The Internet

What is the internet? A complicated question, but one that I think can be easily answered. It’s a physical medium and protocols used to communicate between computers. Much like how words are what we use to communicate ideas between people. The ideas are our own, but without the mechanisms to communicate them they will live and die within us.

This may contradict the idea that the internet is this huge complex creation that some people may say have things like Google, DNS servers, and ISPs are the internet, but I would argue that these things just make the internet easier to use but are not a requirement for it. And the support for this idea of mine is that ARPANET, the first iteration of the internet, had none of these niceties, yet was still able to be called the internet.

Now if we are talking about THE Internet then yes, there is only one, the one that connects the entire world, but if we change the definition of the Internet to just connected computers then there can be infinitely many Internets.

I don’t think that the internet is a huge and complex beast that is able to live and grow, I think of it as the cold wires lying in the ground all day sending electrons back and forth and the radio waves wifi rides on.

I love the connections that the internet gives us and the ability to send and receive information on a fast and reliable system. I think that the biggest danger of the internet is sending or receiving information that shouldn’t be shared. Someone stealing personal identifiable information like credit cards or implanting viruses on your personal computer. Cyber-security is a growing field that has to tackle how to keep a house secure when the front door doesn’t have a lock.

I think that the internet is a wonderful thing though and should be rejoiced for its accomplishment of connecting the entire world t