Robert Prus
Brains Network 1.0

Brains Network

The Internet is like a life after death - once said by a catholic priest - it's a world, which nobody can see but everybody believes it exists and where everybody is connected.

Natural limits created by long distances or just neighbours' fences or boundaries loose their importance and restrictions when we surf on the Net. It is fascinating how easy we loose our reserve while in the Internet. We would probably never reveal our secrets, deep feelings, strange customs watching directly into eyes of our interlocutors, but once we are on-line we loose all our hesitations. We do not fear sharing our thoughts with tens, thousands or millions of Internauts.

Net which is wiring us, thought still not perfect, is perhaps a substitute of that what would enjoy before our birth or what expects us after our death. A state of souls, which are not devided by any boundaries of time and space or imperfection of human senses or simply by language barrier.

Electronically connected brains of all inhabitants of the Earth, united in a common idea is a kind of gathering which has almost a religious extension. Christians remember words of Jesus when he suggested that between two believers who met in His name He was with them. This huge society of connected people may be a group willing to make a better world but not necessarily. Experience suggests that even angels may stand up against the God. Their power of destruction can be bigger than ever.

The brains network is like a man, born as good but easily may loose its proper way, become cruel and severe. The Net can enjoy you but simultaneously can make you sad. You may play innocent games with others on-line or just gambling loosing huge amounts of money. When events such as 11 September happens the Net express its sadness and misery, afterwards millions of virtual candles are burnt on-line.

The Net has a big destruction power. Four million brains, who simultaneously desired to read details of the famous Bill and Monica affair in the Ken Starr's report, not only blocked the US Congress server in 1998. What's more, it almost ruined life of those two, in legal and mental terms. Not to mention political implications, influencing the most powerful country in the world.



Many other politicians were heroes of more salty stories from their private lives such as Jozef Pilsudski, Poland's Head of State (beginning of the XX century), but they had no chance to gain such a popularity. As the Internet was not yet invented in his time we could only read about his stories in a book of Professor Malinowski's 'Kobiety Marszalka Pilsudskiego' (Women of Marshal Pilsudski).

David and Goliath

Network of connected brains may create a super brain. You know, millions heads can do much more than one. What could be an outcome of such the arrangement? The best example of a good cooperation was development of Linux, the competitive software to operation system to MS Windows. It was created by Fin Linus Torvald. The idea occurred in 1991, when Microsoft domination of the market was rapidly growing. The new operation system was based on Unix and preliminary was quite simple. Soon, it grew up thanks to volunteers' cooperation leaded by Torvalds. It become fully operational system, widely used, especially running network servers. The cooperation was based on so called 'open source' principle, everyone willing to contribute had details of source codes of the software and could easily make analysis of it and suggest corrections, improvements or make further development.

Microsoft the most powerful software corporation having billions of cash may afford to acquire almost each of the existing companies or technology, which would adapt to its particular commercial requirements. Furthermore, the corporation can buy someone and simply liquidate if it threatens to existence of the Giant. The brains network created the system, which cannot be bought as it is free of charge and therefore, none of giants is able to destroy it! On the contrary, Goliath may become a victim of Linux.

Another potential monopolist, which may threaten our freedom of the Net, is a very practical and useful searching machine provided by Google.

It gives the best well responding results among other searching machines. Google serves over 200 million queries daily, providing information from richest source created by the human race, which is the Internet. Can a company be only one source of the reliable information? Is it really safe? Millions click where Google direct them, simultaneously data about the millions is collected by Google.



While Google has dominated the Internet searching, in the Internet hardware the major position is occupied by Cisco. Most of routers and other devices creating the worldwide network are produced by this company. Practically, all data transferred by the Net are pumped by 'pipes' made by Cisco. If once upon a time all routers will be switched off, the whole Internet would stop existing, it could happen simply as a caprice of the company from San FranCisco.

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