We live in the XXI century. Nowadays many technologies are opened to us. Nevertheless, many of them are still unknown. Therefore, each day brings something new. These new technologies became our partners in our everyday life. We use these technologies at home, at our work and even when we are having a rest. Among these technologies there can be observed wireless technologies, which have already become available for many users. However, not all of them are skilled enough to use such technologies. And, of course, each person uses these facilities in different ways. Some people use these technologies and some ones provide them. The governments of many countries use wireless technologies not only for peaceful purposes but also for military ones. Many government programs are based on these wireless technologies. Such a situation created a difference in opinion concerning benefits and abuses of such portable technologies. Therefore, we can observe some advantages and disadvantages of wireless technologies.
The first advantage of wireless technologies is the fact that such technologies can make our life more convenient and safe. There are situations when we are in great danger and when we need help of other people but we have no chance to call for help without using wireless technologies. For example, sometimes people can be trapped in difficult situations (floods, fires, storms, earthquakes) and using wireless phones they can call for help or at least they can inform a rescue team about their location (The Washington Times A 17). Here there can be observed some very positive feature of wireless technologies. And that is not a secret, that in the countries where there is no possibility to use such wireless facilities there exists a great problem concerning saving people, that are in great danger. And very often a rescue team is put in great danger when members of this team do not know where to find victims. Therefore, they need to look for them everywhere. That is why, they have to spend more time being in danger. For example, there was a situation when fire-fighters were saved only with a help of wireless phone (The Washington Times A 17). As a result, we can say that wireless technologies can safe our lives.
Another advantage of wireless technologies can be observed in the situation when these facilities can help the government to control different areas, and by means of such observations there can be avoid many problems, difficulties and even catastrophes. For example, the Network Services division of North American Access Technologies demonstrated its Mobile Emergency Datacenter (MED), which is equipped with onboard generator, uninterrupted power-supply storage, multiple high-capacity servers, satellite Internet uplinks and wireless Ethernet to support wireless laptops (Insight on the News 34). Such a centre can be used in different difficult situations. For example, it can be used in order to collect and send different medical records when there is a danger of an epidemy (Insight on the News 34). It is quiet understandable that such medical records can help to save many people and can be used for preventing of illness spreading. There are also situations when wireless technologies can be used in order to asses the level of damage. For example, after explosions in New York there was used the Pictometry system in order to estimate the amount of damages (Insight on the News 34). That is clear that such equipment is very important for people. Sometimes wireless technologies are our only hope for rescue and sometimes they can be used by us in order to take necessary decision. Therefore, very often we cannot manage difficult situations without using of wireless technologies.
A disadvantage of wireless technologies is the fact that these technologies can be used in order to cheat and rob people, and to break our freedom. A cheat can use wireless technologies in order to come to know numbers of credit cards or bank accounts and then to take money. For example, one on-line retailer, Egghead.com, lost 25 percent of its stock market value, when hackers struck its customer information systems and gained access to 3.7 million credit card numbers ( Lohmeyer, 12). Here there can be observed a situation when wireless technologies can be used for illegal purposes. Of course, there are many companies that try to protect their information from hackers and to push them. However, that is very difficult to do that, as wireless technologies give us an opportunity to be mobile, in other words, to change our location freely. Hackers can also get the access to different cameras, and in this case, our freedom is broken. Such a situation makes us unprotected, as we can be attacked by hackers.
In conclusion, it may be claimed that wireless technologies are very important for people, as they can be used in order to help, to protect and to save us. And there are many examples of such situations. However, wireless technologies can be used by different users in order to steal our money and information. At the same time, these technologies can break our right for a free life. Therefore, taking everything into consideration, it can be said that we should use wireless technologies but we should also try to protect them from evil users.
Works Cited
“A Wireless Lifeline; Hard-to-Reach Areas Need Access.” The Washington Times. 2007: A17.
“Homeland Security Goes Higher-Tech; Responding to the Need for Better Technology to Fight Terrorism, the Private Sector Is Making Innovations in Digital Imaging Disaster Recovery and Communications.” Insight on the News 2003: 34.
Lohmeyer, Daniel F., Jim Mccrory, and Sofya Pogreb. “Managing Information Security.” The McKinsey Quarterly (2002): 12+.