“If you really want to learn something, agree to teach a course in it.”

That saying has new meaning for me as I come to the close of what I believe is Canada’s first undergraduate course on the history of the Internet.

Presented as an optional offering in the University of Calgary’s faculty of communication and culture, it attracted a full house of 60 students, ranging from fresh-from-high-school brighteyes to jaded computer science seniors looking for an easy ride.

Boy, did we learn a lot together.

Tom Keenan photo, Business Edge
Students in the U of C’s history of the Internet class cook up presentations on the information superhighway.

I made this an “inquiry course” and we advertised it with the slogan: “Get Deep into the Internet.” After all, there’s hardly a student on campus who doesn’t make at least superficial use of the Net for e-mail, chatting, downloading music and pornography, and, yes, even serious research.

But this four-month course gave us the opportunity to really think about where the Internet has come from and where it’s going. We adopted a very broad definition of the word ‘history,’ since the story of the Net is still being written. In fact, I told my class that “the next chapter might well be written by one of you,” and now I’m convinced that might actually be true.

Their first assignment, (submitted by e-mail, of course,) was to “surprise me” by finding something on the Internet that I might not know about, and analysing its significance. Quite a few homed in on the bizarre and sickening tale of a computer technician from Germany who used the Internet to find a person who was willing to be eaten. Armin Meiwes apparently located several willing victims, and completed the grisly act in March 2001. Recently sentenced to eight years in prison, he did not show much remorse and said, in a closing statement, that his downfall was trying to do it again.

“If I hadn’t been so stupid as to keep looking on the Internet,” he said, “I would have taken my secret to the grave.”

Other distressing stories included a British girl who auctioned off her virginity online because “it’s something other people think is valuable and that I can live without, and I really need the money to pay for school.” The high bid was £8,400 (about $20,000 Canadian.)

We also heard about a study of who reads spam that found some prominent California businesspeople are signing up for the penis-enlargement patches and get-rich-quick schemes.

Lest you think my students are all hung up on the dark side of the Net, there were lots of upbeat stories. One wrote about ‘smart’ lamp posts that would interact with your car if you had an accident, call the police and even adjust road signs to slow or reroute traffic. Another told of a website that allows you to control the lights and eventually the appliances in a volunteer’s Texas home. It’s aptly named drivemeinsane.com.

One of my favorites was a fight-back site for people who are annoyed by the 419 scams coming out of Nigeria and elsewhere. These are those e-mails, almost always marked URGENT, that offer you a slice of big money that’s “tied up” because “you are a person of excellent character and I am trusting in your complete confidence and fidelity.”

Of course, what they really want is your bank details so they can take your money. The site – 419eater.com – has detailed instructions for baiting these scam artists. For example, you might write back saying, “Sure, I’d love to talk to you, in fact I have some money to donate, since I am Father Bateyoo Reelgud (get it?) and I represent the Church of Fish and Bread. Please send me a photo of yourself holding a fish and balancing a loaf of bread on your head.”

Then, when the photo arrives, you tell them that unfortunately the bread is not centred well enough, so please try again. (Warning: 419 spammers are real criminals, so NEVER give them any true information.

The author of this website says that he has been subjected to many threats, including a couple of voodoo spells, “one being a curse to make my penis fall off in 24 hours – thankfully that hasn’t happened . . . yet!”)

Those were just the first assignments. Students in my class are now writing 20-page research papers on some aspect of the Internet and I can hardly wait to read them. Some are also doing experiments. One group is setting up ‘honeypots’ to see how much spam they can attract. Another is looking into the psychological validity of online pop quizzes.

There’s a student investigating how the Internet is keeping “dead” languages such as Latin alive. One enterprising student has even invented diabolically clever ways to improve your odds in online casino games such as poker. He doesn’t want me to reveal much more than that right now. Let’s just say, if you hear of an Internet poker-playing young Calgarian who becomes very rich, or who suddenly disappears from the face of the earth, you heard it here first. Stay tuned.

Web watch:

www.drivemeinsane.com
www.419eater.com

(Tom Keenan is a professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on technology and its social implications. He can be reached at keenan@businessedge.ca)