Mark Pesce (USA) is a Cyberspace researcher and theorist, he is currently working on his third book Why in the World Wide Web?, which focuses on contextual examination of the rapidly unfolding developments in the human Noosphere, vis-a-vis Internet and interface. Lives and works in Los Angeles.

While Aristophanes measured the curvature of the Earth's surface over two thousand years ago, until the Apollo astronauts photographed the "big blue marble", we had no visible - hence apprehendible -model of the body of the planet. From the moment the first photograph taken by Apollo 8 reached Earth, the image -captivating and curiously seductive -supplanted all other models of the Earth, until, thirty years later, we think of this image as synonymous with Earth. In the generation between Project Apollo and NASA's Mission to Planet Earth, we have moved from static imaging to interactive simulation; our models respond to us, coupling us to their projections of reality through a coupling that binds interface and intelligence to representation. Suddenly we have found ourselves in possession of the ultimate tool for planetary management; we can focus our perceptions in any quadrant of Earth's surface. Through this we can come to an understanding of the deep precesses of ecology - how the different systems in the biosphere interrelate, and how our own actions directly affect them. While this may be the eco-logist's dream come true, it's equally the Orwellian nightmare of absolute surveillance.

As Foucault noted in "Discipline and Panish", greatest danger of such panoptic technologies lies in their concentration within any locus of power; such a situation confronted the nation-states at the birth of the spy satellite. This resulted in the adoption of an "Option Skies" policy, which allow the nation-states to spy on each other freely; the presumption that unrestricted observation would engender a more comprehensive security has been proven the efficacy of this policy. "WebEarth" seeks to extend this enfranchisement to the individual, and the desktop.