rid of something or want something for free? Sign up for your neighborhood and add your request.
• espn.com – By far the most comprehensive sports website.
• charitynavigator.org – An independent charity evaluator.

10 Tips for Navigating the Web The Saturday Evening Post