From meuser@mapcruzin.com Mon Jul 30 15:23:54 2001 Received: from mxu1.u.washington.edu (mxu1.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.8]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f6UMNi0129572 for ; Mon, 30 Jul 2001 15:23:45 -0700 Received: from falcon.mail.pas.earthlink.net (falcon.mail.pas.earthlink.net [207.217.120.74]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.11.2+UW01.01/8.11.2+UW01.04) with ESMTP id f6UMNiF25278 for ; Mon, 30 Jul 2001 15:23:44 -0700 Received: from ekim (dialup-209.245.128.222.Dial1.SanJose1.Level3.net [209.245.128.222]) by falcon.mail.pas.earthlink.net (EL-8_9_3_3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA28930 for ; Mon, 30 Jul 2001 15:23:42 -0700 (PDT) From: "Michael Meuser" To: waphgis@u.washington.edu Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 15:24:47 -0700 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Re: WAPHGIS: Can Internet backlash can harm public health? Message-ID: <3B657C3F.1620.8A7D49@localhost> In-reply-to: References: X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v3.12c) Yes, I agree, but I don't think that it is so "oblique." It is central to the some of us do and is a very important issue. Many of us are using the internet more and more for public outreach, seeing it as a vehicle for increasing involvement, participation, and health protective information and activities. Internet abuses may disuade increasing numbers of folks from using the internet and possibly gaining from our efforts. Also, If www.publichealthgis.com pays for top billing on each search engine to sell their latest whateverCD, folks may miss our work that we've worked hard to create. It also may make it more difficult for us to locate the data we need to do our work. Mike On 30 Jul 2001, at 14:22, Richard Hoskins wrote: > Fair enough, but at least from an oblique angle, this topic is at > least a little relevant. > > It seems that Internet abuse fostered by unscrupulous businesses, > virus authors, and pornography vendors is impacting those of us who > have responsible work to do - public health surveillance, assessment, > and meeting the responsibility of government to inform the public, > and the medical practice community of the state of our community's > health. > > People are getting angry and frightened by Internet abusers. Sometimes > they think government is just one on the list of the same. > > I for one have learned a whole lot about a world of people who want > access to my humble machine by installing a firewall, cookie crushers, > and software to protect children from Internet abusers. Why does some > company in Hong Kong keep trying to write files on my disk every night > at 11pm? > > GISers are members of a larger community, so perhaps this is what this > discussion is all about. Just how are GIS & public health people > particularly vulnerable to Internet abuse? > > Dick Hoskins > Spatial Epidemiology > Office of the Assistant Secretary > Epidemiology, Health Statistics and Public Health Laboratories > WA State Dept of Health > Olympia, WA > (360) 236-4270 > richard.hoskins@doh.wa.gov > GMT -7 > > If you would like to subscribe please > send email to listproc@u.washington.edu > with one line in the message: > > subscribe WAPHGIS Your Name > > > > > .